I have been informed by the host of this blog that, from December 16, almost everything I have ever written will be forbidden by the new content policy.
This is the relevant section.
Misleading Content
Do not distribute content that deceives, misleads, or confuses users. This includes:
Misleading content related to civic and democratic processes: content that is demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in civic or democratic processes. This includes information about public voting procedures, political candidate eligibility based on age / birthplace, election results, or census participation that contradicts official government records. It also includes incorrect claims that a political figure or government official has died, been involved in an accident, or is suffering from a sudden serious illness.
Misleading content related to harmful conspiracy theories: content that promotes or lends credibility to beliefs that individuals or groups are systematically committing acts that cause widespread harm. This content is contradicted by substantial evidence and has resulted in or incites violence. Misleading content related to harmful health practices: misleading health or medical content that promotes or encourages others to engage in practices that may lead to serious physical or emotional harm to individuals, or serious public health harm.
Manipulated media: media that has been technically manipulated or doctored in a way that misleads users and may pose a serious risk of egregious harm. Misleading content may be allowed in an educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic context, but please be mindful to provide enough information to help people understand this context. In some cases, no amount of context will allow this content to remain on our platforms.
As can readily be appreciated, if enforced this outlaws (by the mainstream socio-political standards that will surely be applied) not only most of what I have written, but almost everything of any value I have ever read online.
Well, 16 years of daily blogging is not a bad run! And I cannot say I am surprised; since this is part of a top-down long-term and ongoing global project of omni-surveillance and micro-control; and I already inhabit the most censored polity in the developed world.
But I suggest that those readers who value any particular aspects of this blog might be wise to make personal copies quite soon; because it is not likely to be around for much longer.
46 comments:
Thank you for the warning and thank you for the daily blogging. I have been following (almost) daily for 16 years, or at least since 2011 (can't recall exactly).
As we live behind the iron curtain and are not allowed to visit, e.g. the Fire Nation, it is only logical that more and more restrictions on speech will be applied to repress dissent as the situation in general worsens.
That's chilling. I wonder why I haven't been sent a similar notice, being on the same platform.
Number two is the most contradictory. If these (which?) claims incite violence, who is committing this violence? You can't say without violating the policy. Is Blogger really claiming that no "individuals or groups are systematically committing acts that cause widespread harm"? Really, nobody?!
Surprised it took them this long. I've always enjoyed reading your Notions these past few years. Thank you, truly, yet I hope this isn't the end.
It's interesting. The world is ruled by Satan, we're born into his power, but God places limits on what he and his servants can do. Thus even though they can't stand having the truth widely advertised, they also cannot deny access to the truth to anyone who is genuinely looking for it. 'The Truth is Out There' as somebody said on a TV show I never watched. It will remain out there. People will just have to look a little harder.
Clearly the terms and conditions are an authoritarian catch-all thing they can use to selectively cancel anyone they want to at any time. Will they try to use AI to root out anti-system blogs, even those that write in code or allegory? I don't know.
They're brilliant at collecting information but useless at applying it and making decisions. I learnt this early on with bureaucracy. No matter how many forms I'd filled out with my name, address, date of birth, I always had to give the information all over again if I telephoned the company or department.
@Matias - We shall wait and see what, if anything, happens. I shall not change what I do.
@Mal - The message is displayed as one of two Notices when I press Sign In, or look at Posts. However, you do live in a different nation, and it may be that this is a UK govt. special censorship, as has been the case with Substack for several months.
@MM - Thanks,
@Ron - Yes indeed. The totalitarian plan will Not be implemented as They intend; due to escalating incompetence, dishonesty, and conflicting higher priorities (such as inclusion and diversity).
Instead, there will be ever higher levels of the already accelerating intra-System conflict, dysfunctionality, and disorder. In other words; the Agents of Chaos will continue to intercept and supercede the totalitarian strategy.
Well, this is very bad news indeed. Will it pertain to your other sites, too? I suppose you'll find out.
Have you considered porting your stuff to another provider? It would be a tragedy to lose all those years of work, not just for you, but for all your readers. Of course, since you are UK based, there might not be any options for you.
Bruce,
Have you ever considered condensing your blog writings into a book, or 12?
You have some very original ideas and viewpoints that would make several good books.
"...content that promotes or lends credibility to beliefs that individuals or groups are systematically committing acts that cause widespread harm..."
I suppose this would forbid all writing re: serial killers and other criminals, terrorists, the current wars being waged (would they agree that the "Fire Nation" is not systematically causing harm...?)
@Kristor - I don't know what will happen - nothing or deletion or something in between; but blogging is an ephemeral medium (as is everything, ultimately!) - or, to put it better, the best blogging is a kind of living thinking rather than an archive.
@Sigma Jack - I did publish four books derived from my blogging (these are also available on other blogs of mine, linked in the sidebar), but it was a lot of effort for (apparently) very little return.
Plus ca change...
https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-youtube-credo.html
@durge - The underlying purpose of this change of content policy is precisely to try and prevent people thinking for themselves when it comes to issues that the mainstream-official System regards as core to the totalitarian agenda.
"They" are too stupid to recognize that the main threat to their totalitarian plans are Not the Little People, whose effect can only be on a handful of like-minded persons -- but instead 1. Their own fundamentally incoherent self-sabotage underpinned by covertly self-loathing and self-destructive motivations; and 2. The Agents of Chaos who operate near to the highest levels of global power and who have the easy-to-achieve strategy of causing ever-more System dysfunction and collapse.
This stupidity is, in other words, exactly why they cannot succeed in doing anything other than accelerate the demise of their own ideals.
Terribly sorry to hear this, this is one of the most thought-provoking blogs I've read in recent times. I've lurked for a few years without commenting, perhaps after following a link from Vox years ago. Thus far I am not getting similar notices on the US version of this site, so it may be UK-specific.
You probably already know this, but it is possible to export all of your posts to an XML file (it should be in settings if I recall) and then this would allow you to put the entire thing online again, this time on a different platform. I once exported an entire blog with years worth of posts from Blogger to Wordpress using this process. At the very least, do it to ensure that your years of labor aren't simply fed into the Memory Hole.
You said this reflects a "change of content policy" on the part of blogspot/Google. How do you know it's a change? Did they say it was?
@H - Yes.
WmJas - I'd forgotten that business!
William M - For me, the blog is about developing my ideas - I don't really regard it as an archive. It's too wide-ranging, for one thing.
Slight update: I have received the same notice as Bruce, and it seems the policy changes are platform-wide and not UK-specific after all. I wrote my own thoughts on the matter in a short article:
https://williammillersmusings.blogspot.com/2026/10/concerning-bloggers-new-content-policies.html
And since I'm feeling optimistic, it's possible that as of now, there is no risk; indeed, possible that we will "fly under the radar" so to speak, but such things can't be counted on since we've been given notice.
I pity the young generations. You know, there was a time back then -- maybe in the early 2000s and 2010s, up to 2016 or so, when the Internet was really a great thing. You could find a lot of interesting content, from books to articles to films. Blogs were much better than today. It was not all this politicizing and hysteria and censorship and posturing. Then social media came, and now AI, and everything is incredibly worse, even search. Most of the content is created by AI, and also commented by AI. Machine texts for machine readers.
Another thing I noticed is that now even when you try to type a reply to a comment (not here, but in other platforms), an "AI suggestion" appears, with a ready-made comment that you can just click to post instead of your own thoughts.
If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would star to think that the objective is to simply make people stop writing and thinking, and delegate it all to machines. After all, writing is basically thinking.
So censorship is not even the worse thing. In the near future, there will be nothing to read, just AI-made stuff.
@Zeno - Jeremy Naydler
https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2018/10/review-of-jeremy-naydlers-in-shadow-of.html
Argues that all this is to train (and indeed compel, in order to live) humans to think as machines/ computers. True, IMO.
And ultimately a Satantic strategy to induce people into choosing self-damnation.
@William M - thanks for the info.
This kind of stuff just down right pisses me off! With all the bilge on the internet, this is what these faceless worms worry about
It’s been a long day at work, I’m very tired, and it’s time for bed, so I’ll be brief and not exactly elegant. But I just want to express my deepest gratitude for the work you’ve done all these years. Thank you - I’m a long time reader and lurker on your blog.
Your ideas are really original and unique – I’ve never found anyone else with ideas quite like yours, and they have been spiritually a tremendous blessing. Before finding your work, I was really floundering, struggling with the issues with trad/orthodox Christianity that you’ve pointed out many a time, yet prior to me encountering you, I could see no alternatives, no real way out. I was trying to reconcile certain intuitive feelings that some things were really wrong with the trad / omni-God / Sola Scriptura Protestants and the Church-bound Catholics, but I could see no other way. Your ideas not only helped me come to understand the need to truly work things out from my own deepest intuitions as the absolute starting point, but also the vital importance of heart-thinking– not only to discover what I truly intuitively realize as true, but also as a path to transcend (for lack of better word) the often miserable and unromantic world we find ourselves in today. Your connecting these things to an what seems to me as an offshoot of Tolkien’s Subcreation theology struck me like a bolt of lightening and has really proven a light in a world with seemingly so few of them.
For what it’s worth, these might be my all-time favorite posts of yours, that I’ve returned to time and time again.
https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2021/12/is-this-narrow-conveyor-belt-to-hell.html
https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2015/01/peak-experiences-christian-difference.html
https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-kids-fantasy-castle-and-reality-of.html
Anyway, I’m off to get some sleep, but I hope that in some form, on some other platform, you keep posting and developing your thoughts and writings – know that there are folks out there to whom your work means a lot – hopefully that helps to make the long journey all these years on the blog worth it!
-- Michael Smithton
I'm sorry to hear this, Dr Charlton. This blog has been more important than you can imagine to me over the years. Like many, I am struck almost every day by how what you have to say is an insightful discussion of things I have been incoherently wondering about and things I need to get right in my head. I eventually just began to attribute it to Providence. You have been very helpful to me and I thank you. I believe I am a better person because of you, and that I am much more firmly on the path to salvation because of you. I don't know what to say, really other than: Thank you very much.
Bruce,
It is really refreshing to see how unattached you are to your work here. You don't seem the slightest bit bothered by losing 16 years of daily posts. I will say, I used to read a great many blogs and you're the only one left standing on my roster. Bravo, Bruce!
Something tells me your work here will live on whether you back it up or not. Incidentally, if you ever want to self host the blog I'm sure there are a few qualified pros lurking around here that could set you on the path to website autonomy. At the very least I can probably point you in the right direction. But there I am wanting you to go on forever with this blog which I know is an impossibility. It has been such a guiding light for me and will be missed greatly when that day does come.
Thanks for all the very generous comments. I do appreciate them.
@Michael S - I was very interested to see which were some of your favourite posts, and revisit them.
@Paul E - That's quite a tribute - thanks!
@Rich W - If I do get cut short here and resume blogging elsewhere, then I hope that it would be listed on synlogos.org.
Hi Dr. Charlton,
I have made an offline copy of your blog as of October 21, 2026, with the comments and internal links to other posts preserved.
With your permission, I would be happy to make this archive available to other readers who may not have the time or resources to create their own offline copies. I could share my email address on the blog and provide a link to the archive to anyone interested Please let me know if you think this would be of value
I would also like to thank you for all of your writing and thinking. A close friend first introduced me to your blog, and I am deeply grateful to him for doing so. And, of course, I am grateful to you for the many years of thought and reflection you have shared with your readers
@Ross - Thanks very much!
Yes, you have my permission to share your e-mail and the link.
You can download the archive here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JEKF4_ii_08IOyGx9OUoX2-URfPBcolb/view?usp=drivesdk
To use it, download the ZIP file and extract its contents to a folder on your computer. Open index.html in your web browser to browse the site offline.
The archive also includes a search.html page, which allows you to search the archived posts.
If you have any questions or encounter difficulties downloading or using the archive, you can send me a message: ross.s.walter@gmail.com
@Ross - Thanks again.
What you did there, seems to work for me - and seems pretty user friendly!
Good job.
Dr. Charlton, this is totally despicable and a blot on freedom of speech...Thank you for everything you have done and written in the last 16 years...
And just like that, all of the great stuff you have written for us over the years has become permanently accessible to my descendants -- backed up off-line so that no hacker or "AI agent" can corrupt or delete it.
RBII - But I don't suppose anything digital will have a tenth of the lifespan of pen or print on paper. Progress...
Thank you very much
It will if I print it out, especially on good paper!
Lots of people in the modern world treat everything as disposable and ultra-temporary, but my friends and I are not like that. We work towards long term preservation.
I was worried about this. I didn’t want make you mad or do anything illegal but a while back but I downloaded a lot. Including 5 or your books (you said that was okay to). To able to have a functional table of contents while I read these I converted to docx. Also For the formatting. Never shared, only a few spelling errors corrected. Most notable for me were the ones about Science and about the Book of John.
Now I wonder maybe someone might want the .docx versions? Or the Google Drive folder share. In a more portable and flexible form. They are pretty much completely switched, except for the asterisks here and there.
And for the website I saved a whole bunch of posts over the years, doing a 'save to PDF'. All the posts are good but some are so very good.
What about downloading the whole site structure intact? Again to have clickable links. I could tell how. It is easy. But what about permission from the author?
I am not 100% Christian. I know my way about theology and know truth and or sailing in the direction fo Truth when I see it
I am very grateful to you, sir. though my instincts are not to praise.. Once I praised a Christian poster named Junior Ganymede saying he had achieved something Aristotle had not (about the natgure of virtue). a mistake by me, I think. Not that my Aristotle scholarship is any good)
To others I have tried a few time to explain some of the ideas here. Once in real life, several times online . The idea I thought most communicable is the one about the need for good ideas and good intentions. But even when commenting that – I am sure it made absolutely no dent at all. No impact. No curiosity. No respect for anything not modern (or is it post-modern?) The willful state of being so many are in is, like you say, shocking.
When I commented " am not 100% Christian. I know my way about theology and know truth and or sailing in the direction fo Truth when I see it " I forgot the "but"! i meant to type "But I know..."
This kind of action feels very "2018". I'm somewhat surprised this is happening now.
As for the blog, Bruce's work is not ephemeral at all. He is, in my opinion yet still without doubt, the most important thinker and writer on Christianity and many other topics writing today. Also, Bruce's style of writing and thinking is cumulative: Only those who have gone through the archives or been reading for a while are really able to absorb the concepts, vocabulary, assumptions, etc that build over time. In my experience here, the "worst" comments are by new readers or people just dropping by, and I will generously say that this is usually because they precisely fail to have done that work before commenting.
From Confucius to Burton to Lichtenberg to Nietzsche, there are thinkers whose writings or records did not consist of completely formed systematic essays or treatises. It doesn't diminish their work. Granted, the people I cited are mainly aphorists, which is different from Bruce. But you all get my point.
In sum: This work must be preserved!!
@Tobias - Perhaps because none of my work is monetized; I have often said that I have no objection (indeed; I give blanket permission) to people reproducing my work (with attribution).
By my understanding a person is 100% Christian when he wants, as first priority, to follow Jesus to eternal resurrected life in Heaven.
I suppose either one does want this and is (100%) a Christian (at a particular point in time), or wants something else and isn't!
@Daniel F - It all depends on the intention behind the change in conditions, and that is something that can only be guessed at but not known for sure - then, upon whether that intention can (or will) be followed through.
I just flagged up the issue to explain matters if there is a sudden cessation of blogging.
Thanks for your analysis! I think you are correct that - given my metaphysical objectives - the effect can only be cumulative. The alternative would be to write a big book of straight metaphysics; but I don't do that because I believe that literally nobody would seriously read it - and that they would not necessarily be much influenced by it even if it was read.
Instead, I try to make the "argument" by multiple brief statements; that derive from, and are supposed to add together to, a different world picture.
Perhaps the only genuine "preservation" of work is in active minds and current thoughts of Beings (which, in principle anyway, would include some deceased Beings and non-humans).
I remain unsure about the value of written records absent such empathic interest. e.g. it's 25+ years since I wrote Psychiatry and the Human Condition. It was reviewed in all the major journals, and there are probably thousands of copies knocking about and it has collected 90 citations in Google Scholar - but I don't know of a single person who engaged with and understood (or understood and accepted) the new metaphysical basis of causation, diagnosis, and drug treatment in psychiatry being propounded in that book.
This blog has already made far more genuine impact on actually known people, than any of the mass of my published science. So I am very pleased, whatever happens from here!
Whether such impact can genuinely be generated in, or spread to, people who were not part of the blogging process, people who were not there to see the ideas unfold - is very uncertain IMO.
I'd like to think it might happen, that the ideas would be "discovered" in some form of online archive and make a difference to some individuals; but I am not optimistic.
I was dismayed to read this. I hope you will explore a move to a new platform, preferably with the archive. I don't always understand this blog but I have always sensed that you have important and original things to say.
And what about the Notion Club Papers? Will they continue? So much online writing about the Inklings is idolatry or fandom, and it is rare to find a site which can see tham in perspective and yet identify new meanings, particularly in Tolkien. The Papers need a permanent home.
I was wondering how you managed to stay on this format for so long Bruce. You know Theodore Beale (Vox Day) had this same issue, and somehow he is still able to blog. I am not sure how he did it, but it may be worth a look. I have thoroughly enjoyed your blogging.
Thanks for all you've shared over the years Bruce! Your blog has been one of the most stimulating blogs I've run across. In general, mankind loves darkness more than light and isn't interested in pursuing the light. The light reveals their true thoughts and intentions in their hearts. It's easier to look away than subject oneself to the true nature of reality. Anyone proclaiming the true nature of reality must be silenced, that's how it always seems to end.
@RightRon - Thanks.
But in an ultimate sense, I feel that any valid and beneficial work that anyone does in this mortal life is eternal in resurrected life; so any relative "silencing" is ephemeral for those who choose Heaven.
Also, if (for any reason) God wants any particular information to be amlified in human systems of communication, this is not particularly difficult to arrange via ongoing creation.
We should not let ourselves be discouraged by this kind of threat, and should carry on doing - not the same thing - but do what we believe we ought to do; and by whatever means make themselves available.
“I did publish four books derived from my blogging (these are also available on other blogs of mine, linked in the sidebar), but it was a lot of effort for (apparently) very little return.”
They were certainly appreciated by your loyal readers! I was trying to remember when I first started reading you. Certainly no later than 2012 or so. Not sure how I got here - possibly via discussions on the late Lawrence Auster’s blog.
I should perhaps remind readers that there is already a Christian-selective audio archive of this blog (and several others) for the past three years - plus some of my more interesting older posts; in New World Island, which is a text-to-speech-generated version of the written pieces.
Thank you to the commenter Ross above - I've downloaded the files to my desktop just in case.
The big question is - why not move to another platform? You could either self-host (let me know if you're interested in this, I could help you). Or use a very minimalistic blogging platform like Bear (https://bearblog.dev/).
As you know, your work is of tremendous value, and whilst of course it would some day come to an end in it's current format, I would've hoped that day would come based on endogenous motivations (?), not on a randomly-timed ban by the GG.
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