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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

#91

Post by mrtksn »

Wow, the state of freedom of speech is probably worse than the soviets ATM, since during the soviet times the speech scanning tech was primitive and the thought control was rudimentary and blunt.

Back in the old school totalitarian days at least your writings were banned after they were written.

Even 10 years ago it was fine, the worst was about blocking keywords and making printers refuse to print images of money.

What a sad state of affairs for the civilisation that used to claim to be about freedom not too long ago, even when The Matrix was released the internet was just catching on with the promise of global freedom. It turned into personalised police.

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

#92

Post by Hizonner »

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.

It's a "story" if any random idiot can make a random claim about your work and get you cut off.

For that matter, it's a "story" if you're exposed to judgements that affect your livelihood being made by automated crap and "reviewed" only by overworked near-slaves with almost no agency of their own.

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

#93

Post by wazoox »

BanazirGalbasi wrote: post #73
nicbou wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have never once had Nextcloud updates work properly. It doesn't matter if I update as soon as the new version is ready or if I wait long enough for my current version to go EoL, the updater breaks something critical and my instance is non-functional. Despite that, nextcloud/owncloud do what I want/need and I'm not sure if Syncthing does. So I keep stubbornly re-trying and just spin up a new instance when the old on…

Weird, I've been running and updating NextCloud since version 13, and I never had any problems as long as I didn't try to upgrade 2 release up at once and carefully applied the recommended database updates, etc.

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

#94

Post by coderpath »

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.

Richard Stallman has entered the chat...

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

#95

Post by Cthulhu_ »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #79
nickelpro wrote: post #62

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…

Why is it reasonable?

For one example, Florida introduced a law enforcing age verifications for pornographic content; it's easier to prohibit using a platform to distribute said content, than to introduce a content rating and age verification system.

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

#97

Post by shoelessone »

gcr wrote: post #78
nickelpro wrote: post #62

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…

That’s not what the author wrote. A popup said her account was frozen. See the last screenshot. “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. Atter processing the appeal, a pop up said my account was frozen pending review. My assumption is after the review I'l…

I have no position here but reading this a few times (and not digging further for additional context) it's unclear of what the situation is here, at least to me.

> ... I cannot access any of mine to check at the moment ...

"at the moment" makes it sound like they were not on a computer, or out to eat or something where they couldn't easily check?

> ...I downloaded everything to my laptop before I submitted an appeal...

Makes it sound like they still have access to their account and were able to access the content in order to download a copy?

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

#98

Post by throwaway220033 »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #28

The other day, I saw a movie scene on YouTube where a guy is knife-fighting with another guy. There is a stab in the throat at the end, where all the life drains from his face. Blood is gushing and we see a human being kill another human being. I really don't understand why Google (and Western society) condones this sort of content while having a near zero-tolerance policy towards sex and love. But I figured it out t…

[flagged]

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

#99

Post by koolba »

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.

It’s not a backup when it’s the primary (and only!) copy.

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

#100

Post by Cthulhu_ »

diggan wrote: post #3
Zambyte wrote: post #2

Google repeatedly letting it be known that they are simply a huge liability.

American companies are prudes, as the country tends to lean that way, nothing new really. Seems people never learn though, which is more worrisome.

The companies are prudes because the countries they operate in, as well as the payment providers they use, have laws and regulations regarding age-rated content.

Having terms & conditions and blocking users that violate them is easier than dealing with the legal problems that may cause them.

Restricting access entirely is another way, like what US based websites do for EU based visitors, or what Pornhub does for Florida.

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