It is really concerning that I probably need to ask my parents to stop sharing any photos and videos of my young son digitally (privately via WhatsApp) when he's staying at their place and they are teaching him to swim in their swimming pool. False positives like these can ruin your life.
And without any protections Google would be a massive host and facilitator for CSAM. Let's not be naïve about this.
Google support is notoriously non-existent and/or obtuse, and that's the real problem here. Combined with that it's a "ban for life" black/white type thing, that it's not really possibly to appeal anywhere reasonably independent, and that type of stuff. There's tons of innocent reasons your account can get banned, and this is just one o them.
Doing anything that allows random people to upload or send stuff is being flypaper for the worst of the worst of dickheads. You really do need some kind of protection.
I'll go a step further and say that providing such a large platform which ties in to so many aspects of life (whether you want to or not) means accepting some responsibility. This means having at least vaguely helpful support. And also means not being a massive host for CSAM.
I remember a time when I worked as a repair tech and randomly clicked something on the frontpage of Google Video just to test if Flash Player was working without really looking what it was, and it was some guy blowing his brains out. And "young 12-year old Alice proudly shows her small tits" type stuff being quite common to just come across without looking for it on Kazaa, "warez" sites, and the like.
Where do you strike the balance on all of that? Good question. But pretending the balance doesn't exist is not helpful.
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2022/08/22/google-account-deleted-du...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32538805