Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google is now applying its coronavirus misinformation policies to personal files

reclaimthenet.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 229 posts

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

#151

Post by renewiltord »

Natsu wrote: post #132
jrockway wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have moved the goalposts dramatically. What started as "random files in Google Drive are being scanned for conspiracy theories and deleted", which would be incredibly worrying, is now "Google should give me tens of thousands of dollars worth of free stuff", which is not all that worrying.

How is it 'free stuff' when many people pay for Google Drive?

You pay for some things not everything. It's like when you go to the gym you have access to everything but if you take all the dumbbells and assemble them in the squat rack and start curling 5 lbs, you're gonna get kicked out.

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

#152

Post by true_religion »

jrockway wrote: post #129
chroem- wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 10 is a free subscription, and users don't necessarily own a license of their operating system. Under this precedent, what is to stop Microsoft from deleting problematic files off of users' computers? After all, it's a privately owned platform.

Windows 10 routinely deletes problematic files from peoples computers; it's called "Windows Defender". Most users are happy to let Microsoft delete malware. The reason that propaganda videos aren't detected as malware because none of these companies give a damn about what you're using your computer or your private storage for. It is a ton of extra work for them to run some censorship side business to specifically ann…

If you had a previous version of Windows, the upgrading to Windows 10 was free.

Additionally, you can download Windows 10 and never activate it and all it will do is show a watermark indicating it is not activated.

You can always pay for Windows.

I think Windows 10 Pro is pay only.

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

#154

Post by veb »

thinkmassive wrote: post #86
guevara wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Even PixelFed, https://pixelfed.org (Federation)

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

#155

Post by knorker »

Wow, so you're saying a free of charge Google Drive way to share files isn't without restrictions? I'm shocked!

I really thought this misinformation video people found a loophole to not have to pay for what bandwidth actually costs. I really thought that Google had offered a free CDN for everyone, limitless, when they (and Amazon, and Microsoft, and Akamai) charge huge amounts for this as a cloud service.

Yeah, that was sarcasm.

Bandwidth costs actual money. What's next? They think they can build a Youtube competitor by storing and streaming all the videos from a collection of free Google Drive accounts? Or even a business Google Drive plan? Read the ToS, or better yet use common sense.

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

#157

Post by innocenat »

salawat wrote: post #122
jrockway wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do any cloud providers provide free unlimited outbound transfer? Because that's what a public file on Google Drive is. Cutting off someone who is abusing your free tier isn't censorship.

It has not been proven Google does that for all 4GB files. Verboten content or not. Without that test, you really can't conclusively say whether it is QoS enforcement or politically motivated.

It's common and consistent with what I have seen when Google Drive were used to shared copyrighted content.

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

#158

Post by bitL »

Oh wow, this is bad! Google went from my favorite geeky company in the 00s to something I would like to avoid now as much as I can. I guess next on their list will be refusing to host any encrypted content on their GDrive just in case it contains something the head honchos at 10E100 don't like... From a disruptor for the better, ending up as an enforcer of the conformity. I guess that's the fate of every winner.

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

#159

Post by SllX »

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.

One way businesses get wealthy is by not letting people act like parasites on what are ultimately finite resources no matter how vast they may seem.

Google makes a business case for making a certain percentage of their resources available without charge to users of their other services, but that isn’t a promise to provide unlimited storage and bandwidth. Now we don’t really know fully what happened here. Certainly you could make guesses and if you’re cynical enough, make a convincing case that what they engaged in here was censorship because of the content. If you check your worst impulses and apply Occam’s Razor though, you’ll probably think that the removal or at least access limitation was an economic decision, one that Google engages in all the time when users abuse the terms of their shared file hosting, and one which every service provider of shared file hosting you or I have ever heard of has had to make at some point if they’ve ever seen any real use.

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

#160

Post by bitL »

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…

If it's HEVC it would be pretty small. Also, I doubt many people would be interested in that content. Storage-space wise, it's all internally de-duplicated so identical blocks across multiple files of their users are likely stored only once + number of replicas-times. If it were frequently downloaded, CDN/caches would have made it cost-efficient as well.
Post reply on HN