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Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

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Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#281

Post by djsumdog »

a3n wrote: post #71

The hindsight-prescriptive comments here focus on backing up, and that's a sensible practice. But there was another kind of damage done here, to the man's identity, location and voice. His blog and his email address were his public persona. He used his blog and his address as identity, and as his channel of communication with followers, other artists, and I assume most of his general online communication. That person…

I've had my own domains for over a decade and I switched my mail off Google to my own servers as well.

One thing I worry about thought: what happens when I die? My credit cards will eventually shut down, my Linode will turn off when my card gets declined, and my domains will fail to renew.

But the same thing happens the other direction. Github could shut down Github pages one day, or they could even go out of business. Geocities is gone (although I think Archive.org backed up a lot of it) and there are tons of services that have gone belly-up over the years.

Even in our age of massive data retention, it's still interesting to see what's gone, and what may never be recovered if it wasn't indexed by the Wayback machine.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#282

Post by dragonwriter »

mhurron wrote: post #272
falcolas wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing about incest, necrophilia, sex with children; these are not child pornography. Neither are artistic renderings about such subjects. Only obscene photographs of actual children (and apparently 3d models with photographic skins) are considered to be child pornography (and those primarily because they are artifacts of child abuse). Unless he crossed that line, there's still no legal cause to pull down his materi…

> Writing about incest, necrophilia, sex with children; these are not child pornography. Neither are artistic renderings about such subjects. In the US and a few other countries, yes, images where no real person other than the artist was involved is classified as Child Pornography. It's disgusting and squarely in the realm of thought crime, but no one cares because once you think of the children you can do almost any…

The US law that did that that was struck down as unconstitutional more than 14 years ago, so the "is classified" claim is false.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/16/national/16CND-PORN.html

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#283

Post by falcolas »

true_religion wrote: post #268
falcolas wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing about incest, necrophilia, sex with children; these are not child pornography. Neither are artistic renderings about such subjects. Only obscene photographs of actual children (and apparently 3d models with photographic skins) are considered to be child pornography (and those primarily because they are artifacts of child abuse). Unless he crossed that line, there's still no legal cause to pull down his materi…

I think you have a fairly limited definition of pornography. Any kind of writing with a purely puerile sexual-intent, lacking in any redeeming scientific, cultural or educational merit, is considered pornographic. Considering the writing is pornographic... then the fact it used literally representing of people under the age of 18, would make it 'pornography involving children' or... as a short hand 'child pornography…

I'm arguing that Google likely does not have a legal requirement to do what they've done, which is opposite what the grandparent was arguing. I'm not arguing that they do or do not have the right to make their own decisions about the content, but the phrase "child pornography" has a very specific legal definition.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#284

Post by coverband »

daveloyall wrote: post #254
wtetzner wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did changing the TLS cert break things? Were you pinning it in your client?

I don't remember. Oh, it was this: http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.mail.imap.offlineimap.genera... But what that doesn't show is that they then changed it back, and forth... for a while. It was just a UX issue that only affected computer literate people. THE BEST KIND. :( I remember when some combination of Gmail features* enabled me to upload my old mbox with years of personal email into my GAFYD account... emails f…

>> "I certainly felt confident that I would be a gmail user for life. I certainly didn't consider the possibility that they'd one day just deny my access to the whole thing because I spoke ill of them in a HN comment. ;)"

Sorry I'm being a bit thick, but did this happen, or does the emoticon at the end mean it's hypothetical?

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#285

Post by falcolas »

x0x0 wrote: post #248
falcolas wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing about incest, necrophilia, sex with children; these are not child pornography. Neither are artistic renderings about such subjects. Only obscene photographs of actual children (and apparently 3d models with photographic skins) are considered to be child pornography (and those primarily because they are artifacts of child abuse). Unless he crossed that line, there's still no legal cause to pull down his materi…

It's perfectly reasonable for Google to not wish to host drawings of naked children, nor sex stories about underage children. That isn't censorship.

Just because it's not mandated by the government does not mean that it is not censorship.

> Censorship: the system or practice of censoring books, movies, letters, etc.

> Censoring: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#286

Post by maus42 »

losvedir wrote: post #176
DavidWanjiru wrote: post #139

When my brother died in 2010, I posted to that effect on Facebook. Many friends (majority of them "real life," pre-Facebook/outside of Facebook friends) gave their condolences. Others called me. A few messaged me, etc. You get the picture. That correspondence was, and remains, important to me. Does Facebook own it? Can they delete it if they want to? Can they block me from accessing it? The answer, at least as far as…

> the law, I feel, will have to change What is a reasonable law that won't, say, make services like Snapchat illegal (which many people seem to find useful)?

Good point, but not unsolvable. I can imagine the law would require user specifically giving permission to delete the data afterwards, maybe even mandating a certain form of presenting the gist of the deal, instead of lengthy and indecipherable TOS.

I don't know the legal language, but requiring a text box with a tick mark or equivalent that presents a legally mandated predefined statement designed as a short and simple (unlike most TOS and EULAs), in clear and visible text, should not be impossible.

For example, "I agree that $corp may delete my data without notice and opportunity to back it up" if the $corp isn't willing to offer a TOS that grants the user those rights. Possibly another similar one about privacy.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#287

Post by djsumdog »

true_religion wrote: post #266
parineum wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But possession of child pornography is what's illegal. They very well may have reported the owner of the blog to the authorities but, in the mean time, google was both possessing and distributing the material. It's not that it's violating their TOS, it's that Google thought they may have been violating the law. EDIT: At least if that's what the content was.

From the OP who said: > "I've read a few of Cooper's books and the short answer is yes, pedophilia is a common theme in his writing (as is incest and necrophilia)." Because of the words 'book' and 'writing', I have the impression that everything there is written text and no certainly no pictures. This puts it in a nebulous position, at least in the USA. Dunlop v. U.S., 165 U.S. 486 (1897), ended up ruling that text-o…

So in the US (and Japan and only a handful of other countries), fictional depictions of under age or incestual content isn't illegal (per the court case you referenced above), so long as you're not using real people to act it out.

This doesn't hold true for ... most of the rest of the planet. In the UK a man was put in jail for Simpsons porn, something that's legal in the US (although potentially a trademark violation; unless you can argue it's satire).

In Cooper's home country of France, fictional depictions are actually illegal (books like Lolita are banned).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_regarding_child_pornograp...

But as already stated, even if legality wasn't the issue, yes they are still a private company and can do what they want. The article mentions this and there really needs to be an effort to educate people that they need multiple backups, not just on-line, but on their own media.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#288

Post by SixSigma »

clevernickname wrote: post #265
elif wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google doesn't need a legal cause. It is their service, so they only need a cause defined in their own terms of service.

Google acts like it is a public utility when it is convenient to them, and a private service when it isn't.

Some would call that marketing.

If you have N copies, assume the next state will mean have N-1. What would you do different if you could postpone the state change? Do it.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#289

Post by leepowers »

So there's a good chance this guy is a creep. That doesn't change the fact that any content any of us have posted to a third-party site (be it Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) can be taken down at any time, without notification or appeal. Certainly these third-party companies mostly take down the pedos and creeps, but that doesn't really matter. Power is delineated by the maximum possible reach of their actions, not by how they choose to act at any given moment.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#290

Post by FeepingCreature »

Frondo wrote: post #267
andrey_utkin wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to follow Richard Stallman in his obsession with ehtics. "Sorry mate, I find FB/Google/Skype/etc. unethical, so I won't get in touch with you using this, let's better stick with email, phone call or meeting in person".

No, we just need to stop trying to solve social problems with technical solutions. Domain getting stolen by a registrar? That's a crime, treat it like theft, there ought to be some justice for that theft. Big business doing something awful/scandalous/inappropriate? Change the laws, and work to persuade people that it ought to be societally unacceptable to violate those laws. I see this a lot on tech-oriented forums,…

This doesn't have to be an either/or.
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