Google, Reddit Ban Nude Photos and Videos in Major Internet Policy Shift

Internet giant Google, Inc. and social-networking and news site Reddit are both set to undertake more stringent measures against nudity to prevent their services from becoming online peep shows, ABC News reported on Tuesday.

Google will forbid most nude photos and videos from publicly accessible sites on its blog-publishing service Blogger, while Reddit will get rid of photos, videos and links with explicit content in case the person in the image did not give permission for its online posting.

The policy shift in both Internet key players is a major departure from their traditional lax approach, which allowed the posting of photos and videos with sexually explicit content to be posted on Reddit and Blogger, even if those materials were only intended for private viewing.

Reddit has had a liberal approach in terms of privacy, relying on its 160 million users to control and keep order in their own forums under some guidelines, including the banning of child pornography or spam.

Google made the announcement on its adult content policy on Blogger: "Starting March 23, 2015, you won't be able to publicly share images and videos that are sexually explicit or show graphic nudity on Blogger."

"If your existing blog doesn't have any sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video on it, you won't notice any changes," Google reminded existing blogs. "If your existing blog does have sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video, your blog will be made private after March 23, 2015. No content will be deleted, but private content can only be seen by the owner or admins of the blog and the people who the owner has shared the blog with."

However, Google clarified that nudity will still be allowed "if the content offers a substantial public benefit. For example, in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts."

Reddit, meanwhile, apologized on Wednesday for its failure to protect privacy: "Last year, we missed a chance to be a leader in social media when it comes to protecting your privacy – something we've cared deeply about since Reddit's inception. At our recent all-hands company meeting, this was something that we all, as a company, decided we needed to address."

"No matter who you are, if a photograph, video, or digital image of you in a state of nudity, sexual excitement, or engaged in any act of sexual conduct, is posted or linked to on Reddit without your permission, it is prohibited on Reddit. We also recognize that violent personalized images are a form of harassment that we do not tolerate and we will remove them when notified. As usual, the revised Privacy Policy will go into effect in two weeks, on March 10, 2015," the Reddit statement said.

"We're so proud to be leading the way among our peers when it comes to your digital privacy and consider this to be one more step in the right direction. We'll share how often these takedowns occur in our yearly privacy report," it added.

The change in stance comes about half a year after nude photos of Hollywood stars such as Jennifer Lawrence were obtained and posted by hackers on social media sites including Reddit and Twitter.

Lawrence slammed online sites that allowed her nude photos to be posted, describing the unauthorized use of photos of her body as a "sex crime." However, the star of the X-Men film franchise did not specify any social networking site.