I wonder if Google users should have a scheduled backup of https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout.
It appears my Google account is slated for deletion
261–270 of 278 posts
Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
What else, government provided email hosting?
Nah, if I'm skeptical of Google's ethics I'm vastly more skeptical of that. Easy decentralization or quality data guarantees, preferably.
I'd feel better about Google if they offered a hard guarantee that any takedown would be done with notice to allow file recovery, and offered an easy, useful "export all my crap" feature for all users, takedown or not. (I'm aware that the recovery window is probably illegal at the moment.) I'd also like things better if they shelled out on some actual human reviewers and offered real support when they screw up.
What I actually want in the long run is for someone to offer decentralized, private hosting, or else build a tool to make self-hosting comparably easy to getting other email. As a stopgap, encrypted hosting would stop this sort of intrusion, but again hits legal takedown issues. "Click some buttons, pay $30, get privately-hosted email with no overseer" is my ideal endgame here.
Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion
#263Google will delete accounts from people who's political opinion not "left", talk anything against google's "evil" ceo's..
I'm really tired of google's lies, politics, actions and ethos that they push by forcing.
Lies lies just like facebook and twitter. Same for me.
Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion
#264Google really manifests freedom of speech.. honestly: LACK of it.
Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> Once upon a Time you could mostly trust the news Could we trust them or did we simply not have the means to fact check them and communicate the errors? Awful current affairs programs were around before the web and they were reporting some pretty dubious "facts" back then. Tabloids have been around for 100 years, maybe more.
It was a different balance. We, in effect, were in a forced trust position. Access to raw information was time consuming and expensive. If it could even be had.
Because of that, media was regulated differently. A more diverse body of media (pre-media for profit news and consolidation) as well as the fairness doctrine and a non-profit public service expectation were all strong norms and law in play.
Technical limits forced all of us, including the media, to take it more seriously.
Yes, we could trust them more than we could now, but also yes, we could not check so easily too.
Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion
#266Earlier 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.
This is why I have my own domain. I saw my use of my @gmail address as an issue a decade ago.
Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very true. But it gets even worse when you look at lobbyists paid by corporations. In the long run, Google will have to be split up into smaller pieces. You can't control this evil - and greedy -corporation otherwise anymore.
Unless Google can strike a mutually beneficial deal with the government. I don't think either operate in the best interests of the public.
You'll get this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwoadnWKs40
Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pre-hutton BBC was good and Al Jazeera still is. It's not all Goebbels, especially when that state media has a charter that asserts its independence and commitment to objective reporting.
One major problem with state-owned centralized media, in my opinion, is that objectivity usually degrades into propaganda whenever that's seriously requested by a senior government official, e.g. in times of war. IIRC the BBC was not always forthcoming about setbacks during the early parts of WWII, for example.
Non-state owned media is hardly better in this regard.
Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's why I do it. I hold what is now considered an extreme view on free speech. I don't even have anything politically incorrect to say, really. I just strongly believe in the freedom to express ideas. A survey of young people really disturbs me. Some 40% don't believe we should have the right to free speech. I'll be damned if I know how to fix this. I see the same sentiments expressed by some people here. Credible…
> A survey of young people really disturbs me. Some 40% don't believe we should have the right to free speech. Do you have a link to this?
Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion
#270Earlier 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.
It doesn't matter what your cynical side thinks. Let them be "entrenched in whatever they do believe" if that's the case. All cases of totalitarianism have been possible by "filtering", not the free flow of information. " Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. " - MT
Thus far (and all before the internet). I consider it more likely that the next form of totalitarianism takes form in fundamentalism.