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

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#531

Post by ezekg » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

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…

I mean, I don’t really think this holds up. I have personally dropped all Google products I use in favor of privacy-focused alternatives. For example, GA>Fathom, Gmail>Protonmail, etc. So I’m sure privacy-focused competitors will pop up soon, or perhaps they already exist and I simply don’t know of them because I’m not a big user of the OP’s listed Goog products.

The market has most certainly spoken: we prefer privacy, and we no longer want to be a product. Competition will come to fill those needs. No need for more government regulation. The free market works.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#532

Post by overgard » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #525

contravariant wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something fundamentally flawed about the idea that censorship in the name of preventing misinformation is protecting the foundation of democracy. You cannot have true democracy if people cannot disagree with their governments, they must be able to disagree with any truth or opinion such a government might consider self-evident, just on the off chance they're right. I should at this point note that Google does…

> There's something fundamentally flawed There isn't really. You're adopting, I assume, J.S. Mill's view, that the cure for bad speech is more speech, which he famously published in 1859. However, since then it's been widely accepted that when speech reaches a certain level of harm then the greater good is to prevent/punish it. You can't incite violence under the guise of free speech. You can't advertise that somethi…

Giving anyone the ability to arbitrate what is "good" speech vs "bad" speech is way too much power. In any era of history there have always been "truths" that were massively popular and eventually overturned. I don't think we are the first era to be an exception. So when you're talking about punishing "bad" speech you are talking about creating super powerful entities just because they agree with you. That intent scares me far more than whatever nonsense you get from q anon or antivaxxers.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#533

Post by _-david-_ » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

knownjorbist wrote: post #146

While worrisome, I'm surprised HN has essentially nothing negative to say about people spreading vaccine misinformation, peddling The Big Lie, or other conspiratorial zeitgeist stuff from the last 5ish years.

This virus is the prime example of why most people here are against thingd like this. Look how many times the government officials have flipped on all of this virus stuff. One day it is completely debunked, discredited and misinformation to suggest the virus came from a lab. The next day it is a plausible theory. We cannot trust banning misinformation because we don't know what is actually misinformation. What is misinformation today is accurate information tomorrow.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#534

Post by coolaliasbro » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

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…

I often wonder whether the solution is setting the expectation with companies that if they act in bad faith, their leadership will be om nom nommed? Apologies for the metaphor, it's the best I could come up with on short notice.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#535

Post by pasca1 » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 9:38 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.

It seems like consumers can't agree on why they are upset with these companies. I don't even think we can agree that a private company shouldn't be making decisions about what information should be allowed or removed.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#536

Post by oceanplexian » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 9:39 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.

+1 I have never been “outraged” by something posted on the Internet. Disgusted, disappointed or shocked, sure. But in no case did I think the hosting company was somehow responsible for it.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#537

Post by _Nat_ » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #454

beebmam wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Please tell me why a private company should be forced to host content that they fundamentally disagree with. Prior to the civil rights act, companies didn’t serve certain people based on their race because they disagreed with that race. It’s not that Google should be forced to carry stuff, they should be forced to not discriminate because they don’t like it. ISIS propaganda is illegal and should be taken down for t…

> It’s not that Google should be forced to carry stuff, they should be forced to not discriminate because they don’t like it. ISIS propaganda is illegal and should be taken down for that reason.

Bright-line rules like that worry me. This is, a lot of stuff is subjective -- the line between "legal" and "illegal" isn't so clear or immutable as one might naively guess. So if something more binary -- like host-or-remove -- is tied to such a fuzzy, dynamic determinant, it'd seem to give rise to all sorts of problems.

For example, say we forced big companies to host all legal content, but remove all illegal content, and then we want to know if something controversial is legal (e.g., taxes on Bitcoin back when it was newer). Then someone could post two images: one telling people to pay taxes on Bitcoin, and another telling people to not pay taxes on Bitcoin. Then the hosting-company would have to remove exactly one of those. By contrast, a hosting-company could normally just remove stuff they're unsure about because they're not required to host legal content, sparing them the burden of having to properly determine the legality of everything.

Basically, the problem is that we'd be stripping hosting-companies of their freedom to operate in safe-waters, forcing them into murky areas and then opening them up to punishment whenever they fail to correctly navigate those murky waters.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#538

Post by galangalalgol » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

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…

executive agencies should inspect and enforce, but not regulate. That is the legislature's job and they cannot felegate it beyond "implementation details". We have been too lenient with this so we get the FCC, FDA, EPA, ATF etc flipflpping on what amount to laws instead of details with every change of administration. That isn't how its supposed to work. Congress decides laws, no one else.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#539

Post by ABCLAW » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 9:43 PM UTC

the8472 wrote: post #415

hash872 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that we know from experience, after 20+ years of the modern Internet, that if you make a 'free speech' drive/repository place that's widely available, it will host the absolute worst of the human race. Then, let's say you personally were in charge of said Free Speech Drive- every day you'd get up and hear about people using it for (legal) jailbait photos, Islamic State recruiting, collaboration between e…

> That if you make a 'free speech' drive/repository place that's widely available, it will host the absolute worst of the human race. That's only due to selection effects. If being open were the default then they'd be diluted among all the other people. ISPs themselves, (older) reddit, 4chan all serve as examples that the people you don't want to talk to can be mostly siloed off to some corner and you can have your o…

>ISPs themselves, (older) reddit, 4chan all serve as examples that the people you don't want to talk to can be mostly siloed off to some corner and you can have your own corner where you can have fun. Things only get problematic once you add amplification mechanisms like twitter and facebook feeds or reddit's frontpage.

This isn't true at all, and the reddit report following their ban wave is pretty clear about it; once areas that actively established a standard of violent or racist discourse as acceptable were banned, the volume of objectionable material across the site dropped.

4ch had a similar situation, where the culture on /b/, which was intentionally left as an explicitly unmoderated segment of the site, a silo, actively invaded other boards with violent, racist content.

It isn't that people sit in silos and do nothing otherwise - it's that the silos themselves cause people to believe their content is acceptable, then spread that shit everywhere.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#540

Post by antihero » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 9:44 PM UTC

ezekg wrote: post #531

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…

I mean, I don’t really think this holds up. I have personally dropped all Google products I use in favor of privacy-focused alternatives. For example, GA>Fathom, Gmail>Protonmail, etc. So I’m sure privacy-focused competitors will pop up soon, or perhaps they already exist and I simply don’t know of them because I’m not a big user of the OP’s listed Goog products. The market has most certainly spoken: we prefer privac…

> The market has most certainly spoken

This laughable arrogance. The market has most certainly spoken but not in the way you and your microcosm think it has. The market doesn't give a fuck about privacy. They want convenience and want to pay as little as they for it. Privacy might seem to be on people's tongues at this moment and it will continue to be still, but only a core few will actually make decisions that inconvenience them in order to achieve it. Only a few million people are leaving services like WhatApp en-masse. 99% of their customers do not give a fuck. They aren't doing drug deals (well some are), they aren't dissidents, they aren't terrorists, they're just every day people going about their business with likely zero real repercussions other than finding it a bit creepy and continuing to scroll. There's probably more people leaving because things have gotten a bit boring and uncool than people taking a principled stand for privacy.

We are, at least currently, outliers. Do not forget that.