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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

#161

Post by soraminazuki »

aqme28 wrote: post #89
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…

I understand the idea behind banning sexually explicit writing, but that basically means that large large percentage of literature cannot use Google services. Anyone writing a novel basically shouldn’t use docs in case they might someday want to include sex in their writing.

Yeah, share "1984" and get ready to be banned from Google because guess what Winston does with Julia in the novel?

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

#162

Post by mjburgess »

nottorp wrote: post #142
mjburgess wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching violent films doesn't make you violent. Watching sexual content does (occasionally) make you want to have sex. There really isnt anything more to it than that. People who want to censor sexual content are accurately assessing its disposition to arouse audiences; and accurately assessing violent film's disposition to induce catharsis.

Citation needed...

It's a very easy experiment. Feel free to use yourself as a test subject.

I don't anticipate a murder.

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

#163

Post by perihelions »

For the curious, here's what Google's official corporate communications on this general topic were, back in 2015:

- "Until today, Google's Blogger platform previously allowed "images or videos that contain nudity or sexual activity," and stated that "Censoring this content is contrary to a service that bases itself on freedom of expression."

https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-bans-explicit-adult-con...

Everything surrounding this current zeitgeist is a recent cultural development. It was not always this way.

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

#164

Post by btbuildem »

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…

Violence is one of the key tools of the exploitative capitalist system. Society (as we have it set up) wouldn't function without a means of oppression, and so it is widely celebrated in popular culture.

I'm not saying it's some wild conspiracy, it's just the side effects of it being one of the core mechanisms of the society we live in - it resonates throughout.

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

#165

Post by gcr »

shoelessone wrote: post #97
gcr wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Your point about "at the moment" makes sense. I should have considered that when submitting.

However, the point about downloading to her laptop is consistent with her story.

Here's what we definitively know:

1. First, something about her ability to share her docs was disabled, but in a way that still left them accessible to her;

2. She then submitted an appeal;

3. Upon submitting the appeal, her account was summarily frozen pending review, and her docs were no longer accessible to her.

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

#166

Post by struant »

danpalmer wrote: post #127
zb3 wrote: post #82

What's wrong with sexually explicit content? Is Google controlled by Taliban or something?

Google operates in many countries and is subject to many laws. Even in the US websites need to check whether you're over 18 to view (or read?) pornography, and Google Docs does not appear to have an age check at 18. Do you think this is an important feature that Docs should be working on? I'm not sure I do personally.

You don't have to be 18 to read smutty literature.

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

#167

Post by philistine »

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.

Don't write your smut on someone else's computer. If they're American, at some point the puritans will come knocking at the door.

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

#168

Post by snakeyjake »

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?

If HN can prohibit explicit content, why not Google?

It's their servers, they can do with them what they want.

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

#169

Post by namaria »

jupp0r wrote: post #123
namaria wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Violence is channeled by western society as a righteous vengeance. Sex is channeled as the reproductive force of nuclear families. It's not that one is celebrated and the other oppressed. Violence against the innocent is always punished by a righteous warrior. And sex is not condemned. It is celebrated in the context of long term coupling to raise children. Promiscuity and non-reproductive sex is therefore seen as th…

There is plenty of scientific evidence out there that even people in western rural areas enjoy sex because it's fun.

Mainstream cultural mores as reflected in media is not the same as the values of everyone in a society.

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

#170

Post by BanazirGalbasi »

wazoox wrote: post #93
BanazirGalbasi wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you run many plugins, or do you keep it fairly stock? I'm beginning to wonder if that could be some of the issue, even though the upgrade guidelines include instructions on upgrading plugins. My setup has otherwise been pretty simple (single host for db and web server hidden behind a separate reverse proxy) and I follow the upgrade guidelines as closely as possible (which is usually exactly). Restoring from a backup doesn't work either because it thinks I'm trying to downgrade the version, which isn't supported.

I just spun up a new instance, I'll see if keeping it simple works for me. It's also on a VM now so I can take a snapshot and roll back to that if it breaks rather than relying on the faulty backup steps.

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