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

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#431

Post by TameAntelope » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:17 PM UTC

xerxesaa wrote: post #420

TameAntelope wrote: post #355

The problem we actually need to solve is how to divorce the concept of free speech from private companies. For some reason, it's almost ubiquitously believed that the "Internet" is actually just Twitter, Google, Facebook. How can we, the tech literate, start to explain to our friends/family and eventually the world, that the Internet is actually an interconnected network of computers that no one person or entity cont…

Even if you are tech literate, how do you easily find an alternative to Facebook and Twitter? The entire benefit of these platforms derives from the fact that they've accumulated so many users. People use these platforms because everyone else they know is on it. I personally haven't used either for several years but I've had to "sacrifice" my online social presence and miss out on updates from my circle as a result.…

As you've mentioned, the notion that you need an alternative to live a healthy, happy life is untrue.

How do we explain this to the world?

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#432

Post by einpoklum » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:17 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #204

izacus wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

If by "we" you mean US politicians and mass media, then sure. But I'm not sure that's true for the general populace in the US, nor for other countries.

On another note - I don't like that they host things, at all. That is, I don't like that the entity which runs a search engine is also the one which hosts a large part of the videos available for free on the Internet. Or that a company making popular computing hardware like Apple is also the host and gatekeeper for mobile apps, podcasts etc.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#433

Post by jhoechtl » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:17 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #337

izacus wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

we could get a lot closer if markets were well-regulated for fairness and competitiveness. instead, we get all sorts of distortions, some well-meaning but most not. one sign of a good market dynamic is a lot of medium-sized companies, rather than very large or very small, because that means the companies have taken advantage of economies of scale but no one firm has outsized advantage, so all must still compete. to t…

I wonder how long it takes until your imho very true observations will be heard.

Splitting up of these internet behemoths is so much overdue!

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#434

Post by systemvoltage » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:18 PM UTC

rscoots wrote: post #414

crazygringo wrote: post #388

I see a lot of comments misinterpreting this. First, it's not about private files, it's about distributing content. Google isn't spying on your private files, but does scan them when you share them publicly. E.g. keep all the pirated movies you want on your Drive, and even give private access to friends, but the moment you make them publicly viewable Google scans them and limits access accordingly. So no, this isn't…

Who at Google do you trust to decide what information you and I are allowed to know? What is this person's qualifications? How can they be held to account when they inevitably get it wrong? Where will the highly-transparent write-ups detailing moderation decisions be published? Seems like if Google actually gave a damn about the morality of censorship as some sort of 'neccessary evil' you'd be able to answer these qu…

To add: Who at Google listens to dissent!? No one is allowed to say anything - there is sort of a chilling effect internally at Google.

It’s debateless policies that are spreading on the world stage. People need to rise up against a small group of individuals located in Menlo Park, CA who are demonstrably and utterly out of the touch with the rest of the world, but deciding how and what information flows. These people have no idea how agriculture works or how people live in Indonesia or what conflicts are going on in Namibia.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#435

Post by moneywoes » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:18 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…

When were they contributing to the global good?

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#436

Post by mshanowitz » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:18 PM UTC

jonnycomputer wrote: post #273

commandlinefan wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do think Google has a legitimate interest in regulating use of it's services as means of distributing information If so... do you think that your ISP also has a legitimate interest in regulating use of it's services as means of distributing information?

I think ISPs should be public utilities, so, no.

Perhaps the basic functions of the internet that Google provides like mail and basic document storage should be treated as public utilities as well

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#437

Post by slg » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

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.

>Within the law. To be honest, there is very little I see that should be censored beyond CP.

Within the law of which country?

Should copyrighted content be blocked in the US? What about in the Netherlands?

Should Holocaust denying content be blocked in Germany? What about in the US?

Should anti-CCP content be allowed in China? What about outside China?

If you want to do the bare minimum according to the law, you are going to need a different implementation for every country. And even then people in countries with more lax laws are going to think you are acting unethically by censoring content in more restrictive countries and vice versa.

EDIT: I have no idea why a comment that amounts to "different countries have different laws" is being downvoted.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#438

Post by colordrops » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:22 PM UTC

People aren't seeing the forest for the trees. The establishment had a near perfect lock on the narrative before the internet became popular. There was a very tight Overton window on TV, radio, and publications that didn't necessarily match what people were thinking about or wanted to hear about. This was intentional.

When the internet broke into the mainstream, it was a strong feature, not a bug, that content was hard to censor, and sites like Google got a lot of their earlier traction due to their results not being gamed or massaged for profit.

You could hear the establishment gears grinding though. They were gonna take back control of the narrative even if it took decades. Well it did, and they have, to a degree. It's only going to keep getting worse as long as they can continue to wrest further control.

Do you think that only leaders of other countries like China want to control what people see, hear, and think? Do you recognize the immense power that comes from narrative control, militarily and financially?

edit: for those downvoting, would you care to point out flaws in my statements?

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#439

Post by api » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:23 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 know there are a ton of people who, like you, want alternatives. Unfortunately nobody is willing to pay for it.

Advertisers (and governments and criminals) pay handsomely for surveillance-driven "free" platforms, but who will pay for the development, maintenance, productization, polish, and support of open decentralized alternatives? Users have been conditioned to believe that software should be free, and the more ideological people in the FOSS movement will tell you it's "not open source" if you don't give it away with no strings attached. I know people who will actually uninstall things if they do not have an OSI-compliant license.

Look at how much work it takes to develop and maintain these centralized systems. Now consider that decentralized systems are more challenging to develop and scale because you have to deeply understand distributed systems instead of just hacking some code to run on one centrally managed 100% trusted platform.

Where is the army of independently wealthy highly skilled developers who are going to do all this unpaid?

I am not optimistic. Nobody pays for freedom, openness, or privacy. All the money and momentum is behind the current user-exploiting paradigm, and now we have a generation of programmers who are learning "cloud native" development and don't even know how to develop things that don't run this way.

Edit:

I once gave a presentation to a room of college kids and was discussing a peer to peer system. A student raised his hand and asked how two devices could communicate this way without "a cloud." He was not aware that it was possible for something to communicate directly with something else over a network without a server.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#440

Post by revnode » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:24 PM UTC

rscoots wrote: post #414

crazygringo wrote: post #388

I see a lot of comments misinterpreting this. First, it's not about private files, it's about distributing content. Google isn't spying on your private files, but does scan them when you share them publicly. E.g. keep all the pirated movies you want on your Drive, and even give private access to friends, but the moment you make them publicly viewable Google scans them and limits access accordingly. So no, this isn't…

Who at Google do you trust to decide what information you and I are allowed to know? What is this person's qualifications? How can they be held to account when they inevitably get it wrong? Where will the highly-transparent write-ups detailing moderation decisions be published? Seems like if Google actually gave a damn about the morality of censorship as some sort of 'neccessary evil' you'd be able to answer these qu…

This is the key problem with all censorship, however well-intentioned. A person is needed to censor. People make mistakes. Sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose. There is a strong dis-incentive to having any transparency or accountability. If there were, you might be held liable for your mistakes and nobody wants that.