random thoughts – Day 1,143 – (Thursday) – mysteries afoot

First random truths post,
September 4, 2009.

The first random truths blog was posted September 4, 2009. It was a photo from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. A friend and I had visited there one year earlier during my visit to Santa Monica. 

Before 2009, MySpace had been my blog host of choice. Since September 2009, there have been 1,358 posts done on Blogger under random truths, with most of them since March 17, 2020. 

In all those blogs on a range of topics, not once had there been a tap on the shoulder or a gentle slap on the wrist about content, probably because I try to be careful. Imagine my surprise to see two messages today with the subject lines “Your post titled [name of post] has been put behind a warning for readers.”

The body of each message informs that the post “was flagged to us for review. This post was put behind a warning for readers because it contains sensitive content.” One is called “Cheap Entertainment” from July 27, 2010, the other is called “Email Me” from November 11, 2014. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.?!?

That’s right, in 2023 articles from 2010 and 2014 were flagged for “sensitive content.” That certainly took long enough. Is this a symptom of thin-skinned, touchier times? Let’s discuss. Maybe we can figure it out.

Wait, what?

More puzzling, the posts were evaluated against the “Adult Content” policy. That certainly sounds spicy, but even after carefully reviewing the posts and the policy referenced in the emails, I can’t figure out what the problem is. Both blog posts are about emails received that seem to be intended for other people who are definitely not me and who are confused about their email addresses.

The email advised that they “apply warning messages to posts that contain sensitive content. If you are interested in having the status reviewed, please update the content to adhere to Blogger's Community Guidelines.” Sure, no sweat.  

The best I could come up with is that both have references to a dating site that encourages affairs, because after all, “life is short.” And the name of the site is basically two generic and androgynous first names. Just in case the site name was the problem, I inserted symbols in place of some letters and resubmitted the posts for a status review.

Between yesterday’s front lawn death scene and today’s emails, this is turning out to be a real week for mysteries.