Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

>could significantly undermine participation or trust in civic or democratic processes

Participation in our democratic and civic processes include the freedom to speak about our government in a way that we desire, even if it's misleading or contradicts our government. It's part of the reason why America was founded in the first place. Google is being hypocritical here.

This move shouldn’t surprise anyone. This was always the next logical step for activist companies and institutions that have been openly practicing authoritarian censorship. Their previous moves faced no real consequence or meaningful pushback, and they face little competition because they are monopolistic, so why would they stop marching down this path?

What’s more surprising is that there are people here on HN who are excusing this by claiming that Google isn’t banning hosting the content but only distributing it. We need a new phrase for this kind of unhelpful trivialization and gaslighting - it isn’t just harmless trolling.

The biggest impact of this will be from how inconsistently this will be applied. Google will not ban activists from sharing “toolkits” used to organize riots or push left politics. They won’t stop false content like the core claims of the 1619 project from being shared via BLM materials for schools that are hosted on Google drive. Google will suppress one side and in effect amplify all others, propagandizing the world through their services.

It’s time we seek out alternatives, break up big tech companies, regulate them, and put an end to their abuse of power. For now here are some alternatives to Google:

https://restoreprivacy.com/google-alternatives/

https://www.techspot.com/news/80729-complete-list-alternativ...

https://fossbytes.com/google-alternative-best-search-engine/

>Manipulated media: Media that has been technically manipulated or doctored in a way that misleads users and may pose a serious risk of egregious harm.

What about deepfakes and other machine-generated content?

What’s sad to me is that someone who really should be a hero to everyone in Silicon Valley, the journalist who decided to publish Edward Snowden’s stuff, at insane risk to himself, has been warning about censorship forever. (Glen greenwald)

Yet now he’s apparently a right wing trump apologist to most people on the left.

That doesn’t change the truth of what a person who’s put a lot on the table is saying.

Censorship always becomes about power. Once you create the tools, the powerful will take them over. You may think that’s a good thing when your side is in power, but that will NEVER be forever.

Everyone except fascists and fucktards form San Francisco knows the election was straight up stolen.

Youtube even deleted the OFFICIAL Maricopa County hearing yesterday because it totally incriminated the shit out of everyone involved. This is on top of the insanity coming out of Georgia.

The fraudulent election needs to be dealt with otherwise I fear the US will dive into a second civil war and we can't do this right now - not when China is sharing nuclear bombing videos of Japan on twitter and not when they are looking at invading Taiwan in the next few years.

San Francisco - get your shit together - your city is the first city China will bomb.