
Google reinstates account of thomasmonopoly - tshtf
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/bvqdos
======
sauteedbiscuits
What is troubling about this is not that Google mistakenly removed the
account.

What is troubling is:

1: This guy had to go to the fucking MOON to get his account back, ranting and
raving on twitter like a mad man- and it took nearly a week!!

2: Google's support sucks- God help any of us who is in a similar position.

3: Even getting Google's attention is not enough. Since there is no formal
appeals process, you have to harass Google employees in a informal method.
Matt Cutts even said on a HN thread that "Google took the appropriate action"
- So what is it? Did he break the TOS or not? This is the whole issue. Without
a formal process, you just get knee jerk reactions. Any person other than this
guy would have stopped trying after Matt essentially said he wasn't getting it
back.

4: Even after all that, he did not even know why his account was deleted for a
week.

5: For all Google's talk about data liberation, they suck with this. Takeout
only gives you access to useless social crap and if you want to download your
email its a long process that involves reading guides, using POP, IMAP, etc..
How about just giving me a link to download my mail?

6: No warnings, no contact- This could have all been solved if Google asked
first and shot later.

* Link to where matt_cutts looked into this and still decided he cant have his account back: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2795465>

~~~
fpgeek
It is absolutely true that Google has their support issues, and they should be
criticized for them, but...

Do you seriously think there is any other US provider (i.e. subject to US
child pornography laws) that would have behaved any better? Given the
allegation, it probably was legally risky for Google to keep his data _at
all_. There are laws that criminalize even the "innocent possession" of child
pornography. Had things gone another way, I presume Google would have argued
they were preserving evidence, but they have to be very, very careful
regardless. I'm absolutely certain there are many providers who would have
behaved worse (account closed, no comment, no investigation, no appeal, data
given to the police then deleted).

In the alternative scenario, many of the things you want Google to do could
easily be illegal. After an allegation, any warning, contact or access to data
could easily have been construed as aiding and abetting a crime in progress
and/or obstruction of justice (particularly by an ambitious, headline-seeking
prosecutor). What you don't seem to understand is that, once the allegation
was made Google couldn't do squat for @thomasmonopoly without risking
_criminal_ charges until they determined the allegation was false. And that
determination was going to take time no matter how you slice it.

Personally, I find it hard to think of what Google could do better in this
sort of situation. My two suggestions (and I'm not sure they're practical):

1\. Commit to manually reviewing every automatic suspension for these kinds of
potential criminal allegations.

2\. Be clear about when an account is being suspended and investigated versus
suspended with a final determination made.

~~~
tdfx
Why not remove/disable the offending material? From what I've read he didn't
have any calendar appointments like "Friday 12:30pm Take windowless van to the
candy store". Why kill access to completely unrelated services because an
automated (possibly error-prone) process flagged a picture?

------
Matt_Cutts
(I'm totally speaking for myself personally here, not in any official
capacity.)

As the post indicates, Thomasmonopoly's account wasn't disabled for something
like misusing AdWords; it was an investigation of potential child pornography.
Thomasmonopoly himself says in his write-up that "I too found the image
bordering on the limits of what is legally permissible and hoped to highlight
the fact that it is allowed to exist within a grey area of legality."

Google has a zero tolerance policy for child pornography. I am glad that
Thomasmonopoly got his account reinstated after a full investigation, but it's
also incredibly important that Google takes appropriate action on potential
child pornography, and United States law compels companies to react to child
pornography in certain very specific ways.

For what it's worth, I got a chance to do a question and answer session with
some congressional staffers earlier this year, and one of the things I said
was that (in my personal opinion), current laws on child pornography were
suboptimal.

Here's a quick example from a few months ago: [http://www.winknews.com/Local-
Florida/2011-04-29/Fla-Senate-...](http://www.winknews.com/Local-
Florida/2011-04-29/Fla-Senate-expands-states-child-pornography-law) "The
Florida Senate voted to extend the state's anti-child pornography law to
include not just possessing but also intentionally looking at such images."
Looks like the text of the bill is here:
[http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2011/0846/BillText/File...](http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2011/0846/BillText/Filed/PDF)
and I don't see any exemption for people who fight or take down child
pornography. And that was literally the first link I found after doing a
search on Google.

So in theory, looking at images in the process of trying to _fight_ child
pornography could be illegal. You don't need to dig far to find similar
brittle examples. That's why I'm glad that I work on webspam and not on trying
to stop child pornography.

~~~
jellicle
> Google employs an automated system to scan user storage for violations of
> their ToS

So if I take pictures of my children in the bathtub with my Android phone, I
am risking having my entire Google account deleted with no recourse except to
try to 'make a stink on the internet'?

Because frankly, I would never take photographs to be developed at Walmart
because they're well-known for calling the cops on parents who took pictures
of their children.

Is Google the new Walmart?

~~~
eykanal
What exactly is your complaint here? How do you expect a multinational
corporation to deal with this sort of issue? How do they know that you're the
parent, and not just some pervert who likes pictures of kids in bathtubs? I'm
fully supportive of both Google and Walmart in this.

I'm a parent of four young kids, so I can appreciate that those tub pictures
are adorable. If I really wanted that picture, I'll take the hassle of finding
a smaller print shop willing to do it over enabling child pornography any day.

~~~
adamdecaf
So as a parent I am forced to be fearful and jump through hoops to obtain
pictures of my kids?

~~~
Locke1689
Yes. Welcome to US law. Take it up with your congressman, not Google.

------
yaroslavvb
That's the trouble with child porn...when something is defined as "I know it
when I see it", there's going to be a lot of cases incorrectly classified.
This reminds me of Walmart child porn case
[http://trueslant.com/KashmirHill/2009/09/22/in-defense-of-
wa...](http://trueslant.com/KashmirHill/2009/09/22/in-defense-of-walmart-in-
the-bath-tub-photos-a-k-a-child-pornography-controversy/)

To just highlight the difficulty of "what is child porn?" problem, it wasn't
just Walmart's officials, but local police who took the complaint, prosecutor
that initiated the case and probably a number of other officials in the
pipeline who made incorrect determination

------
scott_s
I find it difficult to believe he did not suspect these images triggered the
ban. In that regard, I find it disingenuous when he said he had no idea why
his account was terminated.

~~~
3pt14159
Really? That slideshow is benign and I've never heard of someone having their
Google account banned because of something like this.

I would have assumed AdWords a hundred times over.

~~~
scott_s
The image in question was removed. His own take on the image: _I am not angry
at Google about this, as some might suggest, only because I too found the
image bordering on the limits of what is legally permissible and hoped to
highlight the fact that it is allowed to exist within a grey area of
legality._ I find that sentiment hard to reconcile with the "I have no idea"
claim. I don't think he was outright lying, but I suspect he was in denial.

edit: Just realized I said "images" and not "image" in my original post. I was
thinking about the image even he thought was a legal grey area.

------
ghshephard
I'm wondering what type of system all the naysayers would have in place that
would properly balance the requirements of google, the law, the community, and
the individual users - and how they would scale that to ten million+ users.

If you can describe it, design it, deploy it, and operate it - you might have
the beginnings of a multi-billion dollar social network on your hands. Rather
than rant at google/facebook for their inadequacies, go out and ship something
that will truly demonstrate how wrong Google/Facebook are.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"I'm wondering what type of system all the naysayers would have in place
> that would properly balance the requirements of google, the law, the
> community, and the individual users - and how they would scale that to ten
> million+ users."_

This exists - it's called paying for something you use every single day, and
is a core part of your existence (both online and off).

Why more people aren't self-hosting or purchasing email hosting services (and
yes, that includes SLAs and proper customer support) is beyond me.

~~~
icebraining
Many people - like me - can't self-host email since they don't have a fixed IP
address.

And paying for an host, why bother? Just get a domain and then you can change
your DNS MX records in a hour or so if Google ever bans you.

------
troels
_Additionally he has said that Google is proud of their zero-tolerance policy_

Seriously? Does anybody think this is OK? If there was a crime, shouldn't it
be the legal system that dealt with it, rather than some corporate entity,
like Google?

This sounds awfully lot like a witch hunt to me. The _least_ they could have
done was inform that they had handed the case over to legal authorities.

~~~
owenmarshall
> If there was a crime, shouldn't it be the legal system that dealt with it,
> rather than some corporate entity, like Google?

Yes.

But corporate entities _must_ handle these situations carefully. If your web
host botches the DMCA process, they are liable. If Google's support technician
accesses child pornography on Google, that technician risks child pornography
charges.

It's an absolute case of a corporation covering their ass, but absolutely
needed in this legal environment, _especially_ around radioactive allegations
like possessing child pornography.

~~~
troels
I still don't understand why Google can't advise the user that the account is
suspended for legal reasons and that it has been handed over to the
authorities to deal with. Just closing it and go silent, is really not
acceptable, as I see it.

~~~
owenmarshall
In some cases, informing the user of the presence of a subpoena is illegal.
These secret subpoenas are typically used in conjunction with the PATRIOT Act,
but could be in use elsewhere.

For example, Nicholas Merrill (John Doe, of ACLU v. Ashcroft) was hit with a
national security letter that barred him from disclosing _anything_ about the
subpoena, even that he had received a subpoena:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doe_v._Ashcroft>.

As a response, some providers have started providing warrant canaries:
<http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt>

They're obviously not infallible and have never been tested in court, but at
least companies are trying.

~~~
troels
OK. So are you suggesting that this might have been the case in this
situation? I would suggest that unless it is, then the proper reaction from
Google would have been to inform the user what was going on. I understand that
Google are covering their backs - and I appreciate that they should do that.
What I'm saying is that inasmuch that it doesn't pose a risk (in legal terms)
for them to keep the user informed, they could be expected to do so.

~~~
Matt_Cutts
troels, I completely agree with the sentiment that "inasmuch that it doesn't
pose a risk (in legal terms) for them to keep the user informed, they could be
expected to do so."

The issue in this case is that with a potential child pornography situation,
the legal risks are much different and harsher in all kinds of unexpected
ways.

------
bowyakka
I would be interested in _how_ someone would develop an automated system for
detecting child pornography, as has been said not only is the legal definition
subjective, but it would appear that possession and analysis is illegal.

That would make building a training set hard ....

I can only imagine those responsible for developing such systems would require
serious therapy as well.

------
flocial
Wow, Google couldn't just tell him, "dude, you got kiddie porn in your album".
I commend this person's frankness but it still comes back to the lack of
communication happening with Google support.

~~~
Locke1689
That could be construed as assisting in the commission of a federal crime.

------
abcd_f
tl;dr version, anyone?

~~~
DarkShikari
Google mistakenly flagged a legal image he uploaded as child pornography.

~~~
darinpantley
They have an automated system for this. If your account is flagged they don't
talk to you about it for legal reasons.

------
dendory
Looking at the link to the pictures... they aren't even remotely 'risky'...
except maybe in a Church or extremely conservative home.

~~~
carbonica
He explicitly states early in the post that the image in question is no longer
uploaded to the picasa album.

------
binxbolling
I guess I'm still not sure why a questionable photo in Picasa means a total
ban from all Google services.

Or, couldn't users get a warning that they're about to be perma-banned? E.g...
"The Google Gods have banned you. You have 48 hours to save any data you wish
to keep. Afterward you will be unable to log in & access any Google product."
They'd still have backups of everything regardless of what the user does in
that 48 hours if they'd like to initiate legal proceedings or whatever.

~~~
pavel_lishin
"The Google Gods have banned you. You have 48 hours to collect your child
pornography."

Yeah, that would be _fantastic_.

They should, however, tell you precisely which part of the TOS you violated -
down to highlighting the specific words.

~~~
hackinthebochs
>"The Google Gods have banned you. You have 48 hours to collect your child
pornography."

This is completely a non-issue. If the user already potentially committed a
crime, Google already has the evidence. Whether or not the user is able to go
back and redownload images _that may or may not be illegal_ that may not have
been saved is completely inconsequential. The issue is for the false-positive
cases or the borderline cases. Google is not the law; let the judicial system
determine guilt.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> Whether or not the user is able to go back and redownload images that may or
> may not be illegal that may not have been saved is completely
> inconsequential.

With all due respect, unless you're a lawyer, your comment has zero weight.

If I rent a hotel room and use it to store a barrel of cocaine, and a cleaning
lady discovers it, I'm fairly certain they are 1) under no obligation to me to
allow me to retrieve my cocaine, and 2) are probably legally prohibited from
allowing me to collect my coke barrel.

~~~
hackinthebochs
Point taken, but these situations are much more fuzzy. If I understood
correctly, this was an automated detection of possible child pornography. In
such a case it would seem likely that Google acting proactively has no
culpability. The only legal requirement (from the many articles I've read on
the subject) is to remove illegal content once the company is made aware.
Automated detection based on heuristics likely would not fall under that
category.

If specific pictures are under question and a human deems them likely to be
illegal they can disable access to those pictures. They have no legal
responsibility to prevent access to legal data.

Edit: downvoting without a rebuttal is cowardly at best.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> downvoting without a rebuttal is cowardly at best

I didn't downvote, but I disagree. I don't have to justify every decision I
make.

~~~
hackinthebochs
Well that goes against HN etiquette, which I guess is also your choice to
ignore :)

