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Google is now applying its coronavirus misinformation policies to personal files

reclaimthenet.org

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Re: Google is now applying its coronavirus misinformation policies to personal files

#81

Post by jeffbee »

yegle wrote: post #52

Similar news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16668267 What I learned from that post is that as soon as you start share your file, it's no longer a private file and stricter guideline/requirement applies. This is also indicated from the TOS: > Files in your individual drive are private, until you decide to share them.

Yes, it turns out the the web is not, in fact, a giant virtual seastead unbothered by the norms and rules of society. If you distribute information via computer networks it will be subject to scrutiny to see if it is malware, copyrighted by someone else, exploitative, seditious, etc.

Re: Google is now applying its coronavirus misinformation policies to personal files

#82

Post by nitwit005 »

walesminutecopy wrote: post #51

This might be the relevant section in the Terms of Service: Public streaming Drive allows you to store, share, and stream video content, but should not be used as a replacement for a content distribution network. For large-scale public streaming, YouTube is a better fit. Drive will restrict usage when it appears that it's being used for large-scale public streaming. Repeated violations may result in additional action…

I made the same assumption that the news contact may have been unrelated, and they just had far too many people access it.

Re: Google is now applying its coronavirus misinformation policies to personal files

#83

Post by jeffbee »

mindslight wrote: post #40
threatofrain wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe individuals have enough legal or political authority to take on all responsibility themselves if they were sharing questionable material. That means some of the responsibility falls on Google, because we the public shall demand it of them. Google didn't delete anyone's files, and even then some responsibility already falls on them just for hosting your content. If Google were part of distribution, tha…

The scrutiny is on Google due to their paperclip-maximizing promotion of specific Youtube videos and other content. This topic is about simple URL hosting, which does not involve editorializing. Your argument works just as well for an ISP, meaning it's a non-starter if we wish to retain any Freedom.

Name any ISP in America that will distribute your video worldwide for free.

Re: Google is now applying its coronavirus misinformation policies to personal files

#84

Post by hyperman1 »

drummer wrote: post #21
013a wrote: post #5

This is crossing a very bad line, and is absolutely unacceptable. My company of about 50 people on G-Suite will be canceling our subscription and moving to Office 365 within the next three months. We had discussed it in the past due to their history of flagrant disregard for the security and privacy standards we require, but this has galvanized the conversation and we're prioritizing it on the near-term now. I'm sure…

The future is all about self hosting and/or peer to peer technology not controlled by a central authority.

Unfortunately, I have to believe the opposite, even if I wish it wasn't true.

People don't want to maintain a server, look after backups, deal with software updates, legal stuff, blacklists, ddos attacks, .... it never ends. People want to create some content, publish it and be done. This directly drives the future to externalizing these things to other companies.

Distance isn't an issue, economies of scale are huge. This means smaller companies cant compete with bigger ones. The internet causes big winner-take-all effects. This drives further and further centralization, until only a few oligopolies remain.

I liked the computing ecosystem of the 80s and 90s more than that of today. It was smaller, more comunal. I do have my own small server on the net, and enjoy it. But to be honest, that's a hobby.

Self hosting looks like it will end up like doing your own car maintenance, building your own radio, creating your own railway engine, smithing your own sword, ... A nice hobby for a smaller and smaller minority, but obsolete for more than 99% of the population

Re: Google is now applying its coronavirus misinformation policies to personal files

#85

Post by shockinglytrue »

Barrin92 wrote: post #61

does anyone know who the people behind the reclaimthenet.org domain are? The headline seems intentionally misleading and the entire article is biased, as seems to be the case for most of the site, almost exlcusively focussing on censorship of fringe figures out of conspiracy and far-right political circles. There is no reference to organisations, writers or editors anywhere on this site if I'm not missing anything.

There are authors.. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site:reclaimthenet.org+inu...

But none of them seem to have LinkedIn profiles, they're quite possibly pen names.

The contact page lists a UK country code Signal number, so they're probably based there.

Some of the names appear on other sites with the same nav structure.

It is definitely a signal, but not an automatic indicator of something nefarious. There could be a whole host of good reasons why they're doing that. For example, the site could be launched as an experiment by a non-profit whose core work should not be associated with a risky message (this is my current favourite idea), or might piss off their funders.

FWIW there is a ton of newswriting on the Internet occurring under pen names for one reason or other. A lot of writers in the middle east will not or cannot use their real names.

Re: Google is now applying its coronavirus misinformation policies to personal files

#86

Post by thinkmassive »

guevara wrote: post #46
drummer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future is all about self hosting and/or peer to peer technology not controlled by a central authority.

I don't know, I think p2p is more a meme. Sure, it has its use cases but for "muh decentralization of authority", I don't think the future will consist of p2p tech. Just look at BitChute and Steemit.

I would rather look at successful projects with potential, like IPFS[0] and Peertube[1], instead of failed ICO money grabs.

[0] https://blog.ipfs.io/ [1] https://joinpeertube.org/

Re: Google is now applying its coronavirus misinformation policies to personal files

#87

Post by mike503 »

Eduard wrote: post #72
jrockway wrote: post #54

I don't see any evidence that Google applied a misinformation policy here. It could be that they simply don't want to pay for the bandwidth to serve video without any ads in it. It is a big file and a lot of people want it. That can get super expensive. I don't know how big this file is, but let's say it's a 4GB DVD image. That ties up 1Gbps for 32 seconds, which means that with a 1Gbps link to your server, you can s…

On the other hand, they could support freedom of speech by not limiting access. They do block access, therefore suppressing freedom of speech. Arguing with "they're just saving resources" is ridiculous, especially when considering Google's wealth.

Also, freedom of speech is not guaranteed on a privately owned platform... not sure why anyone expects that.

Re: Google is now applying its coronavirus misinformation policies to personal files

#88

Post by WillPostForFood »

The Washington Post contacted Google, Google Drive took down a file featuring the trailer for the Plandemic documentary.

Why is the WaPo out there policing other people's content? That's as bad a Google taking it down.

Re: Google is now applying its coronavirus misinformation policies to personal files

#89

Post by theduder99 »

virmundi wrote: post #47
addicted44 wrote: post #37

It's not entirely clear to me, but did Google delete the file from the user's personal, private drive, or did they delete public access to the file? Because the former is unacceptable, but the latter is not as big a deal at all.

The trouble is where do they draw the line. Say I share a pamphlet about how Jesus reclaims humanity from the corruption of sin. If Google thinks all Christians are superstitious bumpkins, does that give them the right to remove my public share?

take pride in your downvotes :) your comment must have offended someone :)

Re: Google is now applying its coronavirus misinformation policies to personal files

#90

Post by [deleted] »

logicslave wrote: post #75
njharman wrote: post #67

Censoring is a losing battle. Because it attacks a symptom. The cure for ignorance is not trying to hide missinformation (that just empowers the spreaders, gives it credence (they wouldn't bother suppressing it if it weren't true), or drives it into dark places you can no longer detect how much of a problem it is). The cure is to educate people and teach them critical thinking (both of which are expensive and honestl…

Most people dont have the capacity for critical thought on every area of ambiguity/complexity. Its too wide a thought surface, and we have too few hours in a day. So we have things like dictionaries in our minds, filled with information via lots of sources from childhood, tv, peers, etc. Human brains arent logical, they are mostly look up systems.

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