8 ms·
Statistics professor at Columbia and Georgetown banned from all Google services
- shitgoose 9y agohttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-21/one-statistics-professor-was-just-banned-google-here-his-story http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-21/one-statistics-prof... "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 9y agoWhat's your claim?
- shitgoose 9y agoisn'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/52af668569bedd3b2643dd68-1176-469/joseph%20stalin%20with%20nikolai%20yezhov%20photoshopped%20out_edited-1.jpg http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/52af668569bedd3b264... (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 9y ago> 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.
- meri_dian 9y agoBoth working with the Obama administration and advising the Trump campaign on polling statistics are innocent activities...?
- mc32 9y agoIm not sure what you're trying to imply. No one needs to be completely innocent. And no one is. What's preposterous is shutting someone down for merely showing some statistical evidence of something contrary to a particular narrative
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jmcgough 9y agoZero Hedge is like the rantings of paranoid conspiracy theorists
- puranjay 9y agoThe good part about predicting economic apocalypse is that you are bound to be proven right every ten years or so.
- dang 9y agoWould you please not post ideological flamebait to HN? It's just the thing we're trying to avoid here, and the site guidelines explicitly ask you not to. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ForHackernews 9y agoContrary 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 9y agoGiven 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 9y agoYes, because it's their computers.
- falcolas 9y agoWell, it's also "their" power lines, water mains, sewer, and phone lines. We as a society don't let people be cut off from those services for their politics or their religion. And when people are cut off from aforementioned utilities, it's done with notice, and with the ability to have service restored when payment resumes.
- SamReidHughes 9y agoThere are other email providers.
- falcolas 9y agoThe Daily Stormer has, for all its problems, shown how "just use another provider" is not a dependable solution.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
- daxorid 9y agoOur 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.
- caseydurfee 9y ago"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-american-politics/ https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-am...). 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.
- mc32 9y agoI think you're right and I hope you're right. However, their system seems exceedingly sensitive to a certain political narrative. I've heard about both antifa and alt right bearing most of the auto trips, but many incidental opinions such as this are getting caught up in their dragnet. That's not a good thing.
- whipoodle 9y agoThe backlash is on. One of their boys got fired, and they're pissed. Sad to see Taleb going along with this.
- 5trokerac3 9y agoI 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 9y ago
- Animats 9y agoGoogle 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://statisticalideas.blogspot.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170518181642/http://statistica...
- gaius 9y agoit just displays a "Blogger gear", because the content is dynamically loaded I wonder why Google made that particular design decision?
- Animats 9y agoThat probably predates Google's acquisition of Blogger.
- gaius 9y agoOdd 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 9y ago> This mechanism defeats caching Wat?
- gaius 9y agoRead 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.
- redm 9y agoI 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-professor-was-just-banned-google-here-his-story http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-21/one-statistics-prof... 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 9y agoIt 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 9y agoIf 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.)
- brightball 9y agoNot familiar with Zerohedge but the entire thing does seem pretty questionable, especially non-reinstatement after review. Google needs to get on clarifying this and the reasons behind ASAP because right now it looks like an entire internet presence was shut down due to publishing unpopular math.
- rdtsc 9y ago> 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 9y ago"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
- aestetix 9y agoIf 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.
- existencebox 9y agoAt 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 9y agoGreat I'll just throw it on my ....Google drive. Dammit.
- throwaway613834 9y agoDo you know of any way to automate it (besides scripting a full browser)?
- daxorid 9y agoThe 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.
- mywittyname 9y agoThe problem with ZH is, once people know the story, they can predict the narrative. That's a pretty clear indicator of bias. Admittedly, in this case it was rather cut-and-dry.
- dang 9y agoUnless 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.
- tweedledee 9y agoIn 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
- slackstation 9y agoThis 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 9y ago> 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.
- snksnk 9y agoDo 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 9y agoHave 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.
- icu 9y agoI use protonmail.com and I'm happy with them vs Gmail. Duck Duck Go is my default search tool. I mainly use Firefox as a browser and I use my work Outlook for calendar/contacts. I know I can use more open source/portable tools but it's gotten me out of the Google bubble. Unfortunately I can't get away from Android... and I like Apple's ethics less than Alphabet, so I'm stuck there.
- prh8 9y agoI 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.
- exolymph 9y agoLike prh8, I am super satisfied with FastMail. I've also heard good things about Protonmail.
- mdavidn 9y agoLike prh8, I too use FastMail. I trust the FastMail team, but a custom domain means I can switch e-mail providers without changing my e-mail address.
- ignoramceisblis 9y agocaseydurfee: > 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 9y agoHere 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 9y agoManifest in the thread. I am in agreement with the parent!
- godshatter 9y agoTime 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 9y agoFirst 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.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- binaryphile 9y agoThe 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.
- Animats 9y agoHas anybody found out yet what this is all about?
- ucaetano 9y agoResult: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6305625404417802240/ https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6305625...
- throwaway613834 9y ago> 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.