Adsense's hypocrisy and puritanical shaming

On April 15th, 2015, I went onto my email to find that I received an email from Adsense saying that I violated their terms of agreement by posting a nude photo on my Blogger site (in reference to "My naked picture - six months later"), which utilized their service. A few weeks prior, Antiwar.com had a problem with Adsense when they refused to take down an article which contained graphic images that were against Adsense's policies, causing them to have to find new ways of obtaining revenue. This post is not about companies' rights to dictate how people use their services. As private entities, they do have the rights to determine those things. However, it does not mean they don't have a moral obligation to make sure their rules are fair and consistent. That is what this particular post is about.

When I thought about posting my first nude photo on here, I was mainly worried about Blogger, since this is where La Commedia Politica is hosted. I also was concerned for Facebook, since I wanted to post the photo there as well with the link to my article (and if the preview showed the picture). Even though I view my photos as being artistic, I feared that Blogger would view them as pornographic, which would make me have to make my blog 18+. This hasn't happened...as of yet. I had heard that with Facebook, it allowed artistic nudity, and according to their Community Standards, they allow "photographs of paintings, sculptures, and other art that depicts nude figures." They also say they will remove photographs "focusing in on the fully exposed buttocks." Whatever that means. No zooming in? I don't think I had ever given Adsense much thought, if any at all concerning whether or not my images violated their terms of service.

When I received the warning from Adsense, I decided to check out their standards, to see what kind of nudity they allowed (because surely they allowed artistic nudity...right?). One of the links they recommended to me was an article called "Policy Tips - Keeping the network family-safe." The first things that stands out to me from this article is this sentence: "Because the label "family-safe" is a general term that differs among all countries and cultures, we often receive questions asking for clarification on what we consider adult content." Ya know, it's really great that they recognize and acknowledge this. Nevertheless, they completely throw the understanding behind that statement out of the window when they say in the last paragraph that, "When in doubt about whether an image or text might be construed as adult content, our rule of thumb is this: if you wouldn't want a child to see the content or if you would be embarrassed to view the page in front of colleagues, then it's probably not family-safe and you shouldn't place Adsense code on it." In other words, if you don't think a close-minded,  prudish American wuss can handle it, don't use Adsense.

Seriously, what you "wouldn't want a child to see" or "be embarrassed to view in front of colleagues" not only differs from country to country, but is such a white, middle-class way of trying to make a point. For all we know, someone from the  Drug Enforcement Administration may be viewing Adsense-embedded sites at work.

Not to mention, they should be awarded at least 300 douchebag points for not allowing sexual health or medical advice.  

I say that in both of my naked picture posts that people do not have my consent to use these pictures against me in a negative fashion. I don't know if I can really blame Adsense for trying to remain consistent with what they allowed to be posted. So I'm not so much pissed off at the enforcement as I am with the rules they came up with in the first place. Of what I can see, they make no mention of art in any form, unless you count pornography. Of course, this all begs the question: Why does nudity have to be artistic or medical for it to be acceptable?

Overall, I can understand why Adsense would want to cater to the needs of the advertisers. Personally, if I was an advertiser, I probably wouldn't care where my ad was placed (unless the money went towards an atrocious person/company/cause) because if people choose to associate my ad with an image of a battle wound on a site that is totally unrelated and therefore don't want to buy my product, I sure don't want those dumb fucks to be supporting my brand. I just wished Google was less lenient with what they allow advertisers to do...

To be honest, I have been very uncomfortable with Adsense on my blog. I only added it because, "Oh hey - money" (and not even that much for as long as I had it) and the convenience since, "Oh hey - I want to make some money." I would have felt more comfortable if they allowed me to choose which kinds of ads I wanted. Instead they were all like, "Ah, she's half-Filipino, so let's give the men on her blog the opportunity to date *coughexploitcough* Asian and Filipino women!"

"Katrina must have many men after her, so let's further objectify Filipino women!"

"Katrina's an attractive Asian women, so surely she wouldn't mind this."

I wasn't able to screenshot these ads (because I hadn't seen them after this incident), but Google seemed to think that because I am open in talking about sex, that I approve of people cheating on their romantic partner. So yeah, I had ads on my blog that told my audience (usually focused towards the men) to have extramarital affairs.

It would make sense for me to wrap this all up in a conclusion. However, I think you all can decide for yourselves about what injustices have been done here. There is no real end to this story until Google and other online conglomerates can pull their shit together.

UPDATE: I am now using Infolinks for ad revenue. While I am not a fan of the default format (I want to see if I can change it to something more formal), it is making me more than I make with Adsense.