
Statistics professor at Columbia and Georgetown banned from all Google services - mbgaxyz
https://twitter.com/salilstatistics/status/898906185969139714
======
caseydurfee
"If you show probability work like Hillary having lower election odds, then
this is new definition of hate speech."

I get that the guy is angry. I would be too if I got locked out of my
accounts, but this is a ludicrous accusation -- the new definition of hate
speech?

"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity." The idea that
google is waging war on this guy because of election predictions he made 12
months ago is absurd on the face of it.

Our society has been completely taken over by Hofstadter's [paranoid
style]([https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-
am...](https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-
politics/)). Everything is taken as evidence of some vast conspiracy of
fascists or communists. (A couple weeks ago there was an article posted here
alleging that google was suppressing anti-communist websites.)

Replace "freemasons" or "international bankers" with "social justice warriors"
and we're right back in the 1950's again.

~~~
5trokerac3
I would be inclined to believe it wasn't something very deliberate if it was
only one or a few services getting shut down, but everything is fully removed.
Even his
[blog]([https://statisticalideas.blogspot.com](https://statisticalideas.blogspot.com))
has a "this has been removed" header.

That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if there's more to this story than
what's come out so far. I think it's worth following.

~~~
xiaoma
And due to that removal, NYT articles like this one now have broken links to
his blog: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/business/the-stock-
market...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/business/the-stock-market-has-
been-magical-it-cant-last.html)

------
rdtsc
> advised on polling statistics for the Trump campaign

Going out on a limb here, I'd guess it might have something to do with that?
It would also be very foolish of them to ever admit it and I bet they will
come back and say it was an innocent "algorithm" mistake if this blows up too
much. Unless someone internally leaks the mechanism or the reason it would be
hard to tell.

I think Google, Facebook, maybe Twitter and others are furiously working to
fill the void left the failure of the traditional media to manufacture
consent. Large traditional media conglomerates had one job and that was to
make sure a particular presidential candidate won and they failed. Very
quickly after Facebook and Google issued a statement how they are blaming
"Fake News" and how they will be working on controlling and eliminating that.

While it all seems innocent and helpful "Oh look Google is working on
eliminating hate and fake news, isn't that nice". It is also a signal to those
who have billions to spend on campaigns (political, marketing, etc) saying
"Want to manufacture some consent? Come to us, let us help you. CNN/NBC/NYT
are too crusty and old and not effective anymore. Inconvenient statistics
getting in your way, don't worry, they will be silenced".

As others have said it KGB or Stasi would have given everything to have access
to the kinds of data Google and Facebook has. I think it is foolish to assume
these companies will just use that data just to sell ads, share cat pictures
and connect you with your old classmates. I think they will start selling
"silencing" as a service (SaaS) at some point.

~~~
hellbanner
"Google blocked every one of the WSWS’s 45 top search terms" (recent)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14975338](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14975338)

------
redm
I think the Zerohedge article should have been linked directly, it provides
much more information on what happened.

[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-21/one-statistics-
prof...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-21/one-statistics-professor-
was-just-banned-google-here-his-story)

It does indeed seem he was shut down, but it's unclear as to "why" it was
done. Google's standard black box in effect. That may be the most frustrating
part.

~~~
Zarathust
It is still not clear to me what happened. The reply from Google sums up to
"You angered us, figure it out. It's in the TOS".

~~~
puzzle
If they reply like that when turning down appeals, it's usually for something
very egregious that might have legal ramifications. Look up "thomasmonopoly"
for a case at the very edge of legality that made it to HN years ago. (I'm not
saying that it's the case here, but it gives you an idea of the seriousness,
especially if VPs go silent.)

------
daxorid
Our email accounts are widely considered the gateway to all of our other
services, particularly in light of the ability to reset passwords with access
to the account's address.

It is for this reason that we consider email account security of paramount
importance, and Google's early implementation of Google Authenticator, U2F
token support, etc, is admirable.

But now we have entered an era in which we need to consider the capricious,
political whims of our email providers as a significant part of our threat
model.

------
snksnk
Do not rely on Google and its services if your public beliefs / opinions do
not align with the establishment, are politically incorrect in even the
slightest degree, or if you value your privacy. There are good alternatives
(preferably open source).

[https://www.privacytools.io/](https://www.privacytools.io/)
[https://www.prism-break.org/](https://www.prism-break.org/)

~~~
brightball
Have there been some HN articles about good alternatives to Google services?

I seem to remember Mail-in-a-box getting some support for running your own
server. I've also seen kolabnow.com looking promising.

~~~
prh8
I moved to FastMail for email, it's been really great. I use it with a custom
domain (multiple in fact) and its web and mobile apps are pretty good.

------
Animats
Google took down his blog, too:
[http://statisticalideas.blogspot.com/](http://statisticalideas.blogspot.com/)

Last archive.org copy: [1] (Useless; it just displays a "Blogger gear",
because the content is dynamically loaded.)

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170518181642/http://statistica...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170518181642/http://statisticalideas.blogspot.com/)

~~~
gaius
_it just displays a "Blogger gear", because the content is dynamically loaded_

I wonder why Google made that particular design decision?

~~~
Animats
That probably predates Google's acquisition of Blogger.

~~~
gaius
Odd tho'. This mechanism defeats caching; it must cost them cash money to run
on that architecture vs generating then serving static pages, perhaps only
dynamically fetching comments. Someone at Google thinks it's worth paying for
the ability to erase blogs entirely.

~~~
inferiorhuman
> This mechanism defeats caching

Wat?

~~~
gaius
Read the original comment I replied to. The content is not in archive.org
because of this design. So it is probably not in any other
caches/archives/backups either.

------
godshatter
Time to step up my move from gmail, I guess. Who knows what opinion I might
express that might inadvertently trigger such a reaction. I'm a member of the
"let them talk - they'll hang themselves with their own noose" school of
thought. Google can do what they want, of course. But so can I. I've already
ditched yahoo mail for fastmail and was planning on moving from gmail
eventually. Guess I'll step that up.

~~~
ryandrake
First step for me was moving my E-mail address to a domain I control (or at
least I think I do, for now). That way, at least my identity is mine, should G
decide to no longer host my content. Scary to have to think about this, but an
opinion that is uncontroversial today may be unutterable tomorrow, given the
relentless and accelerating march of political correctness.

------
existencebox
At the risk of being tangential to the topic: Let this be a friendly reminder
that if you, like me, use google services heavily, it may be in your best
interest to do regular backups of your account state. (I have no affiliation
etc; I just realized when reading this that it had been almost a year since my
last backup)

Here's a link to support documenting "how".
[https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190?hl=en](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190?hl=en)

~~~
pkilgore
Great I'll just throw it on my ....Google drive. Dammit.

------
slackstation
This has to be a mistake. Whenever you outright ban someone with the
minimalist interaction the way Google does it, you open yourself up to
accusations of all kinds of suppression. You allow the person who being banned
to define why they were in the absence of any message from Google.

Now, it's all well and good to go and ban white supremacists, KKK members,
hate groups, etc. It's monumental stupidity to ban an academic with proper
credentials. It's even in effective. Even in the most extreme case, his
careful scholarly screeds about statistics isn't exactly going to make
frothing hordes of racists; not near the same way as banning him without
cause, reason or explanation.

It's silly. His twitter shows him writing article headlines in provocative
ways (for an academic) but, nothing even close to supporting a group like the
KKK but, in this atmosphere and with Google trying mobilize probably thousands
of young, probably uneducated (cheap) people review accounts for deletion, it
was probably someone who saw one of these procative headlines and marked this
blog for deletion without looking or realizing who this person was.

Strangely, the same thing happen to Jordan Peterson not even a month ago.
Another academic but, with far more controversial views but, far more outcry
came of it and Google reversed it in a few days.

All of this is embarassing for Google who for years has invested in very light
touch style of customer service and it's coming back to bite them in the ass.

~~~
jules
> It's even ineffective.

I wouldn't be so sure. Do this to a few people and thousands of others start
to mince their words. It could be extremely effective if it were employed as a
political strategy, because being locked out of your Google account is a major
problem for most people.

------
tweedledee
In his tweets on Aug 15th he suggests that the Charlottesville incident has
not hurt Trumps popularity.

Kinda scary, but if true we should be addressing it as is instead of burying
it.

Edit: it looks like Trump has actually had a small increase in popularity

~~~
sageikosa
That sounds like the kind of thing that would trip an algorithm.

------
binaryphile
The irony of using the example of a statistics professor to prove a systemic
conspiracy with a sample size of 1 is not lost on me.

------
aestetix
If he hasn't yet, he should submit this to
[https://onlinecensorship.org/](https://onlinecensorship.org/). Curious how
often this happens, I don't have a good data set but it _seems_ like this has
been happening a lot more recently.

------
ignoramceisblis
caseydurfee:

> this is a ludicrous accusation -- the new definition of hate speech?

slackstation:

> This has to be a mistake. > it was probably someone who saw one of these
> procative headlines and marked this blog for deletion without looking or
> realizing who this person was.

redm:

> It does indeed seem he was shut down, but it's unclear as to "why" it was
> done. Google's standard black box in effect.

ForHackernews:

> I highly doubt there's any political agenda at play here.

At least 4 out of 11 parent comments so far cover: the "ludicrous accusation"
of the censored victim, "it was probably mistakenly banned and repeatedly
denied further attempts at access", "we're not sure why he's banned", and
"we're not sure why he's banned, but it's certainly not related to all of the
other political censorship and outright subversive manipulation that's been
occurring towards anyone who doesn't subscribe to the mainstream media
narrative".

That's right, nothing to see here folks. Dismiss this crazy person for
speaking the truth. Statistics should be supressed. Deny their ability to
speak out against the extreme subversion that is taking place. Deny their
ability to organize. Isolate and destroy. Or you're next.

~~~
bbdbdbdbsbwhs
Here on HN I was introduced to the characterization of our current political
gridlock as a "cold civil war", which is, perhaps, manifest in this post.

~~~
bbdbdbdbsbwhs
Manifest in the thread. I am in agreement with the parent!

------
ucaetano
Result:

[https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6305625...](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6305625404417802240/)

~~~
throwaway613834
> Thank you all very much, in recent days, for the outpouring of support in my
> Google predicament. I love you, and together we can and will always achieve
> great things. Have also spoken with the leadership there, and they restored
> accounts. I also don’t carry any grievance towards any part of Google, and
> have no intention of further comments.

That seems like a really strange reply. Why would he word it like that? The
only possibilities I can think of are that either Google required such a reply
in order to re-enable his account in order to not get in trouble, or he has
done something wrong but doesn't want to talk about it.

------
ForHackernews
Contrary to some of the other comments, I highly doubt there's any political
agenda at play here. More likely, this user inadvertently tripped some
automated algorithm somewhere, and then failed the automated appeals process.

That said, it's their service and their rules. Don't host data you care about
on free services run by capricious multinationals.

~~~
falcolas
Given the importance of email and other online services - should multinational
corporations be allowed to be capricious about who they provide service to,
and how those users are cut off from their digital lifeline?

~~~
SamReidHughes
Yes, because it's their computers.

~~~
chroem-
This is the same argument that was used to wrongfully deny service to gay
couples. You are turning a blind eye because corporations are attacking an
ideology we disagree with.

I do not believe that some people should be treated more equally than others.

~~~
dragonwriter
> This is the same argument that was used to wrongfully deny service to gay
> couples.

It is the argument that is still _lawfully_ used to deny service on the basis
of sexual orientation in much of the country; only a minority of states have
public accommodation laws under which sexual orientation is a protected class.

The balance between the state interests involvee in public accommodation laws
and the free speech and free association rights they limit is a source of
endless debate. The fact that the public in some part of the country has
decided that one axis has circumstances which warrant such a limitation is not
enough to make the case that everyone must accept that the limitation is
universally justified for some other axis.

> I do not believe that some people should be treated more equally than
> others.

Which can be an argument for internet companies _not_ having their free speech
rights limited in order to mandate that they relay political views they
disagree with as easily as it can be an argument for that imposition.

~~~
alphapapa
> It is the argument that is still lawfully used to deny service on the basis
> of sexual orientation in much of the country; only a minority of states have
> public accommodation laws under which sexual orientation is a protected
> class.

> Which can be an argument for internet companies not having their free speech
> rights limited in order to mandate that they relay political views they
> disagree with as easily as it can be an argument for that imposition.

That argument seems in direct opposition to the argument that, e.g. Christian
bakers and photographers should be required to provide services for gay
weddings. If Google may not be mandated to relay political views that they
disagree with, how can photographers be mandated to do so? Do multi-national
megacorporations have more rights than individuals? Or is one political view
simply wrong, and therefore acceptable to discriminate against?

------
Animats
Has anybody found out yet what this is all about?

------
daxorid
The bubble cheerleaders that dominate HN groupthink don't consider ZH a
credible source, so indirect linkage was likely done to avoid the insta-flag
effect.

~~~
dang
Unless you have data, please don't post generalizations about HN as ammunition
in an argument. Those are off-topic and nearly always false.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15066201](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15066201)
and marked it off-topic.

------
shitgoose
[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-21/one-statistics-
prof...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-21/one-statistics-professor-
was-just-banned-google-here-his-story)

"Have worked with both the Obama administration and _advised on polling
statistics for the Trump campaign_ "

as Joseph Stalin said - "no one is innocent". just have to dig deep enough.

~~~
asdffdsa321
What's your claim?

~~~
shitgoose
isn't collaboration with Trump enough ground for ostracism? all of progressive
humanity should spit in the face of that professor and demand justice.

on a serious note: it is quite fascinating for watch US walk down this path. i
see striking similarities between what is happening now - war with monuments,
renaming the streets, "tolerant" left screaming for blood, witch hunt...
between all of this and life in USSR under Stalin. of course, no executions,
but everything else is in place. soon you will be removing pictures of enemies
of the state from schoolbooks:
[http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/52af668569bedd3b264...](http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/52af668569bedd3b2643dd68-1176-469/joseph%20stalin%20with%20nikolai%20yezhov%20photoshopped%20out_edited-1.jpg)

(and this is without Photoshop btw!). stroke of a pen, and confederates are
removed from the history! the thing is that in Soviet Union they couldn't keep
up with removing - once you start erasing the past, you cannot stop. it is
very sad and disappointing to see US going down that path. of all countries...

~~~
mcphage
> isn't collaboration with Trump enough ground for ostracism?

If it were, we'd be seeing hundreds if not thousands of users getting blocked.
We're not, so that is unlikely to be the cause.

