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Google suspends romance author's account for writing sexually explicit content

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Re: Google suspends romance author's account for writing sexually explicit content

#31

Post by lupusreal »

giantg2 wrote: post #22
paxys wrote: post #6

"I keep all my work on Google/Apple/Dropbox/Office" is really the new version of "I kept all my work on my hard drive and didn't back it up". All of these companies have shown repeatedly that they will cut off your access with no notice for any or no reason and with no recourse. Cloud backups used to be a smart thing to do. Now they are a liability.

"Cloud backups used to be a smart thing to do. Now they are a liability." If they're actually a backup they can be a good idea. If it's a single source, then yeah, it's asking for trouble. I even backup my GitHub stuff locally because who knows what could happen.

Even if the files are actually a backup it's not a good idea if it also gets your email/etc accounts nuked. Megacorps with many online properties are landmine fields because you can get banned from a dozen services for a BS 'violation' on just one of them.

Re: Google suspends romance author's account for writing sexually explicit content

#32

Post by londons_explore »

paxys wrote: post #10
thrdbndndn wrote: post #4

The post only says "An author lost access to her explicit writing", which sound to me that she cannot access that document anymore, not her account got suspended (I skimmed over comments and didn't see people said otherwise). Of course in this particular case, it might be worse (because she lost her entire writing if without backup), but it's not the same as losing an account. Anyway, it won't surprise me if she did…

From the thread it sounds like they only took away their ability to share. They still have access to the account and everything on it.

That sounds like a reasonable response tbh

Re: Google suspends romance author's account for writing sexually explicit content

#33

Post by [deleted] »

giantg2 wrote: post #22
paxys wrote: post #6

"I keep all my work on Google/Apple/Dropbox/Office" is really the new version of "I kept all my work on my hard drive and didn't back it up". All of these companies have shown repeatedly that they will cut off your access with no notice for any or no reason and with no recourse. Cloud backups used to be a smart thing to do. Now they are a liability.

"Cloud backups used to be a smart thing to do. Now they are a liability." If they're actually a backup they can be a good idea. If it's a single source, then yeah, it's asking for trouble. I even backup my GitHub stuff locally because who knows what could happen.

[deleted]

Re: Google suspends romance author's account for writing sexually explicit content

#34

Post by paxys »

giantg2 wrote: post #22
paxys wrote: post #6

"I keep all my work on Google/Apple/Dropbox/Office" is really the new version of "I kept all my work on my hard drive and didn't back it up". All of these companies have shown repeatedly that they will cut off your access with no notice for any or no reason and with no recourse. Cloud backups used to be a smart thing to do. Now they are a liability.

"Cloud backups used to be a smart thing to do. Now they are a liability." If they're actually a backup they can be a good idea. If it's a single source, then yeah, it's asking for trouble. I even backup my GitHub stuff locally because who knows what could happen.

Even if they are just a backup, all these companies scan your data for offensive material and report it to the authorities if their algorithm deems it fit. There have been plenty of cases of parents being investigated by the police just for taking photos of their kids on their phone.

Re: Google suspends romance author's account for writing sexually explicit content

#35

Post by Sayrus »

diggan wrote: post #8
thrdbndndn wrote: post #4

The post only says "An author lost access to her explicit writing", which sound to me that she cannot access that document anymore, not her account got suspended (I skimmed over comments and didn't see people said otherwise). Of course in this particular case, it might be worse (because she lost her entire writing if without backup), but it's not the same as losing an account. Anyway, it won't surprise me if she did…

The Instagram post ( https://www.instagram.com/sloan_spencer_author/p/C48JN_TrvxO ) states: > one romance author explain that all her work was suspended by Google [...] She has no access to these files or her other works That would seem like an account suspension, not just one document. Edit: I guess it might also be a Google Drive/Docs specific suspension, rather than Google-wide.

> I've since backed everything up to my computer and filed an appeal

> After processing the appeal, a popup said my account was frozen pending review

Sounds like Docs only prevented her from sharing her work. Until she filled for an appeal and her account was frozen, which is perhaps even stranger than suspending the account in the first place.

Re: Google suspends romance author's account for writing sexually explicit content

#36

Post by inetknght »

endisneigh wrote: post #18

Doesn’t seem like a big deal - unshare it and copy to another platform, e.g. directly on discord, for sharing. Google really needs to stop preemptively locking accounts, though. They also need to warn ahead of time when someone is going to do something “bad”.

> unshare it and copy to another platform, e.g. directly on discord, for sharing

Ahh you think Discord has better policies?

You might want to rethink that.

Re: Google suspends romance author's account for writing sexually explicit content

#38

Post by [deleted] »

paxys wrote: post #6

"I keep all my work on Google/Apple/Dropbox/Office" is really the new version of "I kept all my work on my hard drive and didn't back it up". All of these companies have shown repeatedly that they will cut off your access with no notice for any or no reason and with no recourse. Cloud backups used to be a smart thing to do. Now they are a liability.

[deleted]

Re: Google suspends romance author's account for writing sexually explicit content

#39

Post by shagie »

Scrolling through the screen shots linked on Instagram ( https://www.instagram.com/sloan_spencer_author/p/C48JN_TrvxO... )

> I find out at midnight tomorrow if I lose my docs all together. I've transferred them to word and backed up onto my hard drive.

Further along ...

> ... As of today, I'm unable to share my docs with my alpha and Beta readers. After reading the policies the only rule my docs "violate" is that they contain ̶s̶e̶x̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ explicit content. I've since backed everything up to my computer and filled an appeal. ...

Further along ...

> As of right now, I don't know. I cannot access any of mine to check at the moment. Thankfully an alpha reader of mine saw it happening and I downloaded everything to my laptop before I submitted an appeal. After processing the appeal, a pop up said my account was frozen pending review. My assumption is after the review I'll either get everything back or lose it, but I don't know for sure.

Re: Google suspends romance author's account for writing sexually explicit content

#40

Post by nicbou »

jlkuester7 wrote: post #21

Good open source self-hostable alternatives exist! https://nextcloud.com/ (no affiliation, just a longtime happy user) is great for file sharing and even collaborative online document editing. If you do not want to host your own instance, there are many great providers who will host one for you at a low cost.

My nextcloud instance killed itself during an update. I wrote a blog post about it and people regularly write to thank me, so it wasn't an isolated instance. Syncthing is much simpler, and practically bulletproof. It really just works.
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