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Dear MG Siegler, Are you seriously upset about your photo?

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Re: Dear MG Siegler, Are you seriously upset about your photo?

#11

Post by earbitscom »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #5
[deleted] wrote: post #2

[deleted]

I have heard of people being thrown out of mall's because they were wearing an offensive t-shirt. I think the analogy that google+ is basically private property that is open to the public. The website isn't owned by the public instead it is owned by google. The point of google censoring offensive content is to not only follow their own rules but to make the company that provides this service to still look good and ke…

...and, to add to your point, as a not-public organization they build this product for company benefit. They let you do things on it that they benefit from. Why on earth would they be required to let you do things that are bad for their business?

Re: Dear MG Siegler, Are you seriously upset about your photo?

#15

Post by kevinh »

Stratego wrote: post #9

Really? An "'I hate white people' t-shirt" parallel? Don't even get me started on that atrocious "we don't need to see this" line of argumentation. If the Google+ is going to censor (let's call things by their proper names) pictures that "people don't need to see", where's the goddamned line? Imbecile. That such a poorly constructed argument makes its way to the Hacker News homepage is worrisome. I had the hope that…

The line is where they, as a company, decide to put it. I would not go to a social networking site that had gore or porn polluting my feeds. Similarly, you might not go to a website that disallows any content. That's our prerogative. It's facile to paint it as a free speech argument.

Re: Dear MG Siegler, Are you seriously upset about your photo?

#16

Post by nknight »

Punishker wrote: post #8

MySpace was never a cesspool... it's now a musician's website for posting about bands. The only thing more stupid than the internet comments on Hacker News is Google itself: the kings of know-it-all dumbasses!

The "dumbass" you're talking about co-founded MySpace, and I don't think he's ever had any professional link to Google.

Re: Dear MG Siegler, Are you seriously upset about your photo?

#17

Post by brador »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #5
[deleted] wrote: post #2

[deleted]

I have heard of people being thrown out of mall's because they were wearing an offensive t-shirt. I think the analogy that google+ is basically private property that is open to the public. The website isn't owned by the public instead it is owned by google. The point of google censoring offensive content is to not only follow their own rules but to make the company that provides this service to still look good and ke…

But, and I'm just throwing this out there so hold off on that downvote for a second, if a website has a comments section, doesn't such a feature act as something similar to a "town square"?

In which case, if a website has a comments section or other area where users can interact with one another, should that area be a "public" place, and allow free speech etc.?

Addition: since the purpose of free speech law is to allow anyone to say things that may well not be liked by an authority figure, companies being censors could act as a surprisingly effective loophole to free speech law. Just make all methods of communication between citizens pass through a company, who handles the censorship, leaving the tyrant free to go about their day.

Re: Dear MG Siegler, Are you seriously upset about your photo?

#18

Post by commnderkeen08 »

reso wrote: post #7

The TechCrunch crew has a long history of "calling out" major companies on their product decisions, in the absence of any of the data or context in which such complex decisions are made. P.S. I love how Tom has turned into the elder statesman of social networks.

Not to mention MG Siegler's long history of calling out Google. Always skeptical.

But totally loving the elder statesman analogy. Best part about Tom"s reply is his own humility--Myspace having "decent" technology.

Re: Dear MG Siegler, Are you seriously upset about your photo?

#19

Post by yanw »

When this sort of tech pundit makes himself the center of a non-story I do my best to ignore it, I recommend that everyone do the same. Tech blogging has deteriorated to parroting PR releases and slobbering over iStuff, I draw the line at appeasing the attention whores.

Re: Dear MG Siegler, Are you seriously upset about your photo?

#20

Post by twp »

tptacek wrote: post #3

He's not "seriously upset" about the photo. He thinks what's happening is ridiculous, and therefore took the time to ridicule it. He's clearly right. But it's not a moral crusade.

Tom Anderson gets it the wrong way round, and completely misses Siegler's point.

The question is not is why does Siegler care. He can reasonably expect to care: it's his photo attached to his personal profile and his photo is part of how he chooses to portray himself online. Siegler now knows that he cannot be himself on Google+, and now thousands of others know that they cannot be themselves on Google+ either.

The question is: why does Google care so much that about the minutae of how individuals choose to portray themselves while they face much greater problems related to the success or otherwise of their new social network?

Putting aside the spam problems that render Google+ at best noisy and at worse useless, if Google is so intolerant that it silently censors a hand gesture considered impolite in where their HQ is based, how else will they behave? Will they censor every gesture that might be considered offensive somewhere in the world (there are many)? Or will they remain purely focused on the North American hand gestures, and, by extension, North American culture and the limited audience that it brings?

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