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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

#171
post #44

The currently linked site is just a forum post, which links to Instagram, which is a screenshot of a discord chat. Instagram has the screenshots at least: https://www.instagram.com/sloan_spencer_author/p/C48JN_TrvxO... It does look like the author just lost access to docs they shared with others, not their entire account. Author is currently appealing. We have seen this kind of thing in the past. Drive has to be care…

Care to explain what exactly "may be illegal" in this case?

the writing

please read the post before asking questions in bad faith

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

#172
post #49

Something related I’ve been wondering about is the change in language catalyzed by social media companies and their morality / fear of advertisers. You see it especially in TikTok videos. When people aren’t straight up censoring themselves with bleeps, dead audio, or cuts, they use euphemisms instead: kill -> unalive, rape -> grape, sex -> seggs. Even more concerning is that what is considered in need of censoring is…

There's a lot of this to be found everywhere on the Internet. People have recently taken to spelling offensive and/or censored words backwards, and there's a lot of bigotry and racism on social media that gets through automated detection this way.

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

#173
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.

Terraria's dev being (temporarily) burnt by this was the catalyst for my de-googling. There are high-quality alternatives for everything.

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

#174
post #124

Companies need to stop being morality police

Do they also need to stop meeting legal obligations such as age verification for distributing/viewing sexually explicit material?

Legal obligations morality police and you know it

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

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

your local law probably has a different opinion on that

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

#176
How about a law that states:

  If a business profits from the personal data of its users, then it must back up their data for a duration (say 3 years after upload) and make that data available to them, even if it removes that data from public access due to terms of service (TOS) violations. Failure to do so would result in the business being dissolved, this clause would mainly be to protect stakeholders who go out of business and can't afford to maintain backups.
This would work similarly to how a bank must be FDIC insured to lend out its customer deposits. Data is money in the information age and needs similar protections, especially with the rise of AI and profits generated from derivative works. A business which refuses to follow this law would be unaccredited, meaning that Google would be unaccredited in this case, so probably nobody should be using their services.

IANAL, but personally I might extend this to work something like personally identifiable information (PII) laws, where all of the user's data is considered private, but part or all of it may be shared publicly under the TOS which the user agrees to. The sharing would be at the discretion of the business, but the data would always belong to the user under copyright law until proven otherwise. The process of proving copyright ownership would first require full sharing of the data back to the user under court discovery laws.

The crux of the matter is that we have laws preventing the sharing of PII, but to my knowledge we don't have laws that protect access to a user's own information. Which seems doubly odd since companies profit from that data. Holding a user's data for ransom so that a business can make money from it seems akin to extortion, although I can't find the exact word for it.

Maybe the California Consumer Privacy Act of (CCPA) or similar laws could be extended to protect access to one's own information?

https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa

https://www.neighborhoodindicators.org/sites/default/files/c... (pdf)

Apologies if what I'm suggesting already exists, in which case filing a lawsuit should be straightforward.

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

#177
post #156

It sounds like the author got her account suspended after sharing ("distributing" in Google's view) the book's sexually explicit content. Here is Google's Program Policies document that their Terms of Service references: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/148505#zippy=%2Csexua... The section about Sexually Explicit Material says: > Do not distribute content that contains sexually explicit material, such as nudity…

probably an automation fuckup as this is clearly "artistic" in nature

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

#178
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Flor…

I think the prudence is why the US have those laws, regulations and morals, not the other way around which you seem to point towards.

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

#179
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.…

[deleted]

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

#180

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]

By "the non-woke parts of the world", you mean the parts with less advanced technology, less per-capita economic production by every measure, less personal security, less general education of the populace, and just generally less of every possible benefit of having "a civilization".

And by "always" you mean times with less of all those things.

You're not very good at this...

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