161 comment yelling at either google or the guy for XYZ and here I am just wondering if the bloke got his tank photos back
Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity
171–180 of 514 posts
Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What we really should be asking is why is google examining user data at all. Without reading into the details, I don't think that google arbitrarily examines all user files on Google Drive (and please correct me if I am wrong, but that's what I remember since the last time this discussion was had). Google only examines files that were shared with other users or were made accessible to others through a shareable lin…
A better analogy would be if you made terroristic remarks to the sporting goods clerk, and walmart banned you not just from sporting goods but the entire store. Gmail and Google Drive are just different departments of the same place. But in this case it's just that walmart zoomed in on your notebook with a security camera, saw some arabic scribbles about allah on a tank drawing you were sharing with your friend, and…
Not a fan of that analogy. Walmart can't brick your home thermostat, voice assistant, tv box, cable service, federated logins to Uber, DoorDash, your email account, cloud storage account, and so on.
Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, when you're making an omelette you have to break some eggs. There has been a literal, yet largely silent, book burning going on with Google services in recent years. On youtube, many alternative voices are silenced, billions of comments deleted. I know its a private company, but in the US there are free speech laws + the possibility of using the court system (if someone makes a libellous statement). But no, sil…
I remember during the BLM riots, I had shared probably 50 videos of individual destructive and/or violent acts by the rioters in a Slack channel I'm a part of. Probably 6 months later, I went back to look at some. I found a total of 3 that _hadn't_ been deleted.
That may have just been cleanup on unpaid slack-chamnels. They don't keep the stuff on free tiers forever.
Edit: it's not this ^^^
Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity
#174Google is f'ed up with bots.
Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What we really should be asking is why is google examining user data at all. Without reading into the details, I don't think that google arbitrarily examines all user files on Google Drive (and please correct me if I am wrong, but that's what I remember since the last time this discussion was had). Google only examines files that were shared with other users or were made accessible to others through a shareable lin…
I hope I'm not the only one who got a little squeamish at this...I understand the logic, "don't let people transfer/share things that are illegal". But it doesn't sit right that 1) A gigantic private company operating across most of the world/laws/jurisdictions/precedents etc...is in charge of determining (with little to no human oversight) what can and can't be shared between individuals. Who might even be in compet…
>But it doesn't sit right
Your argument makes sense, and I share your feelings on an emotional level, but at this point, the whole argument can be reduced to "sharing video files streamed from google drive is an equivalent of hosting a video on youtube, so the same rules apply", and that's hard to beat.
If you want to store whatever material you want for personal consumption, you are welcome to. But if you enable sharing, that's when all those extra rules start applying, because you are effectively turning it into a personal youtube that is still hosted by google, and DMCA strikes and other stuff will apply just the same.
Similarly, you can make backup copies of a DVD movie for yourself by burning them onto writeable DVDs. The legality of it is dubious due to copyright law being plain awful at times, but you won't get prosecuted for that if you truly had it only for personal backup reasons. The second you start distributing those DVDs in massive amounts to people, you start inviting a pretty legal trouble to your doorstep.
Mind you, I absolutely disagree with the ban of both the historical footage, as well as the whole google account just because of that footage. However, I do believe that making video public via a shareable link or otherwise puts it in the territory where content rules similar to youtube might get reasonably applied.
Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't exactly have widespread support; it's more that nobody can propose a better solution that doesn't blow the budget completely out of the water.
Here's one - how about allowing you to pay to get official support if your account has been locked. And maybe even, god forbid, refund you if your complaint had merit.
If they offered such a service people would accuse them of locking accounts to increase revenue.
Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity
#177I don't mean to be insensitive but what on earth possessed you to have your only copy of anything be held by some gigantic corporation, let alone one as completely nihilistic as Google.
Dear Everyone, Buy a USB stick and keep some copies of your important stuff in your own possession.
Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recently decided against G Drive and for office.com for our tiny startup. One reason being the unreliable customer support often mentioned here on HN. I hope MS customer support is better…
G Suite / Google Workspace / whatever they're calling it this month has generally very good support. eg I had to fix a domain issue, albeit a domain issue caused by some stupid google stuff, and was connected to helpful competent people within a minute or two. Peers have similar experiences. The paying stuff is fine.
I'm a payer, on multiple domains. I disagree with "fine" and suggest "not absolute trash" as a replacement.
Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember during the BLM riots, I had shared probably 50 videos of individual destructive and/or violent acts by the rioters in a Slack channel I'm a part of. Probably 6 months later, I went back to look at some. I found a total of 3 that _hadn't_ been deleted.
That may have just been cleanup on unpaid slack-chamnels. They don't keep the stuff on free tiers forever. Edit: it's not this ^^^
No I mean I scrolled past all the comments that linked to the videos and they were all "the account that posted this video has been suspended" or "that video has been deleted". Don't remember the exact messages, but they were all deleted by Google.
Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity
#180Google Takeout is good insurance. I backup my full google dataset every 6 months or so. When Google AI blocks an account, why don't they offer a window of using Google Takeout to get a .zip of all their stuff?
Given the siloed disjointed nature of various Google products, it's probably because the security and Takeout teams don't care to deal with with one another.