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Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

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Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#321

Post by judge2020 »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #99

Simple solution: Google can delete whatever it wants for being "misleading content" but if they ever get it wrong, even in the slightest, 10% of Google's wealth is transferred to the aggrieved. If Google is so confident in its ability to be the sole arbitrator of truth for humanity, they should have zero issue with agreeing to this because it will be zero risk. Of course they will never agree to such a condition beca…

You'll find that not many are for Google being so dominant and thus being able to limit potential information (or misinformation) spread, but you'll find almost everyone being against actually taking some of Google's wealth for doing so as they're still a private company and can do whatever that they want with their services, even if that's deleting information or removing files with the letter 'x' in their file name.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#322

Post by TameAntelope »

umvi wrote: post #196
drluke wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Then there will be calls for cloud providers to remove "misleading" clients. (Read: AWS + Parlor, Cloudflare, etc) What we really need is a legal designation of a "public square" online that protects free speech online

A "public square" online designation would effectively be the nationalization of whatever service gets that designation.

I, for one, don't think the US government should be in charge of Twitter.

Taking private companies and forcing them to say certain things is not how I'd like this country to evolve, and as long as the 1st Amendment exists, is not how it will evolve. "Public Square" designations for private companies cannot exist alongside the 1st Amendment, period.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#323

Post by healthysurf »

s3r3nity wrote: post #51

How is this _not_ on the front page? Google is analyzing your files for content, and flagging if it doesn't align with narratives that a government body sets - and _removing all trace of that content._ If this doesn't conflict with the "hacker pathos," what the fuck is Hacker News then?

It's not even about government narratives - it's about narratives of executives and owners of tech companies.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#324

Post by Uhhrrr »

jfengel wrote: post #120
jonnycomputer wrote: post #22

What. The. Hell. I suppose limiting sharing might be justified. But limiting access and/or deleting own files is outrageous. For that matter, collections of misleading content can have legitimate purposes. Such as research. Now I'm seriously considering dropping my Drive subscription. Update: I got a lot of upvotes, but tbh I may have misunderstood the new policy, which does seem to (maybe?) only be limited to distri…

Many of the components of the abuse page talk about "distribution", but the one about hate speech is simply "Do not engage in hate speech". The way I read that, they could conceivably boot you just for having a private diary of racist rants. I don't know if they intend it that way; it's also possible that they'd interpret "speech" as meaning "speech where somebody else can hear you". But if you were looking for more…

Also, what if the content wasn't racist when you wrote it?

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#325

Post by ukie »

izacus wrote: post #180
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…

[dead]

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#326

Post by bopbeepboop »

guelo wrote: post #126
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…

We don’t think lies about the vaccine or who won the election are noble causes worth making sacrifices for.

They also censored that Fauci caused COVID by funding gain-of-function, even though that turned out to be true.

Fauci unbanned gain-of-function, funded the lab which leaked a seemingly engineered virus, and had that banned by the Senate when it emerged what he’d done.

The same can be said about media censorship around Cuomo and Whitmer killing tens of thousands.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#327

Post by katbyte »

throwaways885 wrote: post #227
duxup wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other truth is we're all outraged when these companies host some stuff that we don't like ... and get upset when they don't host the stuff we do like. Consumers aren't rational. Neither are their demands. I'm probably no more rational than anyone else, but I'm honest that I sure as hell don't want to give money to a service that is happy to host some violent folks content / garbage...

> The other truth is we're all outraged when these companies host some stuff that we don't like Please, speak for yourself. I think these companies should host absolutely everything[0]. Between 2010-2016 was the golden age for these companies actually being free and open. Edit: Within the law. To be honest, there is very little I see that should be censored beyond CP.

There is always a line and content that is illegal and the question will always be where that line is drawn.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#328

Post by robertlagrant »

breck wrote: post #245
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…

> We should be able to implement services like these, that are free of ads, on globally distributed infrastructure, with no central authority, to have truly free-flowing information. Yes! And the way we do it is simple: amend the US Constitution to abolish copyright and patents and ensure people have the right to intellectual freedom. https://reddit.com/r/ifa

We can do it today on patent-unencumbered technology.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#329

Post by beebmam »

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…

Please tell me why a private company should be forced to host content that they fundamentally disagree with.

Why should Google be forced, legally, to carry Chinese state propaganda, for example? Why should Google be forced, legally, to carry ISIS propaganda?

There are alternatives to Google. They should host that content there

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#330

Post by bobthechef »

Is this part of the general push by the White House to censor such content across all communication channels? I know Biden was going to push telecoms to monitor and I think even censor text messages that spread anything about COVID that doesn't agree with the official narrative.
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