Dup of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15065742
but neither source provides much clarity, although they contain the same information.
Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story
21–30 of 211 posts
Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story
#22Previous discussion:
Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story
#23I wonder how much I would lose if my Gmail was deleted... Everything I have is behind that address. What would be my best bet to move to if I'm too much of a bad to host my own email?
Hosting your own email is a huge hassle, and getting pass spam filters is hard. Many website allow adding alternative email addresses so maybe one should use different providers.
Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story
#24No idea what all was on his blog and other google accounts, but according to the article they were used for his work at the university. Also some credible sites like the NYT linking into the disabled blog: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/business/the-stock-market... Google may have had some good reasons or it may have just been an example of ML discriminating against a name like Salil. Either way, it's very distur…
Rather than ascribing this to Google's maliciousness or overzealous use of power, is it possible that the shutdown was accidental?
I didn't ascribe anything to malice, though I do miss the "Don't be evil" Google of the early 2000s. It's more an issue of mass automation and the errors that accompany it. This is a company with 93 billion dollars in cash on hand and billions of dollars of profit per quarter that doesn't even offer email support for forced closures of long standing accounts.
Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story
#25No idea what all was on his blog and other google accounts, but according to the article they were used for his work at the university. Also some credible sites like the NYT linking into the disabled blog: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/business/the-stock-market... Google may have had some good reasons or it may have just been an example of ML discriminating against a name like Salil. Either way, it's very distur…
Rather than ascribing this to Google's maliciousness or overzealous use of power, is it possible that the shutdown was accidental?
I think that's the point, actually. (Unless there's some political issue that I'm missing.) Google can make a simple mistake and the customer has to bear the burden of it. When something like this happens, there's no indication that Google will or even can address the mistake in a timely fashion -- or maybe not ever. Google's basic philosophy of no customer service for free products means there isn't much you can do, other than wait and hope, or raise a stink and hope.
Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story
#26No idea what all was on his blog and other google accounts, but according to the article they were used for his work at the university. Also some credible sites like the NYT linking into the disabled blog: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/business/the-stock-market... Google may have had some good reasons or it may have just been an example of ML discriminating against a name like Salil. Either way, it's very distur…
Rather than ascribing this to Google's maliciousness or overzealous use of power, is it possible that the shutdown was accidental?
Since it was supposedly reviewed and denied, it wasn't accidental. There may be mistakes of fact made by Google or different reasons than those the target has complained of, but the opacity of the process makes it impossible to determine either of those.
Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story
#27I wonder how much I would lose if my Gmail was deleted... Everything I have is behind that address. What would be my best bet to move to if I'm too much of a bad to host my own email?
Do you need email?
Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jordan Peterson, the "Canadian psychology professor" you mention, agree or disagree with him, clearly has political motivations and is explicitly politically active. He's an entirely different case from this.
How is that relevant to the story of whether or not it's appropriate for Google, or indeed any large service provider (Cloudflare), to take their account offline?
Because one of them fits in a narrative of Google being politically censorious and the other doesn't. I don't know exactly what caused it but Peterson definitely tests boundaries a lot more than this guy. It's no insult, I'm sure he would say the same of himself.
Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story
#29No idea what all was on his blog and other google accounts, but according to the article they were used for his work at the university. Also some credible sites like the NYT linking into the disabled blog: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/business/the-stock-market... Google may have had some good reasons or it may have just been an example of ML discriminating against a name like Salil. Either way, it's very distur…
This kind of thing is exactly why I don't have a G+ account. When it launched people were getting their accounts banned left and right because of the real name policy, and when that happended their gmail was toast. I can't afford to lose my gmail. I never allowed it to create a G+ account for me. Same with YouTube when they combined them.
Just imagine losing control not only your email, but also every account that is tied to that email. Nightmare.
Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story
#30No idea what all was on his blog and other google accounts, but according to the article they were used for his work at the university. Also some credible sites like the NYT linking into the disabled blog: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/business/the-stock-market... Google may have had some good reasons or it may have just been an example of ML discriminating against a name like Salil. Either way, it's very distur…
Rather than ascribing this to Google's maliciousness or overzealous use of power, is it possible that the shutdown was accidental?
Although not terribly enlightening, we can still ascribe malice to an algorithm as a shorthand for its essential behavior. In the end it's a black box, can you rule out anything?