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

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#841

Post by wwweston » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:35 AM UTC

busymom0 wrote: post #829

wwweston wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> democracy requires the government, or megacorporate cartels with a monopoly on public speech most likely acting as proxies for the government Who says that individuals or business institutions making judgments and using their resources to arbitrate truth -- especially institutions like Google whose business is about information -- are acting "as proxies for the government" instead of taking responsibility for hones…

The government is actively telling social media companies which posts need to be taken down. That makes them state actors. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/biden-administration...

If I flag something on Twitter or Facebook as violating site rules, or an FHEO official tells Craigslist they're aware of posts violating housing discrimination rules, that doesn't make any of these sites my actor or state actors. It makes them people who care about either keeping that stuff off their site or keeping the law.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#842

Post by nobody_at_all » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:38 AM UTC

jdasdf wrote: post #566

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…

>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. And that's just fine. People have the right to be assholes.

Oddly enough, there is not a strong business case in allowing the dregs of society to post their garbage all over your servers.

If Twitter adopted 4chan policies, it would be destroyed financially in short order.

Twitter is pretty loose compared to many of the big social sites. They allow nudity and porn, for example, but of course have rules such as marking it as sensitive. Try that on FB.

It is almost like they adopt polices that help their business. Just like brick and mortar businesses have policies on customer conduct and will ban trouble makers that impact their bottom line.

People have a right to be assholes but everyone else has the right to shun them from polite society.

There is no right to be heard, just to speak and not have the government stomp on you for it. No one else is required to listen or host it.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#843

Post by wwweston » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:39 AM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #828

wwweston wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> democracy requires the government, or megacorporate cartels with a monopoly on public speech most likely acting as proxies for the government Who says that individuals or business institutions making judgments and using their resources to arbitrate truth -- especially institutions like Google whose business is about information -- are acting "as proxies for the government" instead of taking responsibility for hones…

Some will be giving their honest assessment and some won't. The latter may be a less serious problem, but it's still pretty damn serious. Imagine a society that censors the disinformation/propaganda that trans women are women out of a sincerely held belief that this is indeed disinformation. Oh wait, Russia already does that. Why would American attempts at suppression be any better? Or any better than what happened d…

LOL "McCarthy era?" -- like, what are you actually referring to here? Is this just bad thing word salad? The primary problem with the McCarthy era wasn't censorship, it was actually that McCarthy's BS accusations about communism got such wide play and buy-in when they should have been squashed by responsible people.

"American" attempts would be better... because in most cases this appears to be voluntary and where the state is involved it appears to be officials actually persuading some private actors on the merits of the idea rather than compelling people by force.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#844

Post by concordDance » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:42 AM UTC

acituan wrote: post #727

nickysielicki wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger problem that I have with the idea that misinformation kills democracy is that it seems to suggest that misinformation is some new phenomenon or that the average person has been well informed throughout the history of western democracy. Democracy thrived before the printing press. Democracy survived the invention of the printing press, which was mostly in the hands of magnates who could afford it. Democracy…

> suggest that misinformation is some new phenomenon Misinformation in this shape and form is a new phenomenon. And it is not just the scale; - the number of agents that push their version of misinformation is at least an order of magnitude higher than ever, depending on the particular topic. So-called culture wars have so many different sides. - technology not only scales misinformation, but it also accelerates it.…

> institutional mistrust is at all-time-high

I want to point out that the biggest reason for this is that those institutions are worthy of mistrust, people just weren't aware of the need to mistrust them. The news media for instance has been gradually getting worse due to having to compete with internet sources and it was plenty shit back in the 60s and before...

Then there's things like the replication crisis damaging our trust in science-as-an-institution and the mask flip flopping damaging trust in science-as-communicated-by-prestigious-bodies.

And of course there's always departments attempting o justify their existence even when it makes everyone's lives harder for little gain (yes, I work for a mega Corp, how did you guess?).

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#845

Post by nobody_at_all » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:42 AM UTC

kyle_martin1 wrote: post #694

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…

The very worst things in history were actually censored. Ever considered this? Your argument about "worst of humanity" could equally apply to the best of humanity with free speech. In fact...who are you to decide what is good speech and bad speech?

On my property, I have the final say on what is and is not allowed.

Why should a company not have the same right on their property?

Stores do. Go to a store and cause a ruckus and watch the ban hammer come down on you after the cops drag you away.

How is Google different from Ma and Pa's Widget Store? At least law enforcement is not involved after most types of bannings from social media.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#846

Post by mlac » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:42 AM UTC

FeepingCreature wrote: post #830

thrwoi4234234 wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually worse - the "truth" necessarily implies that there is but one, and that everything else in false. Does this sound familiar ? This is exactly what religious loonies say in order to take control. Science necessarily involves keeping your own ignorance, epistemic and otherwise, in mind while dealing with things, but it's quite worrying that the West is going back on what was won with blood and sweat.

I believe there is only one truth, and everything else is false. But I also believe humans do not have access to it.

There are facts and there is the context of the facts and the impact those facts have on people.

One can argue the news should just report the facts, but they add additional context and information to explain why the facts matter.

Verifying the facts / truth is objective and clear (e.g. it rained 2 inches today). Determining whether the impact is properly reported (e.g. “devastating” flooding occurred) is murky. And the flooding could have been devastating - to one family, to a village, to a school. So it’s not untrue, it’s just more subjective as you move from numbers to impact. And the news cares more about reporting impact than facts and will tailor the narrative to explain the impact to their audience.

Look at the news service all sides. You can figure out the facts (e.g. a law was passed) then see what each side is saying about the impact. The impact may be true for both sides, just presented in a vastly different way.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#847

Post by nobody_at_all » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:44 AM UTC

Torwald wrote: post #396

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…

If I were hosting said Free Speech Drive, I would be oblivious to the contents of what my users host on their drives. I would not violate their privacy by spying on them. Their files, not mine.

You would end up criminally charged with disseminating CP, violating copyright and more within a month.

It is easy to be an internet tough guy, how about you actually start a simple file server with no restrictions and see how it goes?

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#848

Post by ptx » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:44 AM UTC

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…

By this argument China's censorship of online messaging platforms doesn't exist either, because Weixin and Weibo are operated by private companies, so what they're doing when they block messages with undesirable content isn't censorship.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#849

Post by swiley » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:44 AM UTC

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…

People deciding what to share and who to vote for are equivalent. You effectively don't get one without the other.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#850

Post by YeBanKo » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:46 AM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #822

I would really love all of sorts of services (e.g. email, documents, photo storage, etc etc) prepackaged as docker images I can pop somewhere and open source, and I just pay for hosting and a licence fee.

In order to pop anywhere these days you need to have an email address. How do you ensure that this email address is not gonna be alienated from you? Email domain becomes part of your identity.