Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work • Hacker News Board

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#361

Post by AWildDHHAppears » Fri, Jul 15, 2016, 9:49 PM UTC

parineum wrote: post #220

kennywinker wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still problematic, even if the work was distasteful or even illegal. There was no process involved, no chance for appeal, no explanation of the charges that precipitated it. If it truly is illegal materials that violate laws, then deleting it is deleting evidence and helping cover up crimes. If it was art that borders on distasteful to some then google is deciding taste and public values with private algorithms.…

But possession of child pornography is what's illegal. They very well may have reported the owner of the blog to the authorities but, in the mean time, google was both possessing and distributing the material. It's not that it's violating their TOS, it's that Google thought they may have been violating the law. EDIT: At least if that's what the content was.

It is astounding to contemplate that it's possible to type a series of English words which would be illegal to _possess_! Even if I was the only one to know about these words and, for example, kept them in a safe.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#362

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 15, 2016, 9:49 PM UTC

DavidWanjiru wrote: post #139

When my brother died in 2010, I posted to that effect on Facebook. Many friends (majority of them "real life," pre-Facebook/outside of Facebook friends) gave their condolences. Others called me. A few messaged me, etc. You get the picture. That correspondence was, and remains, important to me. Does Facebook own it? Can they delete it if they want to? Can they block me from accessing it? The answer, at least as far as…

[deleted]

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#363

Post by jasonkostempski » Fri, Jul 15, 2016, 9:51 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #213

modeless wrote: post #196

From Reddit: "I've read a few of Cooper's books and the short answer is yes, pedophilia is a common theme in his writing (as is incest and necrophilia)." [1] I'm calling it now. It was child porn. Google doesn't like to go around deleting people's stuff. When this has happened in the past it's been child porn, which Google is obligated by governments everywhere to delete with extreme prejudice. And of course they're…

It's still problematic, even if the work was distasteful or even illegal. There was no process involved, no chance for appeal, no explanation of the charges that precipitated it. If it truly is illegal materials that violate laws, then deleting it is deleting evidence and helping cover up crimes. If it was art that borders on distasteful to some then google is deciding taste and public values with private algorithms.…

I doubt they actually deleted the data.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#364

Post by PhantomGremlin » Fri, Jul 15, 2016, 9:58 PM UTC

webtechgal wrote: post #167

webtechgal wrote: post #28

This January 2016 crawl of the homepage at the WayBackMachine does show an adult content warning so presumably, that (the adult content) was not in violation of Google's TOS at least at that point in time: http://web.archive.org/web/20160125091732/http://denniscoope...

Ha! Found a copy of the home page at last, cached just yesterday!! For those curious enough, here is the link: http://106.10.137.112/search/srpcache?p=http%3A%2F%2Fdennisc...

Interesting find.

But now I'm really confused. That page still exists as of this minute: http://www.dennis-cooper.net

The link from the fusion.net story is: http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/

That blog does not exist. So maybe we're talking about two different things?

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#365

Post by rexpop » Fri, Jul 15, 2016, 10:01 PM UTC

hackits wrote: post #77

jagermo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not somewhat, but really, really relevant. Dude uploaded all his work to a service he did not control without having backups or plans to move to a self-hosted blog. Hell, he could have used wordpress.com if he didn't want the "hassle" of updating his installation. And on top he didn't have local backups? I mean, what if his hard drive had died? Would he have blamed WD or Seagate?

This makes me laugh my ass off. This is a bit of a pet peeve I have with people and modern technology. They believe they have a right to use a service even though they're not paying for the usage of the service. Then they turn around shocked and angry when the free service is removed. `Why! why did they do this to me, this is the biggest injustice! How un-professional of them!`. Kind of like the dicussion I have with…

we are paying. we have shared our IP with them, from which they profit. we are paying.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#366

Post by modeless » Fri, Jul 15, 2016, 10:04 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #213

modeless wrote: post #196

From Reddit: "I've read a few of Cooper's books and the short answer is yes, pedophilia is a common theme in his writing (as is incest and necrophilia)." [1] I'm calling it now. It was child porn. Google doesn't like to go around deleting people's stuff. When this has happened in the past it's been child porn, which Google is obligated by governments everywhere to delete with extreme prejudice. And of course they're…

It's still problematic, even if the work was distasteful or even illegal. There was no process involved, no chance for appeal, no explanation of the charges that precipitated it. If it truly is illegal materials that violate laws, then deleting it is deleting evidence and helping cover up crimes. If it was art that borders on distasteful to some then google is deciding taste and public values with private algorithms.…

> no process involved, no chance for appeal, no explanation of the charges

Child porn is not a TOS issue. It's a legal issue, and he has legal recourse. He can sue and get a judge or jury to decide his case. Google is doing what the law requires, so if you have a problem with that you have a problem with the law, not with Google.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#367

Post by resu_nimda » Fri, Jul 15, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

madmax96 wrote: post #349

resu_nimda wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This statement has no relevance to the conversation -- it doesn't magically produce any obligation for Google to act differently than it does. It's true that no obligation is created under our current legal structure, but I think the statement still has relevance. Your stance reminds of me people that said, in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis, "well those loans were legal and the people who defaulted were fre…

> It's true that no obligation is created under our > current legal structure, but I think the statement > still has relevance. Your stance reminds of me people > that said, in the wake of the subprime mortgage > crisis, "well those loans were legal and the people > who defaulted were free not to take them." Yes, that > is true, and we definitely would all be better off if > people took the accountability and persona…

I wouldn't dream of suggesting that access to data that you knowingly stored some place with questionable data persistence guarantees is as fundamental as access to water. You may disagree.

Personally I would like to see society move in this direction. The data persistence guarantees should not be questionable, they should be legally enforced. I'm pretty sure we could come up with some terms that aren't realistically that onerous to Google (and other providers), but give users some assurances.

We're treading new ground with the concept of digital goods that are extremely cheap to manufacture, distribute, and store, and this idea that ubiquitously useful services can be provided to everyone for free by extracting value from the data generated by their usage. In the pre-digital era, the government "ordering Google to supply a service at no charge" would probably be an untenable precedent, but today that could happen with almost negligible impact to their business, because it already operates like that.

You and I both probably agree that the cloud is a significantly easier approach to organizing, storing, and using data than traditional approaches.

This is exactly why we should recognize it as a public utility and endeavor to reduce the inherent dangers, just like we go to great effort to make clean water available instead of teaching everyone how to test and treat it themselves.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#368

Post by 67726e » Fri, Jul 15, 2016, 10:17 PM UTC

Sleaker wrote: post #322

67726e wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not the "soft delete" vs "hard delete" but their total lack of transparency or customer support. It doesn't matter to the end user the difference if all outward appearance is that the blog was deleted.

If there's any legal thing going on they wont be able to make any statements on it anyway...

They don't say a damned thing anytime your account gets nuked. Hell, when I tried buying a Nexus 4 it mysteriously never shipped and I only could get in touch with a robot support person. I said fuck it, cancelled the order, and went to a T-Mobile store. Never bothered to deal with them again.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#369

Post by Karunamon » Fri, Jul 15, 2016, 10:18 PM UTC

tener wrote: post #356

Karunamon wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Due to ongoing litigation we are unable to comment" would still be valuable in that case. Radio silence on the other hand, is not acceptable.

In some jurisdictions it is illegal to let your client know they are being secretely investigated. Such statement may interfere with the investigation - they may destroy the evidence etc.

If that's actually what's happening. Google's policy seems to be radio silence in all cases.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#370

Post by dietrichepp » Fri, Jul 15, 2016, 10:21 PM UTC

794CD01 wrote: post #310

janekm wrote: post #134

The fact that every single comment in this thread amounts to "should have backed up" makes me a little sad. Is this really what we want to expect from companies like Google? Is this acceptable? Is it just a "force of nature" that I should consider beyond the ken of man? What happened here is the abrogation of human responsibility onto algorithms, TOS, with no apparent human oversight. A very disturbing trend, and I t…

Yes, this is exactly what you should expect from a free service like Google's. No reliability, and no support. If you need an SLA, pay for one.

In addition, nobody sensible relies on an SLA. If I need 99.999% data integrity and you deliver that as your SLA, great! But if the SLA is violated, the contract probably gives you just some extra weeks on your contract for a violated SLA. That doesn't make me whole, I need to plan for SLA violations.