The New York Times is reporting that several bloggers who use Google's hosted Blogger platform for their blogs were unable to update over the weekend after having their accounts frozen for possible spam activity.

While Google is claiming that the blogs were suspended automatically due to mass spam emails sent out linking to the affected blogs, all part of a network called "Just Say No Deal." The bloggers, however, claim that their blogs were suspended as the result of a campaign on the part of Obama supporters. They allege that the Obama supporters sent spam reports for each of the blogs in question in such numbers that Google suspended all the blogs while they investigated.

Google has very clear policies in place regarding spam in their Terms of Use (ToS). Some of the bloggers have now moved their blogs to Wordpress.com, and believe that Google should have been able to quickly determine that the blogs were not guilty of spamming, something that is probably an unrealistic expectation given the sheer number of reports Google must receive and process daily regarding blogs on the platform. That hasn't stopped many political blogs from picking up the story as a possible case of censorship sanctioned by Google.

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