KEY POINTS:
A blog site set up to "name and shame" state social workers has appealed to its supporters to copy its contents in case it is shut down by the Government.
Ministry of Social Development lawyers this week asked internet giant Google to shut down the site, which was created using Google's Blogger technology. By late yesterday, complainants had criticised 42 named staff of Child, Youth and Family Services (CYFS) and other professionals.
Google spokeswoman Victoria Grand said the company was "working with the Ministry of Social Development as well as the blogger to reach a speedy resolution to this issue", but had not yet decided whether to remove any content.
"We only remove content from a blog if it expressly violates the terms of service or if ordered to do so by a court order," she said.
"Our terms of service prohibit the posting of content that is 'unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libellous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable'."
Bloggers on other websites came to the defence of the site yesterday. Bruce Simpson, founder of the Aardvark website, wrote that the Government's attempt to "bully" Google would attract worldwide attention.
"A website that would have otherwise attracted just hundreds of visitors will now probably score millions of hits and the very issues the Government sought to suppress will become disseminated and publicised around the globe," he wrote.
The blog site's authors said that if the site was shut down, they would "set up another blog site, collect the material, and relaunch the site".
They said they were also copying all material as it was posted. "However, if our systems are seized by the police, we will need to have people out there who have the hard-copy material for re-launch purposes."
