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It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

alexaobrien.com

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Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#41

Post by ameister14 »

sshumaker wrote: post #21
KGIII wrote: post #7

Well, she is easier to defend than Nazis. So, here I go... Freedom of expression, not just free speech the legal concept, should be a societal goal. Google has every right, legally, to delete this stuff. However, in an ideal world, they'd do no such thing and would let people judge based on the merits of the message. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd like to work towards that ideal world. Maybe the solution…

xoogler here. I would definitely subscribe to occam's razor here. Rather than explicit censorship, this is probably something that just got snagged in the net of Google's semi-automated content moderation process, which is probably overzealous in combating #extremism. Having no human channel to contact doesn't help either.

That would be fine if they didn't insist that the automation simply flagged it so humans could review it for the final decision.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#42

Post by glenstein »

sbov wrote: post #16
KGIII wrote: post #7

Well, she is easier to defend than Nazis. So, here I go... Freedom of expression, not just free speech the legal concept, should be a societal goal. Google has every right, legally, to delete this stuff. However, in an ideal world, they'd do no such thing and would let people judge based on the merits of the message. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd like to work towards that ideal world. Maybe the solution…

How tightly bound we are to just a few large tech companies is... unfortunate. I would love it if it were easier for the common person to host their own stuff. Between all the concerns involved (security, hardware, demand, etc.) I'm not sure how feasible it is. I've given it a lot of thought, and have slowly unwound my custom tech setups - from domains, to emails, to hardware. Mostly for the "bus" factor. When my dad…

This is a great point, because I think it shows that people who are trying to redefine the contours of the standard free speech conversation (which had historically been about freedom from government imposed limits) are attempting to solve the wrong problem.

The problem is dependence on huge monolithic tech platforms, such that we feel that the societal value of free expression is threatened by the standard forms moderation that we had accepted as normal for most of the history of the internet.

Now, the ability to moderate carries a significant amount of power in a way that didn't use to be the case. And some people, looking over the available options and the effort required to pursue them, would now prefer to resign themselves to permanent dependence on huge monolithic platforms and just focus on making sure those platforms are not engaging in moderation.

But this is hugely problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that moderation at least sometimes offers a genuine good to users because toxic, manipulative, illegal behaviors that undermine the platform are removed. There's a "societal value" in having flourishing discourse that isn't compromised by the toxicity that would naturally occur without moderation. And there is good reason to not want to make that sacrifice.

Either side offers a distasteful sacrifice. So maybe the answer is to try and bypass the dilemma by making non-centralized communication more accessible, so that people like your wife (or my mom, or my dad's entire side of the family) don't have to make that kind of choice.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#44

Post by soared »

I don't agree with Google's actions here, but this has to be somewhat expected. If your day-to-day is closely entwined with terrorism, extremism, etc. you have to know that some of your content or actions aren't going to be welcome everywhere. I mean, people in the porn industry surely take precautions because they know they're content isn't welcome everywhere, why wouldn't the author?

IMO google is going too far, but I'd bet thats an automated system and this article will get enough press to stop it.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#45

Post by quuquuquu »

soared wrote: post #36
quuquuquu wrote: post #3

Help me understand- Alexa O'Brien has a Youtube account with many hours of video. She also has a google account, drive, etc. Some of her videos contained material that Google (being Google), didn't like. Despite the fact that it was all very important journalism, Google arbitrarily decided it was #extremism, therefore #banned. I would say that 5 years ago I would have been shocked and outraged, but lately I just abso…

I don't like that google is doing this, but your argument doesn't help our cause. > Google arbitrarily decided it was #extremism, therefore #banned. The author admits the videos contain terrorist propaganda. Its not arbitrary, its literally the definition of extremism. If google doesn't want to host that content, they don't have to. They want to be vaguely family-safe. > Google is on a crusade to demonetize any video…

>Google doesn't have to host it if they don't want to.

Completely agree (free market), however were it my website, I would make an effort to distinguish between journalism/commentary and actual propoganda.

>They want to be vaguely family-safe.

I agree they are trying, but look at Pewdiepie's video regarding Elsa/Disney videos where the actors were pissing on each other.

These videos were NOT demonitized, and were marked family friendly. Why would Youtube permit and promote this content, but ban others?

>anyone can upload and monetize

In the past this was absolutely true. Now videos are being demonetized and DMCAd and censored left right and center. Not even really hyperbole.

My opinion is that Youtube is hooking up the studios and corporate interests on the site with each passing day.

Every indie creator that is making the really cutting edge content that is merely vaguely inflammatory is being pinched hard, while the corporate studios are getting a pass.

Thank you for your comments :)

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#46

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

throwawayjava wrote: post #20
KGIII wrote: post #7

Well, she is easier to defend than Nazis. So, here I go... Freedom of expression, not just free speech the legal concept, should be a societal goal. Google has every right, legally, to delete this stuff. However, in an ideal world, they'd do no such thing and would let people judge based on the merits of the message. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd like to work towards that ideal world. Maybe the solution…

> That said, if anyone can think of something that I can do to help, I'm all ears. You already live in this world. Who cares if Goolge won't host these videos on youtube? I don't understand why this matters. There are millions of other video upload sites, all of which are extremely easy to find and use. There are literally too many open source options for sharing files to count, and many of them are even usable by no…

You seriously see no material difference in having your video on the YouTube vs on randomvideowebsite.com? It's not merely a question of finding a host to upload your file.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#47

Post by ocdtrekkie »

Tortoise wrote: post #32
bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #19

What are some good alternative email accounts to use? I should really start decreasing my dependence on Google.

Fastmail.fm Not free; but you definitely get what you pay for.

Happy to second FastMail. Been there almost a year, and it's amazing how good their product is. Note that they just revised their TOS to get rid of the dreaded "can terminate your account at any time for any reason" common to most services, in exchange for a clear set of conditions. Aka, the CEO waking up one day and deciding to get rid of you isn't valid anymore, as it would be for most companies.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#48

Post by jdietrich »

deathanatos wrote: post #28
jack9 wrote: post #10

Terabyte drives are very cheap. Since it's borderline stupid, to simply upload this volume of work to some third party service without backup, I have no sympathy or technical concern. This being an illustration of Google's terrible "progressively tyrannical" track record, the article is badly titled. More like Google the Oppressor of Truth. Good Luck to Alexa.

Ideally, I'd like to back up my data too. That's where it becomes much harder: I need a second location. (In case my house catches fire, or floods in a hurricane, etc.) AWS and GCE both provide raw disk space, and certainly, an encrypted backup could be uploaded to them. I would like to be able to put a cap on what I spend on service, in case something goes wrong with the system, which AFAIK, neither GCE/AWS provide,…

Redundant cloud storage is made trivially easy by IFTTT. In just a few clicks, you can have your Google Drive uploads automatically replicated to half a dozen other cloud storage services and several brands of NAS. It can also back up your Gmail inbox, your Google Contacts and dozens of other cloud services.

https://ifttt.com

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#49

Post by cft »

New Google (after the founders retired to Alphabet) are trying to instill a simple notion: what you think is yours is actually ours, it doesn't belong to you. Post a YouTube video, expect it to be taken down. Do not embed third party YouTube videos: your website will be broken when Google takes them down. Do not develop Android apps as a small dev: they can be deleted from Play Store on a whim. Do not monetize your site with AdSense: you will lose revenue with no human recourse. Hopefully general public will get this notion sooner than later.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#50

Post by Mtinie »

ameister14 wrote: post #41
sshumaker wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

xoogler here. I would definitely subscribe to occam's razor here. Rather than explicit censorship, this is probably something that just got snagged in the net of Google's semi-automated content moderation process, which is probably overzealous in combating #extremism. Having no human channel to contact doesn't help either.

That would be fine if they didn't insist that the automation simply flagged it so humans could review it for the final decision.

That appears to be what happened in this case.
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