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Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

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Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#781

Post by m1el »

weare138 wrote: post #709
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…

>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. Google is not the government. It's a private company owned by private citizens who also have the same constitutional rights. You're not being 'censored'. It's not a violation of your free speech. Y…

Bullshit. This "private company doing whatever they want" argument can rot in hell.

All major social media companies (Google, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and possibly mobile carriers) get instructions from- and collaborate with the government on the topic of suppressing information.

You literally have Ministry of Truth, implemented as Fact Check inc. The USA is already beyond the pale, and people keep spouting this idiotic "private companies" argument.

Edit: to those that downvoted this comment -- please tell me how this is not a violation of the first amendment: https://www.newsweek.com/biden-administrations-admission-the... the government telling which information to suppress.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#782

Post by knownjorbist »

_-david-_ wrote: post #533
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 mis…

Your perception of the lab leak "flip flop" is exaggerating what actually happened.

This is a really dangerous road to go down. Yesterday's misinformation is still largely if not entirely misinformation. The same will hold true into the future.

A lot of the world's woes can be traced back to people operating on bad information.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#783

Post by intended »

ibbibby wrote: post #758
Steltek wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you do to combat the deliberate misinformation campaign that is weakening the US and many other countries? While propaganda and polarization are not new, the speed, reach, and aggregation are only possible with modern communication. An early tidbit that may have been lost with deplatforming was that Euro leaders also disagreed, citing that only the state could be trusted with that power. However, the US Co…

I'd abolish the worst purveyors of misinformation: Namely, all of the people who are trying to censor "misinformation" so that they cannot have their propaganda challenged by an empowered public that no longer needs gatekeepers.

How do you handle content designed to flood the public and manufacture a narrative ?

I mean you want the “public” to be able to “challenge” the misinformation.

But fundamentally the public has N number of compute units per day and the attackers have N^N compute units.

This is throwing unarmed citizens directly into an army trained to crush unarmed citizens.

The attackers are DESIGNED with the awareness that people will be having this argument on hackernews.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#784

Post by lobochrome »

A non American perspective:

A government is the administrator chosen by the people to take care of its collective concerns.

If the people identify negative issues that affect the demos - they may ask their government to interfere. In any democracy this power is limitless, with the minor caveat of supranational authorities like the UN.

In that way - any government can and should censor speech if its populace asks it to, given it’s the legislature who sets the law. (Prime example: German laws about Nazi symbols).

A company, as Zuckerberg requested, should not be in the position to make these decisions arbitrarily. It should suffice if it follows the law.

In America the legislative breakdown, in combination with the fanatic believe in free speech, seems to be standing in the way of this, bringing the entire western world to the brinks of a precipice.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#785

Post by kylehotchkiss »

tikiman163 wrote: post #475

Google drive is not supposed to be a mass distribution platform and it actually violates the TOS to treat it like one. You can Argus all you like about privacy and free speech rights, but they do not apply to anyone trying to use Google drive as some sort of free content distribution network. It wasn't designed to let people do that, and Google has every right to ban people for violating the TOS. The fact that they t…

Seems like they could save themselves from trouble by just disabling public docs links and making sharing harder ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#786

Post by LimaBearz »

l33t2328 wrote: post #774
LimaBearz wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also important to understand that the only reason anyone is talking about misinformation right now is because the entire world watched in horror at the events of January 6th, a direct attempt to “seize control over free societies”. (Admittedly a poor attempt at it though) which was sparked by wild accusations, unsubstantiated assertions, and a mountain of failed litigation by “the previous guy”. No amount of whi…

> the only reason anyone is talking about misinformation right now is because the entire world watched in horror at the events of January 6th, a direct attempt to “seize control over free societies” Regardless of if the riot on Jan 6 was an attempt to seize the government (it wasn’t), this line of reasoning doesn’t track at all since the concept of “misinformation” as a public enemy has been brought up ad naseum sinc…

There’s a bit of nuance there though to isn’t there?

Let’s be honest, “misinformation” between 2016-2020 just meant “things written about me I don’t like”, it only came from one person/group.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#787

Post by CPAhem »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #512
api wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I know there are a ton of people who, like you, want alternatives. Unfortunately nobody is willing to pay for it. I don't know, I pay for O365. I know a lot of people that do. And remember; Google Drive is not free either. To get more than a minimal amount of storage you have to pay. As a result, most serious users of these services are already paying for them. However, we end up paying AND keep getting judgement o…

You can encrypt stuff to Google Drive. You can sync a Truecrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org/) folder or use something like Syncdocs (https://syncdocs.com) that does the encryption/decryption automatically.

Do Google Drive Terms now prohibit encryption?

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#788

Post by estaseuropano »

contravariant wrote: post #441
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…

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…

But there's a difference between 'disagree' and 'state objectively false things'. The US media especially is poisoned with stuff like that - see all the lies around covid and mask wearing.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#789

Post by read_if_gay_ »

plank_time wrote: post #771
ibbibby wrote: post #748

"Misinformation" is just another word for "falsehood" or "untruth." Those of you claiming that "democracy" depends on authorities preventing the spread of misinformation are ipso facto saying that democracy requires the government, or megacorporate cartels with a monopoly on public speech most likely acting as proxies for the government (as Psaki made clear is happening), to define what counts as "truth" (a Ministry…

Exactly. What is misinformation? What you define as misinformation right now could be information in a few months. Entire discussions on things like ivermectin to treat covid were banned from YouTube as “misinformation”. Now some studies are coming out that might show that it’s not. At least it deserves a discussion but it has been censored as misinformation. So we lost an entire year of treating people around the wo…

> What you thought was misinformation is only really a few studies away from being flipped around.

To be clear, that matters because by censoring "misinformation" you are killing these studies, therefore we are by definition stuck wherever we are right now.

New science and "misinformation" as defined by our digital overlords intersect.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#790

Post by intended »

wutbrodo wrote: post #725
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…

> All our legal protections ultimately depend on a democratic foundation -- undo that with misinformation and you don't have anything anymore. Similarly, your rights don't matter much if you're dead. This is an insane conclusion to draw, because it blithely ignores that it positions Google as an oracle of what's threatening to democracy and what isn't. The examples in the current policy are fairly narrow, but this is…

This positions google as an intermediary.

Someone else has figured out what is misinformation and is telling google.

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