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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

#61

Post by Waterluvian »

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.

I don't necessarily disagree, but I feel it's important to call out every time I see it in a tech community: this is a reasonable sentiment for the less than 1% of cloud storage users who are sufficiently tech savvy. For the other 99% who have little more than marketing material to direct their understanding, the cloud is Fort Knox for your data.

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

#62

Post by nickelpro »

Misleading title, none of the authors involved are claiming they're locked out of the accounts. The exact quote from the OP's mastadon is "An author lost access to her explicit writing when she shared it with alpha and beta readers."

Google says you may not use its services to distribute sexually explicit content. This is a very common and reasonable policy. The authors violated that rule, and while none of them are being straightforward about exactly what happened what seems to be the case is the violating content has been removed/locked.

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

#63

Post by darby_eight »

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.

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

#64

Post by jlkuester7 »

nicbou wrote: post #40
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.

Yeah, Nextcloud is not the first thing I would reach for if all you want is "simple" and "bulletproof". I am not a pro-SRE, but I have managed, with the help of backups, the successfully run a Nextcloud instance for a small group of people for the past ~5+ years. It has not been without glitches, but the challenges have been no worse than any other service I host. The more features you have, the more things can go wrong...

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

#65

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #42
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…

[deleted]

[deleted]

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

#66

Post by shrimp_emoji »

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.

Keep it on there in an encrypted volume! Cloud backup AND privacy in one.

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

#67

Post by Sayrus »

londons_explore wrote: post #29
diggan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don't think Google does per-service suspensions, except for Google pay/adwords/adsense/YouTube.

I'm not sure if the author is in Europe but DMA lead to Google offering services separately[1].

The services are: Search, YouTube, Ad services, Google Play, Chrome, Google Shopping, Google Maps. I think Workspace (Mail, Docs, Drive, ...) are still a single service. If I remember correctly DMA or another recent law targeting gatekeepers also requires suspension to be followed with a way to appeal, proper justification and to only suspend "one service" (you don't loose your Mail if you get Youtube strikes).

[1] https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/14202510?hl=en

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

#68

Post by seanw444 »

aaomidi wrote: post #53
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.

I’ve always argued that we need regulation that prevents large companies from just yeeting your data. At most they should be able to put it in RO mode to let you take it out.

Why bandaid fix it at the government level, when you can solve it right now by yourself: stop creating single points of failure. Store backups in multiple locations.

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

#69

Post by darby_eight »

Filligree wrote: post #26
dbspin wrote: post #19

This is terrifying. I'm a writer, and all my work is backed up on Google. Some of it likely only exists there. I'm literally shaking my head here in incredulity. How could anyone at Google have thought that this was a good idea?

From the rumor mill: The beta-reader reported the author for CP. I'm not sure there's much of a story here.

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

#70

Post by squirrel »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #59

How topical. My wife and I were having a freak out this morning about how vulnerable we are to having our lives choked out at Google's whims. They have no customer service, and delegate more and more to "AI" to manage these things. This has all been giving me anxiety since the time I had my Facebook account partially locked for over a month because I shared a picture of my son at the beach with no shirt on and their…

Google Takeout will give you an archive of your email (and everything else).
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