Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content” • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#171

Post by hollasch » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

drluke wrote: post #154

semitones wrote: post #39

The road to hell is paved with "good intentions". We desperately need to find a globally adoptable alternative to google and the services that it provides. Docs, Sheets, Drive, etc. are fantastic services in that they work really well on a massive scale. However, Google's increasing role as an arbiter of right vs wrong and a steward of information puts too much power into the hands of one corporation, whose best inte…

Maybe it time we make it easy for people to host thier own clouds… Like Nextcloud. All in one at home server with Owncloud Plug-N-Play. While we are at it, have it ready to go for hosting emails and Federated Social Media. To be honest, it would be a challange, but totally doable. Decetralize the interenet once again!

ISPs have shown increasing comfort with delisting sites they deem bad. I'm a huge proponent of commoditizing data hosting, but the culture today leans heavily toward "filtering" information.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#172

Post by clipradiowallet » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

nomoreplease wrote: post #97

shadowgovt wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny enough, I arrived at the opposite conclusion during my tenure as SWE... Google wasn't taking responsibility for the wide sweep of its arms as the gorilla in the room, and was trying to stay neutral ("We just build services; expecting us to be responsible for them is like expecting fire not to burn") in a situation where they fundamentally can't. Google is already non-neutral... they ban all sorts of content on…

> in a situation where they fundamentally can't. I’m sorry but they can stay neutral by just not reading/blocking people’s Docs

In theory they can... in reality something bad will happen, someone will have written about it in a google doc, and the narrative will read "...they had access, yet evil/neglectful Google did nothing!".

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#173

Post by avivo » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

Google can do a much better job of making clear what is out of scope. When I first saw this headline I was also surprised and outraged.

Looking more closely, this is just about distribution, probably in terms of "content hosting". It doesn't target individuals or families storing whatever they want for themselves. This made more sense in that context.

For example, if I create a fake video urging people to vote illegally, or at the wrong time, and I am sharing it through Google Drive with many many people seeing it, Google wants a policy prevent that sharing.

Otherwise either it's hands are tied or it's just doing arbitrary things. Which is far more authoritarian.

If a document is shared and accessed by thousands of people, it makes plausible sense that Google might not want to essentially be a hosting service if that content is leading to real-world harm.

...but this has not been made explicit enough for such a sensitive issue, with real speech and free expression concerns. (and there are real concerns as always about who decides what is misinformation)

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#174

Post by slg » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

mancerayder wrote: post #105

I read regular stories on HN about employee activism on certain types of popular issues around gender and race, involving petitions and publicity. Spotify, Apple, Google. Yet nothing about the march towards totalitarianism and information control - always with good intentions and to our benefit - promulgated with stories such as this. Not a peep from our young Silicon Valley activists. Do we still teach history at sc…

>Do we still teach history at school? I'm talking about history of many countries. No fear whatsoever of information control and government censorship. I'm baffled and saddened.

I agree. We don't spend enough time teaching about the history of free speech in other countries like Germany. And no, I don't only mean in 1930s and 1940s Germany. I also mean the Germany of today. They, along with much of Europe, have laws outlawing some misinformation such as Holocaust denial and their societies haven't collapsed into totalitarianism.

Some restrictions on speech are truly dangerous. Some aren't. It is important to have the historical context to help know which one we are discussing.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#175

Post by semitones » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

dukeofdoom wrote: post #168

Just a friendly reminder that if you use "google" for all of your logins...then if "Google" bans you, you will lose access to all of your logins.

This is terrifying and is one of the main reasons I am working de-googling my digital life.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#176

Post by izacus » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

andai wrote: post #61

semitones wrote: post #39

The road to hell is paved with "good intentions". We desperately need to find a globally adoptable alternative to google and the services that it provides. Docs, Sheets, Drive, etc. are fantastic services in that they work really well on a massive scale. However, Google's increasing role as an arbiter of right vs wrong and a steward of information puts too much power into the hands of one corporation, whose best inte…

Google docs etc aren't even Google's inventions, Google just bought them. I think it's important to emphasize that, to dispel the notion that you need to be a big company to make a product like that.

> Google docs etc aren't even Google's inventions, Google just bought them.

That's the same thing as saying that macOS Monterey isn't Apple's invention, they just copied Xerox.

There's years of development on what Google bought and what Docs suite is now and any engineer that had developed a product for years shouldn't say silly stuff like your sentence.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#177

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

semitones wrote: post #39

The road to hell is paved with "good intentions". We desperately need to find a globally adoptable alternative to google and the services that it provides. Docs, Sheets, Drive, etc. are fantastic services in that they work really well on a massive scale. However, Google's increasing role as an arbiter of right vs wrong and a steward of information puts too much power into the hands of one corporation, whose best inte…

[deleted]

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#178

Post by Andrew_nenakhov » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

Almost everybody here cheered when Twitter and Facebook started censoring and 'fact-checking' Trump. Few voices who said that this will end badly were drowned by the rejoicing crowd, not thinking about the consequences.

News such as this is a direct consequence of allowing big tech to become arbiters of 'truth'. And yes, it will be much worse than this.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#179

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

zpeti wrote: post #117

mancerayder wrote: post #105

I read regular stories on HN about employee activism on certain types of popular issues around gender and race, involving petitions and publicity. Spotify, Apple, Google. Yet nothing about the march towards totalitarianism and information control - always with good intentions and to our benefit - promulgated with stories such as this. Not a peep from our young Silicon Valley activists. Do we still teach history at sc…

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…

[deleted]

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#180

Post by izacus » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 6:36 PM UTC

semitones wrote: post #39

The road to hell is paved with "good intentions". We desperately need to find a globally adoptable alternative to google and the services that it provides. Docs, Sheets, Drive, etc. are fantastic services in that they work really well on a massive scale. However, Google's increasing role as an arbiter of right vs wrong and a steward of information puts too much power into the hands of one corporation, whose best inte…

I think your fundamental error is in the fact that you think that a private company (and market competition) can fix these issues. It seems that many people on HN are just waiting for the new Savior company, that will magically have incentives to fight for them instead of making money. It's like hoping for market competition create health regulation in the food industry.

Turns out, not even Apple is that messiah, and perhaps the solution isn't in demanding private companies to be your regulators and defenders of good morals and truth. What happened to having specialized agencies regulate and inspect industries?