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It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

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Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#231

Post by dsfyu404ed »

cptskippy wrote: post #102
taurath wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cynical side of me thinks that a society with no control over (certain) information is one which is more vulnerable to control by bad actors. We have more of a filtering problem than an access problem at the moment - there's too much information to support all beliefs so people are more likely to become entrenched in whatever they do believe.

By and large I think people's desire for raw data has grown from a mistrust of the News stemming from the move away from reporting towards commentary and hidden agenda. Once upon a Time you could mostly trust the news but these days we have "no spin zones" which are in fact entirely spin. You can no longer sit back and consume news, to get the real facts requires a great deal of effort and attention which is exhausti…

Spin isn't bad. People can see spin and spin things the other way in their head.

Choosing what is important to include or what not to include is dangerous.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#232

Post by zaphirplane »

wallace_f wrote: post #208
zaphirplane wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your argument and the "when they came for me" quote. As an intellectual argument doesn't the government also exist to protect people, this is mostly about where the line is drawn between protecting society from some of its harmful members and protecting society from the government. Hard line to draw

What I would say is that while gov has a role to protect people's physical safety, what else do you believe is a legitimate role in protecting people from? Is it government's responsibility to care for your emotions? Do you think gov should cover our ears from mean words? Burn books that say things that you disagree with? Who decides what is disagreeable? Me? You? Trump? Eric Schmidt? In a way, speech is already a ve…

There are cults, groups and generally evil people who gain memeber ship thru words - brain washing - those groups then cause physical harm, waiting for the harm to happen doesn't sound like protecting society

While I appreciate your view I don't know where you live or who you are and I bet there is a group of people out there that hates you, and you would have a different view on freedom to publish the on google / Facebook when they target you

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#233

Post by tony101 »

cm2187 wrote: post #140
projectant wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens. It's not good that it happens but we must expect it to happen. What power to we have? Change our perspective. These online services which area now beginning to dip their toes into censorship / advertiser-hedged editorializing, are not to be seen as reliable ubiquitous platforms existing for the convenience of all. As much as they perhaps want to be seen as such, their actions belie this. They are closed…

I am a big fan of run your own services. But when I do the maths, the cost is uneconomical for the average user. And the complexity already too high even for my own taste. Like configuring a mail server is hard.

Perhaps an alternative to running your own services is using paid services where you are the company's source of income. And diversify the services you use among different providers (i.e. don't use Google-everything.)

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#234

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

AnssiH wrote: post #218
userbinator wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great and obscure content --- that you'd most want a search engine to find, tends to be at most risk. For one example, I've noticed that finding information on obscure electronics part numbers has gotten much harder, and the search results are getting "diluted" with useless "fillter" results that don't even contain all the words you're searching for. Example queries I've had poor luck with recently: TVN_DELETEITEM re…

If you want exact word matches only, you need to use quotes: "TVN_DELETEITEM" "recursive" "ITU" "T.800"

Google still treats most punctuation as spaces within phrase searches. For example, the latter search would match a sentence/clause transition like "ITU-T: 800 items". There are enough results actually mentioning T.800 that you probably won't see that, but if it's a genuinely rare phrase you can end up with multiple pages completely full of useless results. For example, there was an article posted to HN a while back in which an interviewee mentioned "race liberals" as a political alignment. When I tried searching for this phrase, Google almost exclusively matched "race, liberals" and "race. Liberals".

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#236

Post by throwawayjava »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #46
throwawayjava wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

1. No, I don't see that huge of a difference. I really don't think that youtube has nearly as much influence over what the vast majority of people see as you seem to think it does.

2. Regardless, the solution is to become less dependent on corporate-owned ad-distribution networks for finding information. And help others do the same.

Modifying corporate behavior to match your preferences will never be a sufficient replacement for an informed, inquisitive, and self-sufficient populace. So focus on solving the latter problem instead of complaining about the first.

I think some people are reading my comments as a defense of Google. But I'm not defending google. I'm pointing out that the tools you need to get out from under Google already exist and are available today, as long as you want to speak (as opposed to e.g. make money from advertising).

If you use google services, you're making a choice. A choice with lots of alternatives. Telling people otherwise does google a huge favor.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#237

Post by Bartweiss »

dingo_bat wrote: post #210
megous wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you lose your gmail that you've used for everything for the last 10 years as a collateral damage. You can't really maintain a local copy of a "control of @gmail.com" domain to be able for people to continue sending you messages.

You should be hosting your own if you're serious about email.

Agreed, I suppose, but there are two further problems.

First, gmail then tends to screw you on deliverability for using an unknown source - and since everyone else uses gmail, you're still at Google's mercy when trying to communicate.

And second... that's our solution? Anyone who isn't capable of hosting their own email doesn't get to trust their access to their records? At a certain point we need to acknowledge that the company-centric structure is going to define tech for 98% of people, and that this will affect even the 2% who can step outside those bounds.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#238

Post by throwawayjava »

megous wrote: post #207
throwawayjava wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Wait until you lose your gmail that you've used for everything for the last 10 years as a collateral damage. You can't really maintain a local copy of a "control of @gmail.com" domain to be able for people to continue sending you messages.

For me it'd be max 7 days. And probably 99.999% spam.

What I said about video sites applies equally well to email. You don't even have to host your own; just choose a provider you trust. (If you disabuse yourself of the attitude that you shouldn't have to pay for email, there are more decent options than I could possibly hope to count.)

The "dependence" on Google for hosting videos and email accounts is entirely self-imposed. Honestly, if you want to fight Google's "monopoly", the only effective way is to point out the obvious fact that there are perfectly good alternatives.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#239

Post by AnthonyMouse »

carlmr wrote: post #141
KGIII wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might wish to look into the history of journalism. I've written about this before, but there really wasn't a golden age of journalism. This doesn't mean good journalism didn't exist, just that there have always been biased sources. Head to your local library and hit the archives. From yellow journalism to papers owned by political parties, bias and dishonesty has always been a problem.

Correct, it's just more apparent in the information age, when the raw data can sometimes be found and the bias shown.

> Correct, it's just more apparent in the information age, when the raw data can sometimes be found and the bias shown.

Of course, data scientists have their political opinions as well. As do journalists deciding which data to publicize.

https://xkcd.com/882/

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#240

Post by Steeeve »

I know I may not have the most popular opinion here, but I support Google in it's apparent decision to disassociate itself from terrorist propaganda videos.

Regardless of embedded blog-post context or newsworthiness, Google isn't an official government sanctioned free-speech haven. It's an advertising company.

I'm already disturbed by the weird parts of youtube, and how easily they are to get to accidentally. It makes precious little sense to me that I allow my kids to use youtube to watch gamers and tutorials of all sorts when I know what they are a few clicks from material that will completely rob them of whatever innocence remains.

If they are finally choosing to clean things up - even in an inconsequential way - I'm all for it.

The argument exists that there is already a cesspool of disturbing material, and that this particular account is well-intentioned. I would argue back that if you want to push boundaries, be prepared to face the consequences.

It's well known that account and video review processes are black holes. If you are putting yourself in a situation where you might lose your account, you should be prepared to lose it.

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