By Steve Sailer
01/15/2021
Slate Star Codex went dark last year when The New York Times threatened to publish the real name of its author. Now, Second City Cop has more or less pulled the plug over fear that Google would dox the author(s?). From WGN in Chicago:
Hereâs why Chicagoâs unofficial police blog âSecond City Copâ went dark
WGN INVESTIGATES
by: Ben BradleyPosted: Jan 13, 2021 / 02:15 PM CST /
CHICAGO â Most Chicago cops donât talk to reporters. They donât trust politicians. And they certainly have a lot of opinions.
Itâs why for the past 15 years the âSecond City Copâ police blog has been must-read for many Chicagoans who want to have a better understanding about crime and justice in their city.
Itâs also why the blog has bene a thorn in the side of police brass for years and there have been various attempts to identify the operator.
When the chronicle of cop life disappeared from public view on the internet a few days ago some took to social media concerned that âbig techâ had pulled the plug.
âWe have taken no action,â a spokesperson for Google, which owns the Blogspot platform used by Second City Cop told WGN. âWe see that the blog is still live though the readership access is âprivate.ââ
Whatâs the real story? Itâs been difficult to track down since the operator(s) of the blog have taken great lengths to protect their anonymity.
However, in an email to WGN the person behind the blog makes it sound like he/she was concerned they were about to be outed.
âOver the weekend, we received information from a contact at Google that internal chat/e-mails led them to believe that certain precautions we had taken over the years had been breached by Google,â they said.
Slate Star Codex and Second City Cop should team up into a superblog, Slate City Cop, that features 12,000 word speculations about the Fermi Paradox and jokes about Mayor Groot and former Mayor Tiny Dancer.