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Statistics professor at Columbia and Georgetown banned from all Google services

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Re: Statistics professor at Columbia and Georgetown banned from all Google services

#11

Post by emmab »

ForHackernews wrote: post #3

Contrary to some of the other comments, I highly doubt there's any political agenda at play here. More likely, this user inadvertently tripped some automated algorithm somewhere, and then failed the automated appeals process. That said, it's their service and their rules. Don't host data you care about on free services run by capricious multinationals.

> Don't host data you care about on free services run by capricious multinationals.

But people recommend to me not rolling out my own email domain and/or service to manage my account recovery emails for various websites as it's much more likely to get hacked.

What do you use for that?

Re: Statistics professor at Columbia and Georgetown banned from all Google services

#12

Post by mc32 »

caseydurfee wrote: post #9

"If you show probability work like Hillary having lower election odds, then this is new definition of hate speech." I get that the guy is angry. I would be too if I got locked out of my accounts, but this is a ludicrous accusation -- the new definition of hate speech? "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity." The idea that google is waging war on this guy because of election predictions he made…

I think you're right and I hope you're right. However, their system seems exceedingly sensitive to a certain political narrative.

I've heard about both antifa and alt right bearing most of the auto trips, but many incidental opinions such as this are getting caught up in their dragnet. That's not a good thing.

Re: Statistics professor at Columbia and Georgetown banned from all Google services

#13

Post by Animats »

Google took down his blog, too: http://statisticalideas.blogspot.com/

Last archive.org copy: [1] (Useless; it just displays a "Blogger gear", because the content is dynamically loaded.)

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20170518181642/http://statistica...

Re: Statistics professor at Columbia and Georgetown banned from all Google services

#14

Post by redm »

I think the Zerohedge article should have been linked directly, it provides much more information on what happened.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-21/one-statistics-prof...

It does indeed seem he was shut down, but it's unclear as to "why" it was done. Google's standard black box in effect. That may be the most frustrating part.

Re: Statistics professor at Columbia and Georgetown banned from all Google services

#15

Post by falcolas »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #8
falcolas wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the importance of email and other online services - should multinational corporations be allowed to be capricious about who they provide service to, and how those users are cut off from their digital lifeline?

Yes, because it's their computers.

Well, it's also "their" power lines, water mains, sewer, and phone lines. We as a society don't let people be cut off from those services for their politics or their religion.

And when people are cut off from aforementioned utilities, it's done with notice, and with the ability to have service restored when payment resumes.

Re: Statistics professor at Columbia and Georgetown banned from all Google services

#16

Post by rdtsc »

> advised on polling statistics for the Trump campaign

Going out on a limb here, I'd guess it might have something to do with that? It would also be very foolish of them to ever admit it and I bet they will come back and say it was an innocent "algorithm" mistake if this blows up too much. Unless someone internally leaks the mechanism or the reason it would be hard to tell.

I think Google, Facebook, maybe Twitter and others are furiously working to fill the void left the failure of the traditional media to manufacture consent. Large traditional media conglomerates had one job and that was to make sure a particular presidential candidate won and they failed. Very quickly after Facebook and Google issued a statement how they are blaming "Fake News" and how they will be working on controlling and eliminating that.

While it all seems innocent and helpful "Oh look Google is working on eliminating hate and fake news, isn't that nice". It is also a signal to those who have billions to spend on campaigns (political, marketing, etc) saying "Want to manufacture some consent? Come to us, let us help you. CNN/NBC/NYT are too crusty and old and not effective anymore. Inconvenient statistics getting in your way, don't worry, they will be silenced".

As others have said it KGB or Stasi would have given everything to have access to the kinds of data Google and Facebook has. I think it is foolish to assume these companies will just use that data just to sell ads, share cat pictures and connect you with your old classmates. I think they will start selling "silencing" as a service (SaaS) at some point.

Re: Statistics professor at Columbia and Georgetown banned from all Google services

#17

Post by yorwba »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #8
falcolas wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the importance of email and other online services - should multinational corporations be allowed to be capricious about who they provide service to, and how those users are cut off from their digital lifeline?

Yes, because it's their computers.

That's the simple answer. However, there is a trade-off between the rights of a property owner and service provider to determine how their property is used and whom they provide service to, and the rights of the public not to be arbitrarily excluded from using that property or service.

That trade-off is not always made absolutely in favor of the property owner. For example, there are privately owned public spaces : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privately_owned_public_space

The complex question is whether Google's servers should be considered more like private property that provides a public service and has to allow access to anyone or like the private property that is your personal computer, where you can grant and revoke access as you please and nobody has a say in that.

Re: Statistics professor at Columbia and Georgetown banned from all Google services

#19

Post by existencebox »

At the risk of being tangential to the topic: Let this be a friendly reminder that if you, like me, use google services heavily, it may be in your best interest to do regular backups of your account state. (I have no affiliation etc; I just realized when reading this that it had been almost a year since my last backup)

Here's a link to support documenting "how". https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190?hl=en

Re: Statistics professor at Columbia and Georgetown banned from all Google services

#20

Post by jmcgough »

shitgoose wrote: post #2

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-21/one-statistics-prof... "Have worked with both the Obama administration and advised on polling statistics for the Trump campaign " as Joseph Stalin said - "no one is innocent". just have to dig deep enough.

Zero Hedge is like the rantings of paranoid conspiracy theorists
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