
It appears my Google account is slated for deletion - harryh
https://alexaobrien.com/archives/3647
======
KGIII
Well, she is easier to defend than Nazis. So, here I go...

Freedom of expression, not just free speech the legal concept, should be a
societal goal. Google has every right, legally, to delete this stuff. However,
in an ideal world, they'd do no such thing and would let people judge based on
the merits of the message.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd like to work towards that ideal
world.

Maybe the solution is enabling people to realistically host content
themselves, on their own property, and just ensuring the ISP is nothing but a
dumb pipe? Maybe the solution is distributed content and P2P networks?

Either way, the continued aggressive censorship by Google, while their legal
right, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They can do it, but I don't have to
like it.

That said, if anyone can think of something that I can do to help, I'm all
ears.

~~~
sbov
How tightly bound we are to just a few large tech companies is... unfortunate.

I would love it if it were easier for the common person to host their own
stuff. Between all the concerns involved (security, hardware, demand, etc.)
I'm not sure how feasible it is. I've given it a lot of thought, and have
slowly unwound my custom tech setups - from domains, to emails, to hardware.
Mostly for the "bus" factor. When my dad died, my mom let his computer sit
untouched for years. At some point I transferred the files on it to my
computer so they wouldn't disappear forever. But still, a decade later, and
it's just sitting there. She never bothers to turn it on.

I have a family, and my wife is not technical in the slightest. If I were to
be gone tomorrow, there's no way she would have a clue as to what to do. My #1
barometer for everything I use in life is how easy it is for her to use
things.

It's interesting to me how temporary and inaccessible our digital lives
actually are.

~~~
glenstein
This is a great point, because I think it shows that people who are trying to
redefine the contours of the standard free speech conversation (which had
historically been about freedom from government imposed limits) are attempting
to solve the wrong problem.

The problem is dependence on huge monolithic tech platforms, such that we feel
that the societal value of free expression is threatened by the standard forms
moderation that we had accepted as normal for most of the history of the
internet.

Now, the ability to moderate carries a significant amount of power in a way
that didn't use to be the case. And some people, looking over the available
options and the effort required to pursue them, would now prefer to resign
themselves to permanent dependence on huge monolithic platforms and just focus
on making sure those platforms are not engaging in moderation.

But this is hugely problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which
is that moderation at least sometimes offers a genuine good to users because
toxic, manipulative, illegal behaviors that undermine the platform are
removed. There's a "societal value" in having flourishing discourse that isn't
compromised by the toxicity that would naturally occur without moderation. And
there is good reason to not want to make that sacrifice.

Either side offers a distasteful sacrifice. So maybe the answer is to try and
bypass the dilemma by making non-centralized communication more accessible, so
that people like your wife (or my mom, or my dad's entire side of the family)
don't have to make that kind of choice.

~~~
jdietrich
There's also a very blurry line between a common carrier and a publisher.
Social media platforms don't want to be liable for content published on their
site, but they also want the right to delete content at their own discretion.
Somehow, the courts have granted them this wish.

The USPS has a similar monopoly to YouTube, but they're obliged to transport
any printed material that is legal. There's no hidden algorithm that shreds
letters containing the wrong keywords. There's no team of Indian outsourcers
searching your mail for content that breaches an arbitrary set of rules.
Nobody but a court can prohibit you from using their service.

I think we collectively need to decide whether social media services are
publishers or common carriers. The present ambiguity over their status gives
them an unreasonable degree of power with unreasonably little responsibility.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The USPS has a similar monopoly to YouTube

No, the USPS has a legally-protected monopoly, where alternative services are
_prohibited_ from competing with certain core functions.

Alternative web video distribution services are not prohibited, and there are
several that specialize in content that is unwelcome on YouTube.

> The present ambiguity over their status

What ambiguity? They are active distribution agents (neither publishers nor
common carriers, in that regard, though they are often also publishers, more
like bookstores).

It only seems “ambiguous” when framed with a false dichotomy.

~~~
stale2002
The ambiguity is that facebook and youtube can't be sued for hosting illegal
content. They are not responsible for user created content.

Yet, even though they have many of the legal protections of being a pseudo
common carrier, they have none of the obligations, such as the obligation to
treat all content equally.

For example, it is illegal for your phone provider to eaves drop on your
conversations and censor your phone conversations.

But it is NOT illegal for facebook to do the same thing. Why are they treated
differently?

~~~
dragonwriter
> The ambiguity is that facebook and youtube can't be sued for hosting illegal
> content.

Taking that as unvarnished truth [0], for the sake of argument, that's not at
all an ambiguity, it's a crystal clear status.

> Yet, even though they have many of the legal protections of being a pseudo
> common carrier, they have none of the obligations, such as the obligation to
> treat all content equally.

Again, taking that as true for the sake of argument, its not an ambiguity, but
a crystal clear status.

Its a conflict with the false dichotomy of the idea that the only two roles in
information dissemination are fully-liable non-neutral publisher and fully-
immunized neutral common carrier. That model isn't true offline, and it's not
true online.

[0] Which it isn't, because while the CDA and DMCA (and others) provide some
limited/conditional protection, they are not a total bar to liability; but the
still the status is not ambiguous, merely _distinct_.

------
quuquuquu
Help me understand-

Alexa O'Brien has a Youtube account with many hours of video.

She also has a google account, drive, etc.

Some of her videos contained material that Google (being Google), didn't like.

Despite the fact that it was all very important journalism, Google arbitrarily
decided it was #extremism, therefore #banned.

I would say that 5 years ago I would have been shocked and outraged, but
lately I just absolutely am not surprised by Google anymore.

I hope Alexa kept local copies but I'm imagining maybe she didn't. At the very
least she is losing all of the views and PR associated with her channel.

If you do have local copies, please try to publish elsewhere!

Google is on a crusade to demonitize any video it doesn't like, so it can keep
dwindling ad money flowing to only the people it chooses.

Good luck, how can we help??

~~~
projectant
This happens. It's not good that it happens but we must expect it to happen.

What power to we have?

Change our perspective.

These online services which area now beginning to dip their toes into
censorship / advertiser-hedged editorializing, are not to be seen as reliable
ubiquitous platforms existing for the convenience of all. As much as they
perhaps want to be seen as such, their actions belie this.

They are closed niches with particular stances, and their loyalty is never to
us, despite marketing.

And we can treat them as such, we will be okay.

Backup your things. Use multiple providers. Use multiple accounts, a burner
account for content against their editorial stance, and a longer lived account
for other things. Run your own services. If you despise this state of affairs
so greatly, form your own business services, and ape to take some of their
market.

Tl;dr they are not our friends. Stop expecting them to not betray us, expect
betrayal, and keep them at an appropriate distance.

Don't complain. Just start doing it if you want to protect yourself against
it. I think github and npm can be included in this.

~~~
cm2187
I am a big fan of run your own services. But when I do the maths, the cost is
uneconomical for the average user. And the complexity already too high even
for my own taste. Like configuring a mail server is hard.

~~~
jmaa
Well, it's a trade-off between comfort and privacy. You should self-host what
you are capable of and deem of higest importance / privacy.

To upgrade from gmail, you don't even to jump directly to self-hosting. There
are pay-to-use email-providers, who treat you like the customer, not the
product. Similar services exist for video, etc.

------
0xCMP
In a lot of ways this kind of stuff is what we were warned about by many
including the FSF. Cloud software you don't control, or which knows a lot
about you, can be used to censor you.

Always better to self-host and backup/distribute via the cloud as a secondary
method. Easier said than done though.

~~~
tpeo
Yeah, lots of people saw this coming light-years away.

People really should stop ignoring the TOS.

~~~
drama-queen
Society really should stop tolerating this type of TOS.

~~~
Natanael_L
Self hosting will always be the more reliable solution in cases like this

~~~
nextlevelwizard
Even then they just take your domain name away from you. You are always
reliant on big corporations for your Internet connection, be it hosting
provider, domain name registrar, search engine, or Internet service provider

~~~
Natanael_L
Namecoin, Tor / I2P, CJDNS, whatever. It's still possible to be reached as
long as you have internet connectivity.

------
digdigdag
Google seems to be doing a very fine job of showing that it is has reached
monopoly status for way too many verticals. They're getting way comfortable in
their success, and this is exemplified in the certain level of hubris they
exemplify in their practices. Google Jigsaw is one such example. I really do
hope the DOJ gets serious about the anti-trust implications and takes them to
task at some point. I think we're in need of another Bell Systems-esque anti-
trust breakup.

~~~
andriesm
They don't like your vids, the delete your EMAIL account?????!!!!!

------
Mtinie
Resolved.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/carwinb/status/907778135957131265](https://mobile.twitter.com/carwinb/status/907778135957131265)

~~~
banned1
[https://twitter.com/DeadPrecariat/status/907778635817521152](https://twitter.com/DeadPrecariat/status/907778635817521152)

This person asks that she "demands answers."

Since when are beggars choosers? Google is free. Did we really expect a
different behavior from them?

~~~
wallace_f
Free in the most obvious sense, but they still profit off of you.

~~~
jldugger
When I checked a few years ago, Youtube was still not actually profitable.
There's a reason it's owned by the company that spins off so much free cash it
doesn't know what to do with it all, I guess.

~~~
wallace_f
Google's parent company, Alphabet is hugely profitable.

------
iampims
Someone's gotta do something about Google. While they can't be responsible for
someone putting all their eggs in the same basket, their terrible customer
support policies can really ruin someone's work beyond repair.

~~~
Clubber
The biggest problem with Google isn't that they can delete YouTube videos or
your Google+ account, it's that they can virtually erase you from the web
through their search domination.

~~~
severine
Serious question: what are some examples of great content virtually erased
from the web by search engines?

~~~
userbinator
Great and _obscure_ content --- that you'd most want a search engine to find,
tends to be at most risk. For one example, I've noticed that finding
information on obscure electronics part numbers has gotten much harder, and
the search results are getting "diluted" with useless "fillter" results that
don't even contain all the words you're searching for.

Example queries I've had poor luck with recently:

    
    
        TVN_DELETEITEM recursive (count how many first-page results contain TVN_DELETEITEM)
        ITU T.800 (count how many are about T.800 and not E.800 or P.800 or X.800 or...)

~~~
AnssiH
If you want exact word matches only, you need to use quotes:

    
    
        "TVN_DELETEITEM" "recursive"
        "ITU" "T.800"

~~~
0xcde4c3db
Google still treats most punctuation as spaces within phrase searches. For
example, the latter search would match a sentence/clause transition like
"ITU-T: 800 items". There are enough results actually mentioning T.800 that
you probably won't see that, but if it's a genuinely rare phrase you can end
up with multiple pages completely full of useless results. For example, there
was an article posted to HN a while back in which an interviewee mentioned
"race liberals" as a political alignment. When I tried searching for this
phrase, Google almost exclusively matched "race, liberals" and "race.
Liberals".

------
jedberg
Google's remediation systems are terrible. If you can't convince their
algorithm you're a good person, you're out of luck.

My adwords account has been locked _for 15 years_ despite my repeated appeals
(they seem to let me appeal about once every five years).

I have no idea why it's locked and no one will tell me nor fix it.

So I have a separate adwords account which annoyingly I cannot tie to my
primary gmail account because apparently at some point _after_ it was locked
they got tied together.

~~~
Danihan
And you're someone with some SV credibility and savviness, imaging what it's
like for a typical scrub.

------
donalhunt
The following articles may be of help:

1)
[https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/40695](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/40695)

2)
[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802168?hl=en](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802168?hl=en)

Despite claims in this thread that Google likes to do things without due
process and clear guidelines, the reality is that something like an account
deletion is both pretty rare and not done lightly (you'll see that in some of
the language in support articles and T&Cs related to this course of action).
Product managers and engineers put a lot of thought into how to identify
accounts that only exist to provide content that break TOS vs a case like
this.

In this case, it's not clear if it's the YouTube account or the Google account
that has been flagged for deletion (support articles suggest there is a
distinction). Either way, support articles indicate that rationale for the
action taken would have been provided to the user.

With regard the "how to escalate?" issue: The company still struggles with
corner cases like this. When you're building systems that cater for billion+
users, you have to look at systematic ways to deal with incoming requests such
that the set of requests that need human intervention is as small as possible
(assuming you don't want a company with millions of employees). At the end of
the day, it's a balancing act and I personally feel that Google's approach is
sane. Unfortunately that means a small number of users do get a bad
experience.

Disclaimer: I worked at Google for over a decade. I am aware of some of the
process and legality decisions that go into how these type of things are
structured internally. I did not work in the area of abuse or policy.

~~~
chippy
>I worked at Google for over a decade.

Thanks for your comment.

I would like to hear from people who work from Google right now. The policies
and priorities have changed. Their approaches have changed. It has changed
since many people have worked there. I very much doubt anyone from youtube
will speak up here, even with a throwaway.

~~~
donalhunt
I only left ~ 2 months ago so it probably hasn't changed that much in that
time. ;)

------
cft
New Google (after the founders retired to Alphabet) are trying to instill a
simple notion: what you think is yours is actually ours, it doesn't belong to
you. Post a YouTube video, expect it to be taken down. Do not embed third
party YouTube videos: your website will be broken when Google takes them down.
Do not develop Android apps as a small dev: they can be deleted from Play
Store on a whim. Do not monetize your site with AdSense: you will lose revenue
with no human recourse. Hopefully general public will get this notion sooner
than later.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Dumb of them, good for us. I mean, the whole business of the cloud is based on
your users/customers _not_ realizing that...

------
gavanwoolery
Normally I try to rule out conspiracy theories, but this one is pretty
interesting. A video being removed I could understand, but deleting an entire
Google account seems like a rather extreme measure, and I wonder who is really
pulling the strings here. I could certainly think of motives for doing so.

~~~
jdietrich
> I wonder who is really pulling the strings here

With 99.9% confidence, I'm saying an algorithm. It isn't unusual for a company
to automatically delete accounts that seriously breach their ToCs; the unique
problem with Google is that their ecosystem is so large and pervasive.

~~~
anotherbrownguy
The "algorithm" seems very much in bed with American military industry.

~~~
chippy
It is more in line with American foreign policy and their interior civil
service (anti-extremism globally and pushing against the new right at home)

------
hedora
I met Google's chief censor years ago. That department used to be proudly
pushing the boundaries of minimum compliance (censor nothing, and work with
foreign governments until that's legal).

It is sad to see how far they have fallen.

------
hellbanner
This is the frog in the boiling pot.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14998429](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14998429)
"Youtube AI deletes war crime evidence as 'extremist material'"

------
colordrops
My spidey sense is tingling here. With Assange's exposition of Google as an
arm of the US State Department [1] and the US's ever changing alliances with
various rebel groups in the middle east, including the Taliban and Al Qaeda
[2] [3], it's not a stretch to believe that Google has an agenda beyond
monetization in the particular content it hides.

[1] [http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-
seems-279...](http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_to_Osama_bin_Laden)

[3] [http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syrian-
rebel-g...](http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syrian-rebel-groups-
glance-20140912-story.html)

------
TwelveNights
This is Google being Google... They really need to improve their customer
support processes; especially when people have so much stake in their
products. Losing a Youtube account sucks, losing an entire Google account is
the nail in the coffin.

------
aerotwelve
Your data is not safe unless you have a local backup that you control. Don't
trust Google (or any one cloud storage provider); they haven't earned it.

------
drderidder
I'm afraid this is what happens when the exercise of democratic freedoms is
cordoned within the platforms of corporations who have no duty to uphold them.
Google's unilateral suspension of AdSense accounts without reason or recourse
has brought this realization to lots of people on a less overt level.

------
andy_ppp
I hope any Googlers here are attempting to help internally and at the very
least 1) not to destroy all of her work 2) allow her to publish controversial
things because of the context.

As for my opinion I think this is horrendous, that Stallman is right and that
Google and it’s staff should be ashamed at this attempt to destroy deep and
important journalistic work. It’s hardly like it’s not in character.

I will now attempt to not use Google services which is going to be a
challenge.

------
xupybd
Wow I get they don't want the videos on their site but banning all of the
users other services seems very over the top. They're a private company they
can do what they want but this is not a good way to do business.

------
londons_explore
If your Google account is suspended, then deletion of the contents after a set
number of days is required by various laws and legal precidents for your own
privacy. Google cannot hold your private data on an ongoing basis without
letting you access it.

Your only chance will be getting the account unsuspended before the timer runs
out.

~~~
mnw21cam
> Google cannot hold your private data on an ongoing basis without letting you
> access it.

Has anyone mentioned this to Facebook? I think they hold quite a lot of
information about me, and because I don't have an account, I presumably can't
access it.

~~~
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
I think in the EU and USA you can request all information a company has about
you. Not sure how this would work without an identifier, though. You could
send all your personal information to them so they can check if they store
something about but this feels icky.

------
redm
I'm sad for the user, but every time I read this type of story I'm hopeful it
may be an inflection point; maybe people will wake up to Google, how
integrated it is in our lives, and how big of a black box it is. If nothing
else, its one more brick in the wall.

------
Mugwort
Censorship doesn't serve the interests of Google nor the government.

If Google deactivates accounts then Google loses data. In big data it's best
practice to keep everything, discard nothing. Government loses an opportunity
for surveillance which could potentially be important. Why would we for
example shut down White Supremacist accounts when doing so removes the
possibility of keeping tabs on them. It makes them quieter, has a chilling
effect and their activities go underground. Where's the benefit in that? By
closing "bad" accounts like Right Wing white supremacy groups the public never
sees their material which unless you happen to be one of them always
discredits them. Censoring these unpopular groups only protects them from
discrediting themselves from the larger public and we lose valuable clues or
evidence in the event someone is plotting a crime or has already committed a
crime.

In this particular story involving Manning, Google shutting down an account
with information critical of the government makes Google and the government
look bad. It does more harm to their public image than good. This material has
already been available for a very long time and nothing new is learned. Why
bother to censor? Neither Google nor the government stand to gain anything and
only open themselves up to lose.

For all the censorship Google or the government engages in, in practice
nothing of substance is ever covered up anyway.

------
bostonvaulter2
What are some good alternative email accounts to use? I should really start
decreasing my dependence on Google.

~~~
jdietrich
Anything, so long as your e-mail address is on a domain name you own and you
back up your inbox via IMAP. If both of those are in place, you're not really
dependent on your mail provider at all, because you can switch just by
changing a DNS record. If you lose the use of an e-mail address on someone
else's domain, then you've got a serious problem.

~~~
snerbles
This works until a registrar revokes your domain name.

~~~
Spivak
It's turtles all the way down at this point. The reality is that you can't get
content on the internet without the approval of at least a few entities.

If/Until the culture changes the best practical advice is to make sure that
those few entities are distanced from your message that they won't be
pressured to take it down.

~~~
AstralStorm
Well, nobody can ban a hidden website yet (.onion or .i2p).

However barrier of entry there is still a bit high and they're still
vulnerable to attacks, hosts don't want anything to do with them either.

------
patrickg_zill
At some point an "internet death penalty" will have to called for Google's
behavior, should they continue down this path .

That will be very very interesting...

------
wvh
Right now most information dissemination seems to happen through commercial or
state actors. Neither appears to be very reliable regarding neutrality and
impartiality. There are also political and religious platforms that don't
inspire much confidence either in that regard. Maybe academic platforms still
have some independence, but those are mostly aimed towards scientific studies
most so than contemporary news items.

Where would one host "news" or data that most platforms aren't eager to
support for one reason or another? Where do you publish an article critical of
the state in countries where the media is state-owned, or critical of
corporations that sponsor the media outlets?

This bias problem might be one of the most tricky things for mankind to solve,
even though it would seem it should turn out to be equally important for
anybody regardless of one's position at either end of whatever spectrum.

------
ksec
While it was an unpopular opinion, that was what Cloudflare's Mathew Prince
has been saying all along. When do you draw the line? How do you define xxxxx.
I read in US, Police can take away your cash / processions if you are
suspected of XXXX.I guess similar mentality is happening.

HDD is Cheap, SoC is Cheap, We are only lacking the software to have a
Personal Cloud where your Photo, Video, Email, or other Files are Stored on
BOTH the cloud AND your Home Mini Server. I paid a small fees to have the data
on cloud for being accessible and as backup. I was rather hoping Apple could
do that with Time Capsule. Since OSX Server already caches your iCloud Files.
But I guess most company are too deep rooted into this recurring
"Subscription" model they dont actually want you to own anything.

------
tezza
sorry to hear your predicament. sadly there is more of this type of thing in
the pipeline and it is time to stop using google provided services

1) migrate videos to LiveLeak.com

2) migrate email services somewhere else.

i don't have a specific recommendation, perhaps some other HNer would proffer
a solid choice

------
throw2016
The kind of content required by researchers, documenting current events,
relooking at historical events with current information is always going be
hugely controversial according to different POVs.

This kind of content will require its own network not reliant or subject to
the whims of business interests or the rules of any single nation. Infact it's
essential this content is not located on platforms offered by increasingly
compromised and arbitrary SV companies prone to lip service to free speech
when convenient.

There is enough funding in the world to create this than rely on companies
like Google and the content should simply move from youtube.

------
gkanai
It sounds like her blog post got her noticed by Google, so that's good.

However, for cases like these, where you have videos that are probably outside
of the terms & conditions of Google, you should be hosting those on your own
servers that you purchase the bandwidth for, not relying on a 3rd party to
host.

Yes, Google has mutiple defacto monopolies that are very, very concerning. But
one can still self-host on the Internet, and this person should have done
that. She has her own domain, so she could have had the video on her own
server.

------
bane
Put it on the internet archive.

~~~
soared
The videos are widely available. Google isn't trying to hide the videos,
they're trying to keep them off the platform.

------
Joeri
While google should tread carefully here, I have to wonder why this stuff was
hosted from a google account in the first place.

It is easier and cheaper than ever to set up your own web hosting and host
this stuff outside of a walled garden where it won't violate a TOS. Google
accounts are for storing personal files in the cloud, not publishing important
documents to the public.

------
bukgoogle
Google will delete accounts from people who's political opinion not "left",
talk anything against google's "evil" ceo's..

I'm really tired of google's lies, politics, actions and ethos that they push
by forcing.

Lies lies just like facebook and twitter. Same for me.

------
ElijahLynn
I wonder if Google users should have a scheduled backup of
[https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout](https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout).

------
debacle
It would be highly advantageous for society if someone of knowledge of the
utilification of telephone lines, railways, electricity, etc, could make an
easily digestible timeline for that taking place.

------
raverbashing
Aren't Liveleak and Dailymotion still running? Aren't there other video
services?

I know it's convenient to upload stuff to YT but there are other services up
there who won't be as arbitrary as YT

------
gumby
I know google's a private corporation and is free to delete what it wishes
from its own databases, but I thought it's mission was to "organize the
world's information"

------
lightedman
There should be a law that once a company gets so big, it is automatically
regulated as a public utility.

That would put an end to most of our current problems with massive
institutions like this.

------
shevy
Well, no surprise - ever since Google turned fully evil, it has been working
against mankind.

It's a wonderful opportunity to stop using Google-related products and feed
more evilness into Google.

------
pqs
Google is in its own right to limit speech in its services. More work should
be invested in making distributed networks (i.e. Bittorrent) easy to use to
any user.

------
NiklasMort
Do not ever rely on services that are free of charge. Do not store data in
services that are free of charge and expect it to be safe etc. etc. ...

------
soared
I don't agree with Google's actions here, but this has to be somewhat
expected. If your day-to-day is closely entwined with terrorism, extremism,
etc. you have to know that some of your content or actions aren't going to be
welcome everywhere. I mean, people in the porn industry surely take
precautions because they know they're content isn't welcome everywhere, why
wouldn't the author?

IMO google is going too far, but I'd bet thats an automated system and this
article will get enough press to stop it.

~~~
tyingq
It is kind of odd that the whole Google account is wiped and canceled.

I post a YouTube video big G doesn't like, then they close my whole Google
account. So now my Android phone, all my contacts, call history, purchased
apps + music, etc, are now gone? And my nest thermostat resets to factory
defaults? And all my AdWords campaigns for my small sole proprietorship.
And...so on.

~~~
magnetic
...and what about all those services you used to "Log in with Google"...

~~~
KozmoNau7
Which is why you never _ever_ use the "log in with Google/Facebook" buttons.

------
bukgoogle
Google really manifests freedom of speech.. honestly: LACK of it.

------
ben_jones
CTRL + F "Disclaimer: I work at Google"

Funny how that never comes up on these threads. I get it you can't discredit
your employer. Even at Google.

~~~
kop316
In all fairness, this has only been posted for an hour, and it was only at the
top of HN for 20 minutes or so.

------
whipoodle
This should bother you a lot more than the firing.

------
0x445442
vid.me

------
EJTH
Kind of strange that there is countless Nasheeds (islamic chants) calling to
war against infidels etc. on youtube. But stuff like this gets deleted.

------
EJTH
Well just stop being a nazi who questions everything. Problem solved! Nazis
like you don't belong on the internet.

~~~
jamespo
mmm delicious false equivalence

------
jack9
Terabyte drives are very cheap. Since it's borderline stupid, to simply upload
this volume of work to some third party service without backup, I have no
sympathy or technical concern. This being an illustration of Google's terrible
"progressively tyrannical" track record, the article is badly titled. More
like Google the Oppressor of Truth. Good Luck to Alexa.

~~~
deathanatos
Ideally, I'd like to back up my data too. That's where it becomes much harder:
I need a second location. (In case my house catches fire, or floods in a
hurricane, etc.)

AWS and GCE both provide raw disk space, and certainly, an encrypted backup
could be uploaded to them. I would like to be able to put a cap on what I
spend on service, in case something goes wrong with the system, which AFAIK,
neither GCE/AWS provide, unfortunately.

I would also like it to be remotely accessible, which a simple terabyte drive
doesn't get directly.

Now, most of the above (creating a backup, encrypting it, shipping it out to
AWS/GCE, securely accessing a drive remotely) are all _possible_ , but none
are easy, and certainly not yet at the level of "my mother/father can do it".

I try very hard to maintain a private "cloud", and I find it fairly difficult.

~~~
jdietrich
Redundant cloud storage is made trivially easy by IFTTT. In just a few clicks,
you can have your Google Drive uploads automatically replicated to half a
dozen other cloud storage services and several brands of NAS. It can also back
up your Gmail inbox, your Google Contacts and dozens of other cloud services.

[https://ifttt.com](https://ifttt.com)

~~~
jiggunjer
Nice ad. Not the best option for people who are trying to minimize their
reliance on 3rd parties though, since you are now giving a single entity
access to all your online data. Also, their 'recipes' are rather limited in
terms of triggers and available services.

------
Steeeve
I know I may not have the most popular opinion here, but I support Google in
it's apparent decision to disassociate itself from terrorist propaganda
videos.

Regardless of embedded blog-post context or newsworthiness, Google isn't an
official government sanctioned free-speech haven. It's an advertising company.

I'm already disturbed by the weird parts of youtube, and how easily they are
to get to accidentally. It makes precious little sense to me that I allow my
kids to use youtube to watch gamers and tutorials of all sorts when I know
what they are a few clicks from material that will completely rob them of
whatever innocence remains.

If they are finally choosing to clean things up - even in an inconsequential
way - I'm all for it.

The argument exists that there is already a cesspool of disturbing material,
and that this particular account is well-intentioned. I would argue back that
if you want to push boundaries, be prepared to face the consequences.

It's well known that account and video review processes are black holes. If
you are putting yourself in a situation where you might lose your account, you
should be prepared to lose it.

