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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

#101

Post by laxatives »

bartbutler wrote: post #90
jszymborski wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Email providers that I would trust: * Fastmail.com -- good reputation and track record at reasonable prices * mailbox.org -- long track record, privacy-oriented, German-based. Some people describe the mail UI as aging (it's OX suite), but I like it just fine. * Protonmail.com -- UX & privacy focused email with fancy in-browser encryption. Protonmail-to-protonmail emails are E2E (OpenPGPjs). No IMAP, and in-browser (r…

ProtonMail is OpenPGP under the hood, not 'custom' encryption. Tutanota is custom.

Does this mean ProtonMail is more reliable? Would you recommend using ProtonMail?

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

#102

Post by [deleted] »

mirimir wrote: post #55

I can't imagine how people depend so heavily on free accounts from Google. Which notoriously ignores help requests. And typically don't retain backups. Seriously? But bottom line, it's Google's business what they do. And with a free account, there's no recourse. Except maybe getting to HN front page, and reaching someone sympathetic at Google.

[deleted]

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

#103

Post by xiaoma »

jolux wrote: post #77
xiaoma wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite being successful for an academic, he's not exactly a famous psych prof at the level of say, Steven Pinker. Before politics collided with his work this year he didn't seem to be politically active at all, either. It might have changed a bit after Joe Rogan's podcast but to be honest, most people outside of Canada probably have no idea who Jordan Peterson is.

Most people, no, but he's immensely popular with a certain section of the right. Nonetheless I was a bit confused because you seemed to be implying that Peterson is just another apolitical academic who caught the short end of the deep learning stick, when there's a lot more evidence that his ban could have been politically motivated. I don't understand why I'm getting downvoted for that.

I think you're right. It was probably politically motivated, at least indirectly. It was more likely due to coordinated flagging efforts rather than a human at Google deciding to ban the account.

He's getting a lot of support from the right, the center (e.g. Joe Rogan) and from many on the left such as Sam Harris as well. In all cases, it seems to be for free speech issues. He seems to hold a deep opposition to political extremes, though it's hard to tell what he favors other than free speech since his videos meander into mythology and literature so much.

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

#104

Post by BinaryIdiot »

Clubber wrote: post #91
b4ux1t3 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Er, no, it seems anti-spam. The fact of the matter is, plenty of people use dime-a-dozen hosting to make spam bots. These days, you're better off using a reputable mail service as opposed to rolling your own, unless you have a fairly large company.

It is anti-spam, but it is also anticompetitive to block anyone that isn't gmail or an already known big player in that space. Apparently lots of people are having trouble setting up a mail server on their own without getting blocked by Google. Can you see that as a problem for the intent at large? I wonder what kinda marketshare gmail has. It's probably a problem they aren't in a hurry to solve either.

I mean it's not that you're automatically blocked it's just that your server's score for sending email is nonexistent which means a high likelihood of being a spam server.

You have to spend a long time to build up a reputation to get places to mark your email as not spam. This is why many providers that allow you to do bulk email through them have multiple IPs and they only let the most behaved on their better reputation IPs.

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

#105

Post by tshibley »

b4ux1t3 wrote: post #78
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…

Er, Google has millions of users who have absolutely no problems. One (or even dozens) of bad stories is a tiny percentage of the interactions that take place on their services. It's _far_ more likely to be a mistake than anything untoward, just based on the sheer numbers.

How is this any less scary? If a company can just _mistakenly_ cut off my email without warning, and I can't fight through the customer service abyss to get it back, shouldn't I be concerned?

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

#106

Post by PeterisP »

shaqbert wrote: post #38

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 wage…

In such messages, not telling how he can remedy the situation is intentional. It illustrates that their goal&decision is not that they want him to try and change some behaviour (whatever that might be) but that they want to discontinue the relationship even if the behaviour changes, or (in the case of actually malicious users that need to be banned) gets hidden or kept at a 'slightly below the boundary' level, which is not the intended result.

Also, not telling what specifically he did wrong is also intentional. They have already decided that they don't want any future relationship. At that point, telling which behavior exactly went over the line is counterproductive - since it would invite that information to be challenged, and they've preemptively decided that no, they don't want to read the response or excuses or reasons, they've made a decision already; and throughly explaining and defending a decision takes much more effort than simply making one, effort that Google doesn't want to spend on every banned person.

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

#108

Post by ancarda »

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.

Any suggestions for alternatives to 8.8.8.8? Is OpenDNS any good?

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

#109

Post by gaius »

chrshawkes wrote: post #70
theWatcher37 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I loathe AMP. Biggest piece of crap coming out of Google in a long time.

Well, it wasn't designed with your interests in mind. You are the product, remember.

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

#110

Post by bartbutler »

jszymborski wrote: post #98
bartbutler wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ProtonMail is OpenPGP under the hood, not 'custom' encryption. Tutanota is custom.

My bad, will edit accordingly. The in-browser, over-the-wire javascript crypto implementation still makes me nervous. I'd love to hear some compelling evidence to the contrary, but as I understand most of what has been stated before about in-browser crypto hasn't changed much [0]. [0] https://tonyarcieri.com/whats-wrong-with-webcrypto

It's going to be less secure than native clients, for sure. ProtonMail has native mobile clients though, and will have a desktop one (IMAP/SMTP bridge) soon, which should alleviate webmail concerns.
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