PBLOG Site Rules/Since August 30, 2022

On August 30, 2022, PBLOG Group added a series of new rules which required all PBLOG sites to clearly list their rules easily and enforce PBLOG's rules of conduct, and prohibits sites from violating the rules or superseding them or being too restrictive, and PBLOG staff and PBLOG Group's stewardship can intervene and ban an admin or even shut down a site in extreme cases if the new rules are broken. What was problematic and perhaps caused mass panic was the strictness of the new rules as well as the abolition of the sites autonomous statuses, which had always been a key principle throughout PBLOG since its founding in 1995.

Apart from this, criticizing PBLOG Group's stewardship or their rules was also made against the rules and they have started banning and even terminating users who simply criticized them or the new rules. After Bob Blessen became the company's CEO on October 7, 2022, he ended up taking advantage over these new rules and increased strictness of them even further, now permanently banning users who criticize the company, its staff, stewardship, and even the CEO himself, causing mass outcry from PBLOG netizens who have used it for years and even decades.

The new rules however are not retroactive and do not apply to any actions made on or before August 30, 2022.

Background
The new rules were announced on June 1, 2022 by one of PBLOG Group's stewards who formed the stewardship. The stewardship was formed with the company on April 20, 2022, but nothing significant happened until June 1 when the stewardship announced stringent new rules that would take effect on August 30, 2022, and all PBLOG users, admins, and sites alike would be required to follow them or face bans. The new rules were unilaterally decided by the stewardship without approval from any of its users and even some staff members at PBLOG Group itself, causing concerns from them.

The new rules were not going to be retroactive and would not apply to any actions made before August 30. However, the stewardship was allowed to intervene in local site confrontations between admins and users between June 1 and August 29. Even during this time, individual PBLOG sites still had autonomy and we're still allowed to have links on their main page as long as they were within the terms of use.

On August 23, 2022, the stewardship warned that users and sites alike had only a week left to comply with the new rules or face bans if nothing is changed after a week. They announced on August 29 that they had until the next day to comply or risk facing bans by PBLOG staff.

Bob Blessen And PBLOG Group Expansion
On October 7, 2022, Bob Blessen was chosen as the new CEO and Blessen increased strictness of the newly imposed rules even further, as well as deploy numerous censorship mechanisms that restrict what users can say on PBLOG and ATBW Blog. The censorship filter was so restrictive that it sparked outcry from its users who were angered by it. In response, PBLOG Group banned their accounts and even banned IP addresses as well to prevent further protests. It was eventually toned down on October 18, 2022 due to continuous outcry. However, users previously banned for protesting remained banned and targeted IP addresses also remained banned.

On March 9, 2023, Blessen renamed ATBW Blog to PBLOG Lite and removed all references to ATBW in the process. Blessen further took control of all PBLOG Lite companies owned by PBLOG Group including their subsidiaries. Afterwards, he introduced stringent copyright policies for using any form of its media, completely barring anyone from using any of its properties outside PBLOG even from subsidiaries that are notably laxed on copyright.

Blessen Vs Mang Feud
On May 8, 2023, former CCTV Productions CEO and founder Kirti Mang, along with current CEO Lamar Brown both criticized Bob Blessen for stealing the former's work as well as works created by the twelve PBLOG companies they have had rights to since their creation in the 1990s. Mang also criticized Bob Blessen's handling of PBLOG Group and warned him to loosen up the rules and to respect PBLOG site autonomy rights.

In response however, Blessen threatened to terminate Kirti Mang's PBLOG account and remove him and Brown from CCTV Productions and also threatened to fire Kirti Mang from his position as CEO at Ramworks if he continued criticizing him.

Kirti Mang then urged fans of him and CCTV Productions to keep him and Brown at CCTV Productions and to prevent Blessen from firing him from Ramworks. In response to this, Blessen disabled the comments on the CCTV and Ramworks PBLOG sites to prevent anyone from protesting.