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Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

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Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#941
For those who object to a ban on the distribution of "misinformation" and "hate speech" on Google Drive:

https://takeout.google.com/

Google provides a convenient, though not instantaneous, way to download all your content to a local drive. You can then publish it to your own website, problem solved.

Google has the right to impose terms of service, particularly given that their service is free and they believe they have a reputation to protect and legal liabilities to defend from.

You have the right to house your data elsewhere.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#942

"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…

> "Misinformation" is just another word for "falsehood" or "untruth." That’s not sufficiently true. In fact, asserting untrue propositions is one of the easiest-to-counter ways of misinformation. Real pros use humbuggery; of a set of n true propositions, pick a subset m to lead the audience to your conclusions and you haven’t even “lied”. That’s why “fact checking” is such a popular way of narrative laundering, becau…

Wouldn’t you just need “the whole truth and nothing but the truth”?

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#943

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…

There's something fundamentally flawed about trusting people to determine truths themselves as well. Doubly so when those spreading misinformation are well funded propagandists that have been attacking education for years. China, Russia, Germany, Italy, Cuba... these and other nations became communist/authoritarian with the ardent support of the people of those nations (enough people anyway). Tens of millions died as a result. People die today as a result. People are oppressed as a result.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#944

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny to see people freak out about this when entire foundation of Google is built on the proposition that it can make effective judgments about the relative value of various content out there on the web. Like, if Google has a hidden agenda here that makes it any more fundamentally compromised as a judge of disinformation than anything else, then whether or not it will be a free CDN for arbitrary content isn't r…

> It's funny to see people freak out about this when entire foundation of Google is built on the proposition that it can make effective judgments about the relative value of various content out there on the web. You're thinking of Google Search, their web search product. The thread is talking about Google Drive, their file-storage and - sharing product. If you don't get the difference between these two products and t…

The relevant differences between those two products are:

(a) Google is actually less uniquely powerful or threatening when it comes to the hosting segment

(b) Google has an even greater claim to moral and legal rights to say "yeah, we're gonna decide not to carry/disseminate certain content,", except to the extent that your position here involves the idea that compelled speech is the way forward.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#945
I would argue that the very notion that we're somehow dealing with a nefarious, shadowy era of exceptionally pernicious misinformation is itself a form of misinformation. I strongly suspect that the current media and associated tech company obsession with misinformation is largely rooted in a certain very disagreeable politician winning the U.S presidency in 2016 despite all the best efforts of major media sources to convince everyone of what was supposedly best for them, and because these same media/tech interests share a political bent that's currently more dominant in the social sphere, suddenly, misinformation is a boogeyman as never seen before. Evidence to the contrary be damned.

Humans have been misinforming each other and creating echo chambers of rigid thought for as long as we've had culture. On this little has changed except for new additions to the mediums through which we can communicate ideas.

Censorship and restriction of opinions to those that are "verifiable and correct" is such an obvious hole for bad decisions and misuse that support for it should be laughable after decades of seeing just how badly governments and other major authorities can fuck up their notions about what a correct stance on anything really is, and this not to even mention the many, many, many historical examples of official narratives deliberately being manipulated for the sake of control or special interests... Those of you who think modern democratic institutions are somehow immune enough to such things that we should have public free expression monitored and restricted due to misinformation dangers are absurdly naive.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#947
post #934

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ministry of Truth" references are the opposite of illuminating; they're reflexive association of any attempt to arbitrate truth with totalitarian oppression. The fact is there is no such thing as rule of law without lots of institutions and individuals (private and public) taking responsibility for arbitrating truth. And there's no freedom of speech without allowing them to do it.

This is not true at all. The rule of law, within the confines of the judicial system, does NOT define truth. The system weighs evidence and determines whether the preponderance of evidence indicates guilt beyond a reasonable doubt . Someone could murder someone, but due to lack of evidence they are found “not guilty”. But that’s not the same as “the truth is this person did not commit murder”. It’s simply a finding t…

> The system weighs evidence and determines whether the preponderance of evidence

A formal process of examining evidence marshaled in the service of arguments supporting/refuting a claim sounds practically equivalent to most forms of determining truth. Because it is.

Not only that, but there are segments of the law where truth is explicitly invoked, ie "truth is an absolute defense against defamation."

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#948

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…

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…

Indeed. One wonders how much of this threat of misinformation is being pushed by the mainstream media who at one time was the authority on truth.

Nothing is more dangerous than someone being striped of power they considered rightfully theirs.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#949

"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…

From the top of the post: "We need to curb abuses that threaten our ability to provide these services."

Google has lawyers to minimize its legal liability. Turning some vapid terms of service clause into a slippery slope argument for the onrush of totalitarianism is taking things too far.

Re: Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

#950

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Misinformation" is just another word for "falsehood" or "untruth." That’s not sufficiently true. In fact, asserting untrue propositions is one of the easiest-to-counter ways of misinformation. Real pros use humbuggery; of a set of n true propositions, pick a subset m to lead the audience to your conclusions and you haven’t even “lied”. That’s why “fact checking” is such a popular way of narrative laundering, becau…

Though that's what happens, I don't think people call that misinformation but rather bias. Isn't misinformation factually wrong in the common meaning?

I think it's less about being factually wrong, and more about leading people to factually wrong conclusions with truthful statements.

Even just saying "X sells stock Y before event Z" imples that X knew about event Z and that it would affect the stock price of Y. People will read headlines like this and walk away assuming there was insider trading, but that may not be the case. Nothing in that example headline has to be false in order for it to spread falsehoods.

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