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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?

#61

Post by tptacek »

jxi wrote: post #49
tptacek wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait. Wait. Wait. I'm not wading into the "debate" about whether Google can or should mess with people's profile photos. I could care less. I'm saying: It is clearly ridiculous for Google to be policing profile photos looking for people flipping other people the bird . Right? Wrong? Who cares? It's ridiculous. It can't possibly work. By doing it, Google sends a message that they're fundamentally unserious about takin…

I read most of the guy's article, I think, but I might have missed this last point you're making. I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying it's too technically difficult to do it (via machine learning or whatever) or there would be too many false positives? If there's one company that doesn't usually use humans to do any kind of spam filtering, it's probably Google. Also, I'm pretty sure they'd work out the kinks ev…

Both of those, and also: the amount of effort it takes, for no benefit whatsoever. They're doing it because they don't know what they're doing yet. It's not a moral outrage. It's a "tell".

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

#62

Post by MatthewPhillips »

joshu wrote: post #26

This page reliably crashes safari on my iPad 1. Does anyone else have this problem or am I going insane?

Me too. It happens only after scrolling though. Seems really odd that Google doesnt QA it's products on the iPad.

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

#63

Post by MaysonL »

jxi wrote: post #45
mike-cardwell wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I'm concerned, if a service you like, does something you dislike, you should complain, and you should tell people about it. Especially if the service is used by tens of millions of people and is growing at the rate that Google+ is. It sounds like you disagree with this though. Why? Why do you think he should have kept his mouth shut? "this is already the standard for any currently popular social network" An…

He's not complaining about anything that anyone has a problem with (ok maybe SOME people do want to see people giving them the finger in their stream). He's just whining about G+ like he always does, like a baby. Your general statements don't apply here. If you want to argue, then tell me why you want to see people flicking you off on G+ and why you think that's something that should be OK for everyone.

Let me put it this way: if somebody's profile picture bugs me, and it appears in my stream more than a couple times, that's on me. It's quite simple to take somebody out of your circles, and even to block them completely.

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

#64

Post by redcap »

9999 wrote: post #35
twp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 q…

There are public sections of G+ and private sections. If you have a private album limited to 4chan buddies or whatever with tubgirl, goatse, the lemon party, etc. and they took that down, I would find issue with it. But if you've got goatse as your public profile picture, that is an issue that Google has to deal with. I use those examples not because they are directly comparable to what Siegler put up, but because I…

So what if people are horribly offended? Let them be offended. It's not like anything bad will happen. "Someone flipped me the bird, I found it offensive and the next morning I had leprosy!" (Riffing off Steve Hughes, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cycXuYzmzNg watch this, it's pretty much my whole argument)

It's a finger for fuck's sake. It's not hurting anyone. If you're offended by it you really need to grow up and stop living in 19th century Victorian England.

Yes, pictures of dicks and gore is disgusting, but a finger? That's just childish, and reacting to that is also childish.

The adult thing is to just ignore it.

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

#65

Post by Pedrom »

Sorry but I still don't understand why deleting that picture is such big deal? Google has the right to build their community with the rules that they want and the people eager to accept those rules. Mr Sieger has also the right to complain and he did so that should close the case right?

I made an analogy yesterday between this site and reddit and the differences between the cultures on both sites. A lot of people downvote that post (not sure why because I wasn't say anything offensive) and that's the kind of things that you have to accept in social sites... There are rules.. You either accept them or just move on...

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

#66

Post by freehunter »

zerostar07 wrote: post #58
yanw wrote: post #19

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.

Can you suggest a news aggregator that is not frequented by the usual bullies?

Ars Technica, for the most part. Sometimes they get a little editorial, but they're far better than most others.

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

#68

Post by user-id »

redcap wrote: post #64
9999 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are public sections of G+ and private sections. If you have a private album limited to 4chan buddies or whatever with tubgirl, goatse, the lemon party, etc. and they took that down, I would find issue with it. But if you've got goatse as your public profile picture, that is an issue that Google has to deal with. I use those examples not because they are directly comparable to what Siegler put up, but because I…

So what if people are horribly offended? Let them be offended. It's not like anything bad will happen. "Someone flipped me the bird, I found it offensive and the next morning I had leprosy!" (Riffing off Steve Hughes, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cycXuYzmzNg watch this, it's pretty much my whole argument) It's a finger for fuck's sake. It's not hurting anyone. If you're offended by it you really need to grow up and…

It's a finger for fuck's sake, so get over it.

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

#69

Post by billpatrianakos »

Tom makes a great point here. Policies are policies and the difference is that this policy actually has action behind it. Oh well. Social networks don't really hide their policies and this one isn't all that radical at that. If you don't like it, find another service or comply with the rules, (or if you're really that stressed about it make your own social network).

If some random 16 year old from Middle-O-Nowhere Indiana complained on his blog about the same thing we wouldn't even read past the first paragraph. But MG Siegler does it and it becomes a real issue? The only difference between Siegler and the hypothetical teenager is that Siegler is well known and can write so his tantrum gets play.

Really, the issue of the offensive profile picture shouldnt be the issue at all. The issue should be whether Siegler is allowed to use his notoriety to dupe us into thinking this is an issue worthy of discussion.

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

#70

Post by methodin »

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.

Maybe he should stop to think that more than one person could have reported the photo. It would then be google's obligation to remove it because at that point you could not justify NOT removing it.
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