
Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google: Here Is His Story - xiaoma
http://investingchannel.com/article/433394/One-Statistics-Professor-Was-Just-Banned-By-Google-Here-Is-His-Story
======
xiaoma
No idea what all was on his blog and other google accounts, but according to
the article they were used for his work at the university. Also some credible
sites like the NYT linking into the disabled 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)

Google may have had some good reasons or it may have just been an example of
ML discriminating against a name like Salil. Either way, it's very disturbing
how Google shuts down accounts without warning or a reasonable resolution
process. They did this to a Canadian psychology professor earlier this month
(and then silently restored access after Joe Rogan picked up the story).

I'm extremely loathe to wean myself off of Google's products, especially
Gmail. But I can no longer really see it as a safe place to have verifications
of all my other accounts sent with all the risks of automated flagging,
technical error (which cost me my pre acquisition YouTube account when they
forced everyone onto Plus), and their increasingly aggressive security /
account recovery mechanisms that ask for information such as the exact month a
decade old account was created.

~~~
theWatcher37
This type of behavior + AMP has pushed me off google completely.

I'm determined to cut them out of my technical life entirely, I've even
switched myself and everyone I know/support off their DNS.

I can't support their shady practices anymore.

~~~
metalliqaz
Sorry for being that guy, but what is AMP in this context?

~~~
joatmon-snoo
AMP, as pushed by Google, is essentially Google re-hosting a pared-down,
mobile-friendly version of your site.

Alex Kras has two blog posts that got a lot of traction early on that
highlighted some issues with this trend [1] [2].

[1] [https://www.alexkras.com/google-may-be-stealing-your-
mobile-...](https://www.alexkras.com/google-may-be-stealing-your-mobile-
traffic/)

[2] [https://www.alexkras.com/please-make-google-amp-
optional/](https://www.alexkras.com/please-make-google-amp-optional/)

~~~
metalliqaz
Thanks much, I was wondering how AMP made him suspicious of google.

~~~
nailer
Essentially Google only allow Google-hosted AMP content in their search
carousel. You could create an AMP (or otherwise fast) page on your own CDN and
Google won't show it unless it's on their domain.

------
columbia_prof
Columbia prof here.

He is not a professor at Columbia nor even an adjunct professor. He is a
lecturer in the school of professional studies:

[https://search.sites.columbia.edu/people/sm786](https://search.sites.columbia.edu/people/sm786)

The school of professional studies at Columbia offers "certificate" and
"professional degrees" with minimal academic standards. Within the university,
it is considered an embarrassment.

Advertising this credential is very misleading. This is a far cry from being,
for example, a professor in the world class statistics department at Columbia.

I don't know the gentleman nor the facts of this case, but I'd be very
suspicious of someone advertising a Columbia SPS affiliation.

~~~
Tenoke
This and some of the tweets where he seems overly zealous make me suspicious.
E.g.:

Here[1] He is suggesting he was blocked for Probability work on Hilary's
election odds.

Here[2] he is implying they are doing it in connection with him being a math
educator, and tweeting at all kinds of famous accounts with maximum
sensationalism (though in his defense, the only way to get support from google
is to make a massive stir).

None of that means anything on its own, and this would be far from the first
time Google have closed an account by mistake (though Id be very surprised if
the ban was of a political nature).

1\.
[https://twitter.com/salilstatistics/status/89890618596913971...](https://twitter.com/salilstatistics/status/898906185969139714)
2\.
[https://twitter.com/salilstatistics/status/89873001303747788...](https://twitter.com/salilstatistics/status/898730013037477889)

------
shaqbert
The automated canned answer is what rubs me the most here. There is a
professor who trusted Google's Gmail and Blogspot product, gets the Axe for
some violation of Terms of Service or Quality Guidelines, and does not get a
clear and straight answer what specifically he did wrong, or how he can remedy
the situation.

I wish one of the Googlers reading this here could reach out internally what
is going on here.

I'd wager though that the professor's Google account did something wrong, and
might be even a serial offender in Google's eyes, so as to warrant a ban.
Question is though if the professor himself did something wrong.

~~~
PeterisP
In such messages, not telling how he can remedy the situation is
_intentional_. It illustrates that their goal&decision is _not_ that they want
him to try and change some behaviour (whatever that might be) but that they
want to discontinue the relationship even if the behaviour changes, or (in the
case of actually malicious users that need to be banned) gets hidden or kept
at a 'slightly below the boundary' level, which is not the intended result.

Also, not telling what specifically he did wrong is _also_ intentional. They
have already decided that they don't want any future relationship. At that
point, telling which behavior exactly went over the line is counterproductive
- since it would invite that information to be challenged, and they've
preemptively decided that no, they don't want to read the response or excuses
or reasons, they've made a decision already; and throughly explaining and
defending a decision takes much more effort than simply making one, effort
that Google doesn't want to spend on every banned person.

~~~
shaqbert
I know it is intentional. It is the easy way out to minimize friction,
potential litigation, social backlash. All short term cost.

Alas, the long term cost of being opaque is lost trust. I much rather have
Google give a straight answer. Especially when there is publicity around a
case. That way a lot more people would see that Google actually is mostly
really reasonable, and that there is another side to the story.

~~~
PeterisP
An approach like that would be suitable for _this_ case, but it doesn't and
cannot scale to be suitable for the general, standard process that can work
for blocking abusive accounts on Google scale. All kinds of spammers, trolls
and simply abusive users are able to create many accounts (often in a semi-
automated way) and create new ones when you block them. You need a way to
block hundreds of thousands of such accounts every day in a cost-efficient
manner, because the service is free and revenue per user - low. This applies
to pretty much any free service with a large user base, by the way - _all_ of
those need ways to efficiently ban lots of accounts and can't afford to
negotiate with the banned ones.

This means that you pretty much need a way where the average time spent per
blocking an account (including any answers and appeals if you allow them) is
measured in seconds, not minutes; and the accounts that need to be blocked
_will_ use these facilities just as much, and likely more.

In addition, you generally can't simply give a straight answer _in public_
(the only reason why they'd want to give a straight answer, due to this
publicity) - reasons for blocking accounts involve either claiming that the
account owner has done something shady, or involve non-public data (e.g. if
child porn was transferred in emails or something like that). If you want to
publish specific claims of abuse performed by someone, you need to be _very_
thorough and careful about anything you claim (much more thorough than you
want to be when choosing to block accounts - you need to be able to block
accounts quickly and efficiently) or you open yourself up to all kinds of
libel issues, so that can't be done as a routine customer service activity
without involving lawyers, making the process even more expensive.

------
rbcgerard
I recall a lot of commentary on this site (especially around cloud flare) that
the "worst" need to be banned and lot of skepticism about a "slippery slope"
\- can't speak to the content of this particular case but seems pretty far
from the worst of the worst.

~~~
syshum
When you are actively slidly down the slope it becomes hard to say a slippy
slope argument is not valid

------
googler231
It seems that his ban may be political in nature according to his tweet.

[https://twitter.com/salilstatistics/status/89891222812829696...](https://twitter.com/salilstatistics/status/898912228128296960)

Salil Mehta: "Shameful: if you show probability work like Hillary having lower
election odds, then this is new definition of hate speech. @JulianAssange"

~~~
dragonwriter
Clearly, he claims that it is tied to 2016 political campaign position. No
substantive evidence for that is presented, though.

~~~
dhimes
I interpreted it to mean that he showed that Hilary's campaign was
overconfident on polling, and with proper statistical analysis she would have
seen something closer to the truth.

He apparently has worked for both Obama and Trump.

~~~
dragonwriter
Yes, and that is all relatively uncontroversial (that he did that, or at least
presented material which purported to do that.)

What is controversial and unsubstantiated is his suggestion that that is the
reason for the ban.

------
mmagin
Having hosted my own email for about 18 years, I don't really think relying on
free services from Google is any better than when we used to change ISPs (or
when we graduated from college) and had to get a new email address.

I'm not seeing "google is evil" here as much as "we need to do more to inform
people that free services from giant companies may change or go away at any
time without notice."

~~~
jxramos
this inspires me to grab some takeout,
[https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout](https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout)

~~~
grimman
I have found the exported data to be extremely spotty in certain areas.
Especially the YouTube history.

------
AdmiralAsshat
After the last time Google shut down a random high-profile person's life (i.e.
their website, their email, their account, etc), I immediately downloaded
Thunderbird and got a locally stored copy of all my emails.

If Google shut down my account tomorrow, I _think_ I could recover from pretty
much everything else (although I'd have a hell of a time with the Android
phone), but a decade and a half of emails are damn near irreplaceable.

------
thegayngler
What if you have your Android Phone tied to their services etc and this is the
way Google behaves. This type of unexplained behavior from Google could
literally ruin someone's life.

~~~
balladeer
It happened with a phone and he had to create another Gmail account. He was
locked out iirc. But his online life mostly revolves around Fb so he didn't
care much I think.

------
vim_wannabe
I wonder how much I would lose if my Gmail was deleted... Everything I have is
behind that address.

What would be my best bet to move to if I'm too much of a bad to host my own
email?

~~~
jszymborski
Email providers that I would trust:

* Fastmail.com -- good reputation and track record at reasonable prices

* mailbox.org -- long track record, privacy-oriented, German-based. Some people describe the mail UI as aging (it's OX suite), but I like it just fine.

* Protonmail.com -- UX & privacy focused email with fancy in-browser encryption. Protonmail-to-protonmail emails are E2E (OpenPGPjs). No IMAP, and in-browser (read: scary) encryption, albeit open-source. Based in Switzerland, although that means a lot less than they make it out to, re: privacy.

* tutanota.com -- V. similar to Protonmail. Based in Germany and a cheaper than protonmail. Uses a custom-implemented encryption protocol vaguely and unreassuringly described as a "..standardized, hybrid method.." comprised of RSA and AES [0].

[0]
[https://tutanota.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/470732...](https://tutanota.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/470732-what-
encryption-algorithms-does-tutanota-use)

EDIT: Made some corrections re: protonmail & tutanota encryption, pointed out
by bartbutler.

~~~
bartbutler
ProtonMail is OpenPGP under the hood, not 'custom' encryption. Tutanota is
custom.

~~~
jszymborski
My bad, will edit accordingly.

The in-browser, over-the-wire javascript crypto implementation still makes me
nervous. I'd love to hear some compelling evidence to the contrary, but as I
understand most of what has been stated before about in-browser crypto hasn't
changed much [0].

[0] [https://tonyarcieri.com/whats-wrong-with-
webcrypto](https://tonyarcieri.com/whats-wrong-with-webcrypto)

~~~
bartbutler
It's going to be less secure than native clients, for sure. ProtonMail has
native mobile clients though, and will have a desktop one (IMAP/SMTP bridge)
soon, which should alleviate webmail concerns.

~~~
jszymborski
That's awesome to hear about the desktop app. It's certainly a project with
important goals :)

------
cmurf
Google Takeout

[https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190?hl=en](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190?hl=en)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Takeout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Takeout)

Problems though: if your account is already disabled, you can't use this as
far as I can tell; and there's no diff option, it's a monolithic backup each
time. But it might provide a strategy to limit data loss resulting from having
an account disabled for whatever reason.

~~~
jxramos
What exactly is the file format that one downloads?

~~~
blfr
Different formats for different services and for some even a choice of
formats: iCalendar for Calendar; HTML, CSV or vcard for Contacts; json or KML
for location history (Maps); mbox for Gmail... You can see your options
before/without exporting anything.

~~~
jxramos
Nice, glad to hear it's a sane format and not some drudgery back handed
punishment sort of thing like an obscure binary dump.

------
aabbcce
I'm guessing posts like these had something to do with his banning (the zero
hedge link references his blog post, but his blog has been shut down):

[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-18/blm-paradox-
black-a...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-18/blm-paradox-black-
accountability-matters)

~~~
everybodyknows
TLDR: Skip forward to penultimate paragraph, read, and consider effort of
trying to parse the rest of the piece.

------
mirimir
I can't imagine how people depend so heavily on free accounts from Google.
Which notoriously ignores help requests. And typically don't retain backups.
Seriously?

But bottom line, it's Google's business what they do. And with a free account,
there's no recourse. Except maybe getting to HN front page, and reaching
someone sympathetic at Google.

~~~
b4ux1t3
I mean, they have _millions_ of users that have never had a problem. It's far
more likely this is a mistake than any kind of malicious act, just given the
sheer number of customers they have.

~~~
nxc18
We've had multiple people prominent enough to make the front page of hacker
news in the last few months. Maybe we should get some statistics on how many
people are prominent enough and controversial enough to land on the front page
of hn, then work back to how many of their millions of customers are actually
affected. Its probably a lot more than just 1.

~~~
glitcher
Well there is now at least one highly motivated statistician out there to
analyze the data you suggest. But how do you get the data to him?

------
thegayngler
This story is making me reconsider my allegiance to Google Email and other
services. For my more private stuff I use other services. I only use Gmail for
junk like I used to use Hotmail back in the day. My Gmail was compromised at
least twice.

------
cwyers
Is there a reason this link is to a blogspam site that is just copying a post
from Zero Hedge?

------
Animats
Dup of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15065742](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15065742)

but neither source provides much clarity, although they contain the same
information.

------
CaptObvious2
What did you think would happen? Tolerating the remove of anyone's freedom
should be fought. Even if they are not your bed fellows. Do nothing, and
expect more of this to follow.

------
lightedman
Knock out Title II protections for Google. No more of this nonsense.

------
daxorid
Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15065742](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15065742)

------
stillsut
Couple years ago some enterprising folks got together to teach "Software
Carpentry" to academics: git, open data, plotting with open source software,
etc...

Seems like there's a new set of skills that academics need to learn; paging Dr
Assange.

------
fageyogurtspoon
Zero Hedge is pro trump FAKE NEWS.

~~~
damnfine
Are you trolling? Did I miss a scarcasm tag? I am no fan of Trump, but writing
off anything pro trump as fake news is beyond ignorant. Take a miniute and
replace everytime you say 'trump' with 'obama' and see if you would still want
to be your own friend.

------
weberc2
It seems like this is probably an accident, and not an attempt to censor
reasonable political views. I would hope they learned their lesson last time.

~~~
5trokerac3
An accident that they even shut down his blog? Perhaps a mistake, but
definitely no accident.

~~~
weberc2
It seems reasonable to me that Google's banhammer is largely algorithmic, and
that the algorithm made an error. I can't think of any reason for Google to
ban him intentionally.

------
alexdowad
Why doesn't he say which of Google's terms of service he supposedly violated?
He just spends the whole 3 pages saying that he hasn't done anything wrong,
without even once saying what he is _alleged_ to have done wrong. Seems a bit
dishonest.

~~~
psyc
They don't tell you. My whole YouTube channel was removed 2 years ago, and the
only auto-mail I got said "TOS violation". I have no idea what the problem
was. When I followed the instructions on how to reinstate, I got a page saying
the channel wasn't recoverable. There was no indication of how to get any
other resolution.

------
alecco
# 1 176 points 2h Android Oreo

# 4 32 points 2h Winning the War on Error

(scroll to bottom)

#29 157 points 2h Statistics Professor Just Banned by Google

Soon this thread will be out of the homepage. Keep up the great work guys!

