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Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story

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Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story

#31

Post by jolux »

shallot_router wrote: post #13
jolux wrote: post #7

Earlier 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.

No doubt Peterson makes a lot of political videos, but he never said or did anything remotely deserving of having his channel shut down. I mean, just as an example, you can find a lot of blatant Holocaust denial and Nazi propaganda channels that are active and have been active for years.

Definitely, and I didn't say he deserved it, I was just saying he seems more political than this guy.

Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story

#32

Post by torbjorn »

vim_wannabe wrote: post #16

I 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?

using google's "takeout" feature you can back up all of your gmail/google acct data.

Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story

#33

Post by pishpash »

jwilk wrote: post #17
billsmithaustin wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than ascribing this to Google's maliciousness or overzealous use of power, is it possible that the shutdown was accidental?

After review, your account is not eligible to be reinstated due to a violation of our Terms of Service. Doesn't sound like an accident.

"After review, ..." -- signed, an algorithm.

Google is not a human facing company, you're most likely conversing with a bot even when you don't think you are.

Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story

#34

Post by metalliqaz »

theWatcher37 wrote: post #8
xiaoma wrote: post #2

No 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 type of behavior + AMP has pushed me off google completely. I'm determined to cut them out of my technical life entirely, I've even switched myself and everyone I know/support off their DNS. I can't support their shady practices anymore.

Sorry for being that guy, but what is AMP in this context?

Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story

#35

Post by sbov »

vim_wannabe wrote: post #16

I 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?

It's easier to just have your own domain and host your domain's email with a provider, such as google/fastmail/etc. This will let you change hosts if you feel the need to.

The hardest part is switching all your accounts to use your new domain.

Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story

#36

Post by chongli »

jolux wrote: post #28
chongli wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even if this was an accident of some algorithm, that no person at Google had any idea this would happen, it is still problematic. Algorithms and data sets can be biased just as much as people are. It's a wake-up call for all of us who entrust too much of our digital lives with Google. It's putting all our eggs in one basket.

Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story

#37

Post by [deleted] »

jolux wrote: post #28
chongli wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story

#38

Post by shaqbert »

The automated canned answer is what rubs me the most here. There is a professor who trusted Google's Gmail and Blogspot product, gets the Axe for some violation of Terms of Service or Quality Guidelines, and does not get a clear and straight answer what specifically he did wrong, or how he can remedy the situation.

I wish one of the Googlers reading this here could reach out internally what is going on here.

I'd wager though that the professor's Google account did something wrong, and might be even a serial offender in Google's eyes, so as to warrant a ban. Question is though if the professor himself did something wrong.

Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story

#39

Post by pishpash »

xiaoma wrote: post #2

No 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…

We're already beginning to see this effect in "customer service" fields: talking with intellectually deficient and apathetic bots to solve any problem is the worst experience ever, and Google is leading the charge.

Re: Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story

#40

Post by googler231 »

It seems that his ban may be political in nature according to his tweet.

https://twitter.com/salilstatistics/status/89891222812829696...

Salil Mehta: "Shameful: if you show probability work like Hillary having lower election odds, then this is new definition of hate speech. @JulianAssange"

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