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A Dad Took Photos of His Kid for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal
131–140 of 199 posts
Re: A Dad Took Photos of His Kid for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal
#132Re: A Dad Took Photos of His Kid for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal
#133Stratechery covered this … they pointed out the really f*ed: part: Google is refusing to reinstate the account. Protecting children is important. AI is imperfect. But there is no reason the keep the account suspended once it’s clear there was no wrongdoing. This man is innocent of doing anything wrong. Google had suspended him, and removed access to all his online account data. And refuses to reinstate. We balance ou…
IIRC there was a follow up which was arguably worse. Google implied that the account was suspended because of real CSAM concerns unrelated to the photos sent to the doctor/police officer (other photos in their account? they wouldn't go into details about their decision) and that the officer closing the case doesn't mean their judgement here is wrong. If that's the case I can understand why they're obstinate about the…
I faced a somewhat similar predicament earlier this year.
I still have no idea how, but my 2FA enabled Facebook account (with a unique and secure password) was compromised while I was sleeping. Shortly after, the attacker started using my Business Manager account to run ads for fake products on their scam stores.
Here's the catch: my personal Facebook account was permanently banned right away, but my Business Manager account wasn't.
How? According to other folks who had the same done to them around that time, the attackers would upload CSAM content on your timeline so that you get immediately banned/locked out.
Well, that means I could no longer retrieve/change my business manager account, which gave the attacker free reign to run ads for about a month. To some degree this means that Facebooks CSAM system gives the attackers a way to compromise Business Manager accounts more efficiently.
I submitted a ban appeal, but didn't hear back. I read online that if you have an Oculus, reaching out via their support is the only real option, so I did just that.
I wrote down a detailed account of the timeline of events, along with screenshots etc., and sent it to an Oculus support agent. In fact, they thanked me during the interaction or providing 'the most detailed' report they'd seen.
The evidence was pretty clear: at 5am or so, someone had logged in to my account via a foreign IP, change my email to a Chinese address and added a hardware 2FA key. The ads they were running to scam stores were often in Chinese, too. Not exactly a difficult case to crack.
They assured me I'd hear back within 7 days, but a month or so later I received an automated email from Facebook stating that the time for my appeal had expired, so the account would stay permanently banned.
That was mildly infuriating, given I never heard back from anyone.
What did losing my Facebook account mean to me?
As much as I'd been considering moving off social media, it briefly ruined my life.
* I'd had my account since I was 13 years old in 2008. I had a few thousand connections on there, many fleeting and superficial, but at least a few hundred with folks around the world that I care about and have no way of reaching now.
* 90% of communication here in NZ transpires via Facebook Messenger, so I was immediately cut off from my community and friends. What's worse, many have since told me that they were worried I'd blocked them.
* My income from the time came from selling trading cards in FB groups while I was closing an investment round. I lost the ability to do so, and had to move out of my apartment to live outside of the city with my in-laws.
* My father passed away a few years ago, and I had countless photos of him on my account, as well as our message history. This honestly hurt more than anything else.
All in all, this experience has left me a deep scar. I guess I needed to learn a lesson around not relying on one platform so heavily, and to some extent not backing things up such as the photos, but I really wish Facebook could have just done the reasonable thing and let me back in.
Finally, I have no idea if I was reported to the police/LE in any capacity regarding whatever was posted on my account to have me banned. Am I on some kind of list now?
A boring, technocratic dystopia.
edit: on the off chance anyone from Meta reads this and thinks they can help, I would be over the moon to get even a chance of having my account restored. I was told to speak to an Australian law firm who charge $3,500 to hound Facebook to get accounts restored in situations like mine, but unfortunately that's just not within my means.
Re: A Dad Took Photos of His Kid for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Dad has legal path(s) to take if he feels he was truly wronged. Paths that would ultimately cost nothing if he prevailed. Paths that would likely force Google to undo their decision if Dad's statements are in fact the truth and Google has no other data/evidence. San Francisco Police Department: > “I determined that the incident did not meet the elements of a crime and that no crime occurred,” Mr. Hillard wrote…
He should use the legal system for what it was designed for - to settle a disagreement as per the ToS for his paid Google One account. The article even says this is an option - but he chose not to pursue it.
Because pursuing it would cost money and time for a service from a company that I'm sure he doesn't want to do any more business with. He's unlikely to get any damages and Google's lawyers will ensure that it takes way too much time.
"If they were innocent, why didn't they sue" is an opinion that is really naive of how our legal system works.
Re: A Dad Took Photos of His Kid for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you continue to insinuate this man may be a pedophile when he has been completely exonerated?
He was not exonerated, that is not what this word means. The rest of your statement appears to be a straw man, because I have not once stated he is in fact a pedophile.
You continue to insinuate it.
Re: A Dad Took Photos of His Kid for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
I own my domain and therefore my email address will belong to me as long as I can pay the property tax (ICANN) and management company (Fastmail).
They can ban you for no reason, just like google.
If you have your own domain, Fastmail banning you is a minor speed bump at worst. You can just point your domain at a different email provider.
You can similarly transfer domains between registrars if one of them doesn't like you. And in practice, your domain registrar not liking you is pretty rare; I've only heard of it happening with famously evil alt-right websites and they generally manage to find a registrar that will take their business.
Re: A Dad Took Photos of His Kid for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal
#137Stratechery covered this … they pointed out the really f*ed: part: Google is refusing to reinstate the account. Protecting children is important. AI is imperfect. But there is no reason the keep the account suspended once it’s clear there was no wrongdoing. This man is innocent of doing anything wrong. Google had suspended him, and removed access to all his online account data. And refuses to reinstate. We balance ou…
IIRC there was a follow up which was arguably worse. Google implied that the account was suspended because of real CSAM concerns unrelated to the photos sent to the doctor/police officer (other photos in their account? they wouldn't go into details about their decision) and that the officer closing the case doesn't mean their judgement here is wrong. If that's the case I can understand why they're obstinate about the…
I wonder what images they used to train an AI to recognize a child penis.
Re: A Dad Took Photos of His Kid for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
He should use the legal system for what it was designed for - to settle a disagreement as per the ToS for his paid Google One account. The article even says this is an option - but he chose not to pursue it.
Because pursuing it would cost money and time for a service from a company that I'm sure he doesn't want to do any more business with. He's unlikely to get any damages and Google's lawyers will ensure that it takes way too much time. "If they were innocent, why didn't they sue" is an opinion that is really naive of how our legal system works.
The article is a little clumsy here... they seem to indicate it would have been a lawsuit, but the dollar amount quoted would be more in line with arbitration.
In both cases there's 3 possible outcomes:
1) Google, after reviewing weak and/or zero evidence, backs down and restores the account upon receipt of notice of intent to pursue legal action.
2) Arbitration happens and Google is ordered to back down, restore the account and pay Dad's representation fees.
3) Arbitration happens and Dad loses, which yes would be quite costly.
Only #3 is a gamble, and it seems like Dad has a lot of confidence #3 isn't even a remote possibility. So why would you not pursue legal action?
Given how much attention Dad has received over this, it would be surprising if free representation wasn't throwing themselves at him by now too. Regardless, this is indeed how the legal system works for disputes. He should use it if he really is innocent.
Re: A Dad Took Photos of His Kid for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Forget that - Google states to the media they had reviewed the situation and had decided to uphold his ban. Good luck convincing them to admit their “appeal” system, and their media review, were mistakes. Google is too arrogant for that.
It might be worth remembering we only have one side of the story here. How do we know we can thoroughly trust the Dad any more than we can thoroughly trust Google? Perhaps there are more pictures Dad took the article doesn't know about? Perhaps Google can't verify it was indeed Dad's child in the images? Perhaps there is more to the story than what the article lets on...perhaps not. We will never really know.
This is not unknowable.
Police reviewed the case with full access to all documents and videos.
A reputable news organization contacted Google for comment.
There was all the opportunity to present "other side of story" by Google if any. And I actually think everybody in article goes out of their WAY to present the other side - they repeatedly call google's work important but difficult and offer several plausible non malevolent reasons for the behaviour.
I agree life is complex and we rarely get all the details, but even I don't agree with a completely defeatist "life is unknowable" attitude.
Re: A Dad Took Photos of His Kid for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal
#140This story broke the camels back for us when it first appeared here and got us to migrate our email to protonmail and a domain we bought.
> migrate our email to protonmail Any tips? It’s been on my lowest priority todo list to migrate off of gmail for several years, and I think the biggest reason I haven’t yet is that I know nothing about alternatives. I haven’t had to think at all about email for 15-20 years or so, and I’d like to keep it that way as much as possible after any switch. How close does protonmail get to that ideal?
Get your own dns record first.