
Dear MG Siegler, Are you seriously upset about your photo? - zeppelin_7
https://plus.google.com/112063946124358686266/posts/SMhmTHjuRuu
======
reso
The TechCrunch crew has a long history of "calling out" major companies on
their product decisions, in the absence of any of the data or context in which
such complex decisions are made.

P.S. I love how Tom has turned into the elder statesman of social networks.

~~~
commnderkeen08
Not to mention MG Siegler's long history of calling out Google. Always
skeptical.

But totally loving the elder statesman analogy. Best part about Tom"s reply is
his own humility--Myspace having "decent" technology.

~~~
rhizome
Not to mention MG Siegler's long history of self-promotion.

~~~
ryguytilidie
not to mention EVERY TECHCRUNCH WRITER's long history of self-promotion.

/fyp

~~~
rhizome
I have never seen any story like "ROBIN WAUTERS WONDERS WHY ROBIN WAUTERS
ISN'T IN THE HEADLINES," like you see multiple times per week with MG...on HN.
Is he the most gossipy person there, now? This is usually the kind of drama
you see with Perez Hilton type personalities.

~~~
tincholio
Well, we had those with Arrington, but fortunately he seems to have "vanished"
from the HN mind...

~~~
rhizome
That's a good point: MG might just be bored because he doesn't have enough
interesting work to do, so he's going to stink up the place until people give
him work/money/cocktail-weenies.

------
tptacek
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.

~~~
twp
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 question is: why does Google care so much that about the minutae of how
individuals choose to portray themselves while they face much greater problems
related to the success or otherwise of their new social network?

Putting aside the spam problems that render Google+ at best noisy and at worse
useless, if Google is so intolerant that it silently censors a hand gesture
considered impolite in where their HQ is based, how else will they behave?
Will they censor every gesture that might be considered offensive somewhere in
the world (there are many)? Or will they remain purely focused on the North
American hand gestures, and, by extension, North American culture and the
limited audience that it brings?

~~~
Cl4rity
Actually, Tom gets it right. It's called discretion. Use his public example,
for instance. If you were, for example, a cross-dresser who loved wearing
women's underwear - and only women's underwear - would that be tolerated by
the general public if you were roaming around a mall?

"But this is who I really am, and it's how I want to portray myself in
public!"

It's Google's playground, and you either play by the rules or suffer the
consequences. You wouldn't berate mall cops if they had to remove offensive
people from the premises.

~~~
vidarh
I find it interesting that most attempts to support Google in this instances
uses far more extreme examples to justify it.

I don't think anyone is insisting that there are no types of images that are
so bad that it wouldn't be ok for Google to remove them. At least I haven't
seen anyone claim so.

As long as that is the case, using examples that the vast majority would agree
are worse than the one that was actually taken down just weakens your point
dramatically.

~~~
megablast
By using extreme examples, people show that obviously there is a line. Most
people agree some photos should be banned, after this point is made.

Now we are just arguing about where the line is.

------
redthrowaway
I like how humble Tom is about MySpace. All these years later, and he's still
my only friend...

In all seriousness, he should be proud of what they accomplished. Yes, it kind
of turned into a cesspool, but there was no model of how a social network
_should_ be until Facebook came along. MySpace was an evolution of Geocities,
more than it was an attempt to have the kind of "respectable" social presence
that facebook shot for. MySpace was still the startup that proved social would
be huge.

~~~
devolve
Rather, there was no widespread knowledge and/or consensus on how a social
network should be at the time. Models were a plenty. For example, Lunarstorm
started out some 3 years (2000) before MySpace and in a year (2001) reached
600k users (it would plateau at 1.2m in 2007) but it had none of the Geocities
stylings of MySpace. Instead it had a feed of your friends' activities,
private messaging, notes (called diary), and message boards. It's just that
the Internet back then was not the sharing ground it has grown into today, and
people in other countries than Sweden were probably not aware of this
particular site.

------
jroseattle
Pretty sure this would fall under Apple's "objectionable content" policies for
their app store.

Wonder if MG would complain about that policy, too? :-)

~~~
masklinn
According to the linked complaint by MG, he is not whining about the policy so
much as about the deletion without warning:

> My problem isn’t so much with the fact that I couldn’t have a profile
> picture of myself giving everyone the finger — which I can and do on Twitter
> and elsewhere — it’s that no one bothered to tell me or warn me before they
> just went into my account and deleted the picture.

he does also take issue with the policy itself, but as an aside not as his
main point:

> Bigger picture: this seems like a ridiculous thing for Google to be
> policing. [...]

> This also seems like a slippery slope. In certain cultures, various hand
> gestures mean different things. Is Google also going to delete my profile
> picture if I have my fingers up to my chin, for example?

~~~
rhizome
It betrays his technical competence to say they went "into my account,"
doesn't it? I don't think it's helpful or appropriate for him to use property
terms for a topic like this.

------
rickmb
Completely misses the fundamental difference between "not allowing", "not
displaying" and bluntly " _removing_ " the photo.

Online companies seem to be completely insensitive to what is pretty intuitive
in the physical realm: you may tell me what not to do in your shop, but _don't
touch my stuff_.

------
jsz0
_removing offensive photos_

It's not offensive to me. I'm all grown up now.

~~~
blurbytree
How about when your kid/elderly relative does a search on google and sees it?

Google can choose to allow or disallow what they want.

~~~
icebraining
And we can choose to criticize them for that choice. Ain't free speech
wonderful?

 _How about when your kid/elderly relative does a search on google and sees
it?_

If I believe my kid is too young to see that, I wouldn't let him search on
Google by himself. As for an elderly relative, I'm pretty sure any of mine can
cope with a picture of someone flipping them off.

------
buff-a
An image showing a middle finger: banned.

News content from Fox perpetuating lies that cause soldiers and civilians to
_die_ : front page in search results.

Google has demonstrated with the photo that its willing to act as a censor.
Now that we've agreed that censorship is ok, can we now talk about what we
would like to censor?

------
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...

~~~
zobzu
The "accept or move on" rule applies less when such sites are used by the
majority of the population.

When it's used by the majority it becomes something you, in many cases, have
to be part, that you like it, or not.

That even include "to be accepted at school", mind you. (just like you didn't
_have_ to smoke back in the days, but also you were gay if you did not, no
matter how _wrong_ that reasoning is).

Based on that new perspective, you may understand that restricting free speech
on such services is actually "big" deal (yeah, the quotes are important here.
i'd go for medium deal in the current state of affairs.)

~~~
JoshTriplett
I found your reasoning so wrong it left me momentarily at a loss for words.
No, sites don't _ever_ become subject to a different set of rules just because
the majority of people use them. That kind of thinking leads down a very
dangerous road.

And if you still care about "to be accepted at school", grow up. Speaking as a
"four-eyes" and a nerd, some of us never bothered caring about that in the
first place. Unfortunately, the people that _did_ care grew up to form "the
majority of the population", leading to quite a few of the social problems
that currently plague us.

Free speech only applies to governments, and it applies there specifically
because there you truly do have a "whether you like it or not" situation when
it comes to governmental policies. It does not, and should not, extend to
speech made on someone else's site. That remains entirely subject to the
policies of the site owner, who may set them however they wish, keeping in
mind that any choice they make may gain them some users and lose others.

Now, that said, I think better solutions existed for the particular issue at
hand (so to speak) than immediate deletion without notification (such as
hiding potentially offensive profile pictures for people who don't have that
person circled), but that remains entirely up to Google's policy. I personally
think that policy ought to change somewhat, but I'd never argue that anyone
other than Google has the right to determine that policy.

~~~
lmm
Different laws apply to companies in a monopoly position, and that is right
and proper. (Not that G+ is in that position yet).

~~~
JoshTriplett
> Different laws apply to companies in a monopoly position,

That doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as "used by the majority of
people", since people can and do use many different sites rather than choosing
one exclusively. Those laws also doesn't have anything to do with the absurd
schoolyard notions suggested by the comment I responded to; monopoly laws
exist primarily to keep monopolies from preventing others from entering the
market and disrupting that monopoly.

> and that is right and proper.

In your opinion; I strongly disagree with the notion that such laws have any
basis in morality.

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

~~~
christoph
Not going insane. It repeatedly crashed for me to. Rebooted and still had the
same problem. One of the crashes lost all my tabs too.

------
gerggerg
I think you guys are all thinking about this the wrong way. Siegler's post is
about finding the lines that define acceptable content not caring about his
exact photo.

Knowing what a company like google defines as inappropriate is important for
being able to make informed choices about what products you should use and who
you should be giving all your personal data to for free.

------
Steko
"If you had a T-shirt that said "I hate White People" and you walked into a
mall wearing it, the security would probably ask you to leave, or ask you to
cover up your shirt."

And that's the problem with Google+ here. They didn't ask anything. They did
the t-shirt in a mall equivalent of stealing his t-shirt while he wasn't
looking.

It seems pretty obvious how this should work:

(1) Google enables a flag for offensive photos (some automated system might
work in tandem with this).

(2) Someone who's offended by a photo (or automated system) flags it.

(3) The user sees that someone has flagged it, might change it himself.

(4) Google sees the flag and reviews the image for possible action. Some sort
of adjudication record is created and available for both the user the image
belongs to and anyone who reported it.

(5) The user has some recourse to appeal if Google takes action to remove the
user's picture.

Google, having a terrible customer service background, just went with the big
brother approach.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> "If you had a T-shirt that said "I hate White People" and you walked into a
> mall wearing it, the security would probably ask you to leave, or ask you to
> cover up your shirt."

> And that's the problem with Google+ here. They didn't ask anything. They did
> the t-shirt in a mall equivalent of stealing his t-shirt while he wasn't
> looking.

And that's the problem with analogies relating the Internet to the real world:
they often fail because the Internet doesn't work like the real world. (I will
say that this does come remarkably closer to the concept of "stealing bits"
than how people usually use terms like "stealing", since the original owner
might not have those bits anymore, but who would leave their only copy of a
picture on a site they don't own, particularly one whose policies don't
include preserving your data no matter what?)

Another marginally more accurate analogy, though still potentially flawed if
you try to read too much into it: if you rented space in a mall, and displayed
offensive material there, they might ask you to leave, or they might just
close up your shop for you and kick you and your stuff out, and either way
they have every right to do so.

------
darklajid
I would love to see the mall that turns away people wearing a shirt that gives
the finger. Is this a very exaggerated example or does this thing exist out
there, in the modern world?

------
Splines
Like others, I'm surprised that G+ is spending time solving this problem. Why
don't they flip the switch on their safesearch technology on G+ and call it a
day?

------
Raphael
Anyone else find it funny that Tom uses the same old photo of him in front of
a whiteboard?

------
zobzu
You see "Google has limited resources" and "cannot warn you before removal".

Made my day.

ps: most removals are actually automated, and warning are (as in would be)
obviously automated.

And of course, nothing bad with a finger up (or even in a naked body in fact,
but hey). I much prefer the "adult filter" of YouTube, which uhm, is also
automated (user vote based).

------
zerostar07
What i 'd like to know is what Tom is doing in that - now historic - profile
photo.

------
devilsadvocate9
I don't think you'd actually get in trouble for an "I hate White People"
t-shirt. It would probably be seen as a political statement. We have whole
college majors devoted to elucidating the evils of white people. It's hip to
hate them.

------
zak_mc_kracken
Apple doesn't allow offensive apps in its app store either, but somehow, this
has never bothered MG Siegler.

Double standards.

~~~
AllenKids
Let's petition Google to rename it as Google Real People Store+ then.

------
yanw
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.

~~~
zerostar07
Can you suggest a news aggregator that is not frequented by the usual bullies?

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

------
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.

------
gcb
So much for how "social" and "private" they intend google+ to be.

Do not expect a conversation with close friends there.

it's an open mall. officially.

And the first people migrated from facebook boasting the privacy concerns.

------
Punishker
MySpace was never a cesspool... it's now a musician's website for posting
about bands.

The only thing more stupid than the internet comments on Hacker News is Google
itself: the kings of know-it-all dumbasses!

~~~
nknight
The "dumbass" you're talking about co-founded MySpace, and I don't think he's
ever had any professional link to Google.

------
Stratego
Really? An "'I hate white people' t-shirt" parallel?

Don't even get me started on that atrocious "we don't need to see this" line
of argumentation. If the Google+ is going to censor (let's call things by
their proper names) pictures that "people don't need to see", where's the
goddamned line?

Imbecile.

That such a poorly constructed argument makes its way to the Hacker News
homepage is worrisome. I had the hope that people who use logic for a living
would have higher standards.

~~~
kevinh
The line is where they, as a company, decide to put it. I would not go to a
social networking site that had gore or porn polluting my feeds. Similarly,
you might not go to a website that disallows any content. That's our
prerogative. It's facile to paint it as a free speech argument.

~~~
icebraining
Why would you subscribe to users that post gore or porn to your feeds?

Tumblr has plenty of porn, but you can certainly use it without ever getting
it on your dashboard. It's just a matter of, you know, not following the
people who post it.

