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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

#61

Post by Clubber »

soared wrote: post #37
Clubber wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem with Google isn't that they can delete YouTube videos or your Google+ account, it's that they can virtually erase you from the web through their search domination.

I mean technically yes, but that is pretty much fear mongering. That is like fearing the government because they could delete your social security number. Neither would ever do it, despite it being possible. The ramifications would be absurd.

There was an article on here where the author said Google pushed a critical article they wrote down to the bottom of the charts.

Found it.

https://gizmodo.com/yes-google-uses-its-power-to-quash-ideas...

the most disturbing part of the experience was what came next: Somehow, very quickly, search results stopped showing the original story at all. As I recall it—and although it has been six years, this episode was seared into my memory—a cached version remained shortly after the post was unpublished, but it was soon scrubbed from Google search results.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#62

Post by thunderrabbit »

jdietrich wrote: post #48
deathanatos wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sounds awesome! Can you link to such an example on ifttt?

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#63

Post by peterburkimsher »

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,…

I have a 512GB SDXC card in my pocket.

My laptop backs up to a 4TB USB portable drive, and that SD card. If my bag is stolen with the laptop and hard drive, then I'll still have the SD card.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#65

Post by throwawaymaroon »

KGIII wrote: post #25
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.

At this point, I'm no longer comfortable giving them the benefit of doubt. They burned that bridge. If this is a problem with aggressive filtering, they have had ample opportunity to note the problem and provide a solution that applies to all. I really can't trust that they are benevolent or incompetent.

The point at which they rely on mystery algorithms is the point at which benevolence and incompetence become indistinguishable.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#67

Post by tyingq »

soared wrote: post #44

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, bu…

It is kind of odd that the whole Google account is wiped and canceled.

I post a YouTube video big G doesn't like, then they close my whole Google account. So now my Android phone, all my contacts, call history, purchased apps + music, etc, are now gone? And my nest thermostat resets to factory defaults? And all my AdWords campaigns for my small sole proprietorship. And...so on.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#68

Post by jdietrich »

glenstein wrote: post #42
sbov wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mod…

There's also a very blurry line between a common carrier and a publisher. Social media platforms don't want to be liable for content published on their site, but they also want the right to delete content at their own discretion. Somehow, the courts have granted them this wish.

The USPS has a similar monopoly to YouTube, but they're obliged to transport any printed material that is legal. There's no hidden algorithm that shreds letters containing the wrong keywords. There's no team of Indian outsourcers searching your mail for content that breaches an arbitrary set of rules. Nobody but a court can prohibit you from using their service.

I think we collectively need to decide whether social media services are publishers or common carriers. The present ambiguity over their status gives them an unreasonable degree of power with unreasonably little responsibility.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#69

Post by aerotwelve »

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,…

If you're on OS X (apparently Windows now too?) Arq is a fantastic product that automates the process of creating archives, encrypting them before they leave your machine, and dumping them to AWS/other cloud providers. The encryption keys never leave your machine, and their data format is fully documented so you can easily decrypt if they fall off the face of the Earth one day.

It's a fantastic product that does everything you mentioned. I can't recommend it enough.

(not an employee, just a fan.)

https://www.arqbackup.com

EDIT: I forgot to mention you can set upload limits to keep your monthly bill below a threshold you determine. Very cool.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#70

Post by TeMPOraL »

cft wrote: post #49

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 s…

Dumb of them, good for us. I mean, the whole business of the cloud is based on your users/customers not realizing that...
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