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Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

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Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#181

I know this is avoidable, and I know it’s a semi-regular occurrence, and I can recognize Google’s moderation problem is non-trivial, but I really can’t shake the feeling that Orwell was off by a letter and the future will truly just be a bot stamping on a human face forever.

You'd think Google breaks into your house, uploads your data, and deletes the originals.

Think of cloud accounts like any other form of backup. Two is one, one is none.

Hard drives die, cloud services come and go. No backup is forever.

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#182
post #96

Earlier 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…

All of those walmart departments are doing the same thing: they sell you different kinds of consumer goods in a single marketplace.

If you get banned from the entirety of Amazon marketplace by harassing sellers in the gardening equipment department, that seems fair. If you get your AWS account banned for doing the same thing that has nothing to do with AWS, that's a different story. One thing is a consumer goods store, the other is a cloud service provider.

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#183
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So you think if google really thinks you're a terrorist that they are obliged to go on supporting you? There's a big difference between having no idea terrorists use your platform, and actually supporting them by enabling those you believe to be terrorists.

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#184
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I've stopped buying books on kindle. It gives Amazon the power to censor your book library, and it would not surprise me at all if we see them exercise that power soon.

I personally find a rip of the book online to drop onto my reMarkable then purchase it through some ebook marketplace. Now I have a DRM-free copy and the author gets their cut.

That's certainly noble, but it doesn't send the message that you're unhappy with DRM. You're ultimately engaging in piracy and at the same time not voting with your wallet.

I don't see any alternative, but just wanted to make that point.

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#185
post #2

I will upvote and comment to hopefully gain visibility at the minimum. Google really has an unfortunate customer support set up, in that there isn't one. Your best bet when Google does something bad to their customers like this (And regardless if its a bad AI or bad bot, its still Google doing it), is to post it on twitter or hackernews and hope it gets the visibility for a Google employee to fix it, or contact someo…

I have to assume they realize this is terrible PR for them and engenders feelings of distrust, yet, they don’t seem care. Is it hubris?

This news will be gone tomorrow, forgotten by Friday and they can spin a flashy thing on Monday. Solved! (for some limited definition of solved)

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot feasibly provide any level of acceptable human support and remain “free” with a huge user base. Meanwhile, being “free” is crucial if your actual paying customer is the advertisers. If you stop being free, you (gasp) normalize paid service. Suddenly you are conflicted and fighting two fronts, you compete with other paid services, your users can actually demand things and vote with their money, etc.

Remember, over $1 BILLION dollars a quarter of free cash flow into their cash hoard EVERY QUARTER. An absolutely stellar customer support network with real people was being operated by Network Appliance when I was there for less than $60 million A YEAR. Google is absolutely capable of providing a level of service that is unmatched, but they choose not to.

It's possible that Google could provide support, but they are also trying to create a reputation of providing infrastructure so reliable that the technology is simply finished and doesn't need support. They don't want to give the impression that they're giving up that battle.

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#187
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If google really thinks he is a terrorist, which apparently they did, why on earth would they allow him to use gmail or android? It makes sense they would lock him out of everything possible. What we really should be asking is why is google examining user data at all. They should not be in the position where they can even find out who is a terrorist.

I imagine Google takes business from lots of places and people that are unsavory to some. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Terrorism is usually only defined by your allegiance, yes. In this case google is a US company so in the case they know violent islamic extremists use their platform, their allegiance is with the Americans, even if it happens to be the Americans blow up innocent Arabs and the extremists may just be engaging in self defense.

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#188
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a counter movement, for example, these guys place a significant role (and as far as I know primarily with a practical focus): https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/

They are the worst pirates I've ever heard of.

Post in the top 5 of the subreddit currently: "Is there a good self hosted, cross platform OneNote / SimpleNote like app out there ?"

Yep, scum of the earth. /s

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally find a rip of the book online to drop onto my reMarkable then purchase it through some ebook marketplace. Now I have a DRM-free copy and the author gets their cut.

That's certainly noble, but it doesn't send the message that you're unhappy with DRM. You're ultimately engaging in piracy and at the same time not voting with your wallet. I don't see any alternative, but just wanted to make that point.

Steal the content and Venmo the creator?

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's fetish for not providing human support is so counter-productive it makes me think there must be a single powerful individual executive maintaining the policy. It's too stupid to have widespread support among Googlers.

You cannot feasibly provide any level of acceptable human support and remain “free” with a huge user base. Meanwhile, being “free” is crucial if your actual paying customer is the advertisers. If you stop being free, you (gasp) normalize paid service. Suddenly you are conflicted and fighting two fronts, you compete with other paid services, your users can actually demand things and vote with their money, etc.

Even if that was completely correct it wouldn't apply to their paid services like Workspace, Google Fi, YouTube Premium, etc that also have no customer service whatsoever.
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