Google shuts down blog after death threats against New Zealand MP

Google has shut down a controversial blog because of threats posted on the site Wednesday against New Zealand Green MP Sue Bradford. A Google official said the US-based giant had previously censored postings that breached its terms of service but had now closed the site permanently because of "repeat violations".

With New Zealand's so-called anti-smacking bill, which would make it an offence for parents to strike their children, postings to the site were critical of Sue Bradford who introduced the bill. One posting said Bradford was a "worthy candidate for NZ's first political assassination" and another post called on her home address to be published on the site.

She said Google investigated the site when the New Zealand Ministry of Social Development first complained about it last month, and again after the ministry lodged a new complaint about the postings threatening Bradford yesterday.

The Cyfswatch blog, hosted on Google’s blogger.com service, was critical of the country's government-run Child Youth and Family (CYF) service. CYF, part of the ministry, is responsible for removing children from homes for care and protection. Cyfswatch, whose authors remain anonymous, issued a statement saying Google's action was "a breathtaking display of socialist censorship".

Cyfswatch said yesterday that it had details of Bradford's home address and would post them unless she withdrew her "anti-smacking" bill. The bill, removing a defence for parents against assault charges if they used reasonable force to "correct" their children, passed its second reading in Parliament by 70 votes to 51 last night, according to the New Zealand Herald.

The blog had called on people angry at CYF to post messages containing personal information about individual social workers. According to the Age, with New Zealand's so-called anti-smacking bill, which would make it an offence for parents to strike their children, postings to the site were critical of Bradford who introduced the bill. One posting said Bradford was a "worthy candidate for NZ's first political assassination" and another post called on her home address to be published on the site.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Social Development said the ministry would not comment on the site's shutdown.

Google's 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".