11 ms·

I keep hearing stories about similar issues. Suddenly someone is terminated from a Google service for unknown reasons, without any possibility of reversing suc

by hpcjoe 7y ago

I keep hearing stories about similar issues. Suddenly someone is terminated from a Google service for unknown reasons, without any possibility of reversing such decisions. This appears to be true of Twitter and others as well. From my vantage point, it appears to be quite arbitrary. And quite concerning in a number of cases, given the centralization of email, docs, etc. I do make backups of google content every so often. I guess the irony of making a copy of a cloud set of services data locally, as you may not be able to trust that these services will be there over longer intervals, is either ironic ... or problematic. It speaks directly to the concept of risk of extended supply chains ... is the risk to your data, and ability to interact with services worth maintaining a presence on the systems? This behavior on their and related tech giants generally makes me question how much we should rely on them for important things (like permanent email addresses) over time. This has been making me uneasy for a while, and seeing more stories like this is not quelling my discomfort.

andai 7y ago
It's kind of like having all your stuff stored on the computer of someone who randomly breaks all contact with people for no reason. The cloud is just someone else's computer after all.
wpietri 7y ago
Yeah, I think there are two broad relationships between a person and a company: personal and statistical. At my corner grocery store, it's personal. I know all the staff, we say hello, we look out for one another. My doctor knows me as a person, and we talk as equals. You see the same thing between companies of similar scales. If my company is a significant customer of yours, we can talk as peers when we need to. Google Youtube and Twitter, on the other hand, are mainly selling eyeballs to advertisers. Not only do they not care about any given individual, they couldn't if they wanted to. The ratio between users and workers is 10,000:1 or worse. At that scale they know they're going to screw over people; at best, at best, they make sure the errors aren't too biased in any one direction. And of course they will work hard to clean up PR problems, as those are expensive enough to justify actual attention.
zxcvbn4038 7y ago
I think the underlying issue is that Google is under a lot of pressure from the EU and other governing bodies to police its YouTube content, Google being Google is trying to do this with algorithms, unfortunately when the algorithm gets something wrong there is seldom much recourse beyond knowing someone on the inside or being able to raise a big enough stink on Twitter. But this is nothing new, so I think you have to go into things planning for the day Google demonetizes your videos or suspends your account for no reason. Make sure you have backups in GCP, S3, or some other non-Google facility that your kid won’t unplug while playing. Learn how to serve video yourself and have that as a backup - when promoting your video link to a resource you control so you can direct people to backup sources when needed. Thanks to Apple there are only two, more or less interchangeable, standards for playing video on modern browsers, the only difference is that one standard (HLS) is controlled by Apple and the only option on iOS, and the other standard (DASH) is controlled by Google and works on everything except iOS. Most CDNs have support for HLS which means they dynamically recode video, help to generate manifests that direct users to lowest latency locations, and help to enforce entitlements (though as far as I can tell without proprietary DRM extensions all that is good for is largely keeping honest people honest which you may not care about when making video blogs or other public consumption content)
- celticninja 7y ago
  GCP is Google cloud platform isn't it? perhaps you mean AWS
  - dodobirdlord 7y ago
    GCP being a cloud service, it’s not susceptible to the same risks as YouTube. There’s no way for someone unscrupulous to “report your account” and the algorithms to be worried about are not scanning content. Instead, watchdog security systems may determine that your account had been compromised by bitcoin miners or something and lock things up until you get on the phone.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- 7y ago
fortran77 7y ago
Twitter isn't arbitrary or unknown, though. You can easily predict with near certain accuracy who will get permanently banned for a controversial tweet and who won't. YouTube is more hit or miss.
- hpcjoe 7y ago
  Not sure why you are getting downvoted over this. It is pretty close to what I observe. Express "wrongthink" and you will get banned. That should terrify everyone. As you don't know what rightthink and wrongthink are. They can, and do, change with time.
apostacy 7y ago
It used to be much harder to knock someone you didn't like offline. You used to have to organize a DDOS attack. But now, all you have to do is organize a much easier mass-flagging attack. We need to update our threat models to account for how unreliable major platforms have become. We can no longer rely on these companies. After big tech spent so much time investing in their own infrastructure, they are undermining themselves like this. We need to just accept that a major liability of using a major platform like this is that your content may be removed and your account deleted, for unknown reasons. Want to host your podcasts? Well don't rely solely on Apple Google or YouTube, they are not up for the job. Instead, you have to span it on multiple platforms and tell your audience where to find you if you get deleted.
- chii 7y ago
  This concept of de-platforming is becoming more and more prevailant. The big techs cannot differentiate between legitimate de-platforming vs a Denial of Service de-platforming. I think while the big techs have a legitimate concern for de-platforming things that are deemed hate speech, this same power can be utilized by individuals to target a de-platforming for people whose opinions they don't like. I think big techs should consider a public-court like system - where in order to deplatform, a jury of peers should be used to make judgements.
  - eitland 7y ago
    > The big techs cannot differentiate between legitimate de-platforming I can try to give some guidelines, I'd love to see improvements (and also like to know if anyone points out I'm wrong :-) Legitimate de-platforming is a) when an individual or organization is removed from the platform based on a request from law enforcement followed by a review by the platforms staff to verify that the request is genuine and that the reasons stated are valid. The account should still not be deleted for a certain number of days, and if requested by the user or organization, relevant details should be made available to them to take fight it in court against the relevant law enforcement agency. b) when an individual or organization is removed from the platform based on an written policy, known by the users of the platform in advance and verified by a second team. Upon request an explanation of why the account was deplatformed should be made available.
hosteur 7y ago
How do you backup Gmail?
- theduder99 7y ago
  https://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+do+you+backup+gmail https://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+do+you+backup+gmail
- benhurmarcel 7y ago
  You can download everything at once using Google Takeout. Or you can set up an email client with IMAP to download your email.
  - hosteur 7y ago
    That seems to be for one-in-a-while use case only. The parent poster mentioned that they backs up their google data. So I am assuming some kind of regular backup. I find that hard to do with gmail. And as I understand it will soon be impossible due to their updated API/authentication?
- rovr138 7y ago
  I use imapsync, http://imapsync.lamiral.info/ http://imapsync.lamiral.info/
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Maybe have multiple independent google IDs for activities you want to do? So if you do YouTube videos and android apps, don’t do them on the same google ID, so an accidental account suspension in one doesn’t affect the other.
- IX-103 7y ago
  That typically doesn't work. Google antifraud detects and groups these "related" accounts, so they potentially could suspend them all at once.
meshenna 7y ago
Happened to me a few years ago. Google account got terminated with no explanation. I used it for personal e-mail, watching videos on Youtube and to store personal files on Google Drive. I never posted anything anywhere public, including commenting on Youtube. Since then I've been self-hosting everything I can.
jplayer01 7y ago
I don't know what is do if I lost access to my Gmail account. I have tons of accounts on other services that only know me by that email address.

by hpcjoe 7y ago

andai 7y ago

It's kind of like having all your stuff stored on the computer of someone who randomly breaks all contact with people for no reason. The cloud is just someone else's computer after all.

wpietri 7y ago

Yeah, I think there are two broad relationships between a person and a company: personal and statistical. At my corner grocery store, it's personal. I know all the staff, we say hello, we look out for one another. My doctor knows me as a person, and we talk as equals. You see the same thing between companies of similar scales. If my company is a significant customer of yours, we can talk as peers when we need to. Google Youtube and Twitter, on the other hand, are mainly selling eyeballs to advertisers. Not only do they not care about any given individual, they couldn't if they wanted to. The ratio between users and workers is 10,000:1 or worse. At that scale they know they're going to screw over people; at best, at best, they make sure the errors aren't too biased in any one direction. And of course they will work hard to clean up PR problems, as those are expensive enough to justify actual attention.

zxcvbn4038 7y ago

I think the underlying issue is that Google is under a lot of pressure from the EU and other governing bodies to police its YouTube content, Google being Google is trying to do this with algorithms, unfortunately when the algorithm gets something wrong there is seldom much recourse beyond knowing someone on the inside or being able to raise a big enough stink on Twitter. But this is nothing new, so I think you have to go into things planning for the day Google demonetizes your videos or suspends your account for no reason. Make sure you have backups in GCP, S3, or some other non-Google facility that your kid won’t unplug while playing. Learn how to serve video yourself and have that as a backup - when promoting your video link to a resource you control so you can direct people to backup sources when needed. Thanks to Apple there are only two, more or less interchangeable, standards for playing video on modern browsers, the only difference is that one standard (HLS) is controlled by Apple and the only option on iOS, and the other standard (DASH) is controlled by Google and works on everything except iOS. Most CDNs have support for HLS which means they dynamically recode video, help to generate manifests that direct users to lowest latency locations, and help to enforce entitlements (though as far as I can tell without proprietary DRM extensions all that is good for is largely keeping honest people honest which you may not care about when making video blogs or other public consumption content)

celticninja 7y ago
GCP is Google cloud platform isn't it? perhaps you mean AWS
- dodobirdlord 7y ago
  GCP being a cloud service, it’s not susceptible to the same risks as YouTube. There’s no way for someone unscrupulous to “report your account” and the algorithms to be worried about are not scanning content. Instead, watchdog security systems may determine that your account had been compromised by bitcoin miners or something and lock things up until you get on the phone.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
7y ago

fortran77 7y ago

Twitter isn't arbitrary or unknown, though. You can easily predict with near certain accuracy who will get permanently banned for a controversial tweet and who won't. YouTube is more hit or miss.

hpcjoe 7y ago
Not sure why you are getting downvoted over this. It is pretty close to what I observe. Express "wrongthink" and you will get banned. That should terrify everyone. As you don't know what rightthink and wrongthink are. They can, and do, change with time.

apostacy 7y ago

It used to be much harder to knock someone you didn't like offline. You used to have to organize a DDOS attack. But now, all you have to do is organize a much easier mass-flagging attack. We need to update our threat models to account for how unreliable major platforms have become. We can no longer rely on these companies. After big tech spent so much time investing in their own infrastructure, they are undermining themselves like this. We need to just accept that a major liability of using a major platform like this is that your content may be removed and your account deleted, for unknown reasons. Want to host your podcasts? Well don't rely solely on Apple Google or YouTube, they are not up for the job. Instead, you have to span it on multiple platforms and tell your audience where to find you if you get deleted.

chii 7y ago
This concept of de-platforming is becoming more and more prevailant. The big techs cannot differentiate between legitimate de-platforming vs a Denial of Service de-platforming. I think while the big techs have a legitimate concern for de-platforming things that are deemed hate speech, this same power can be utilized by individuals to target a de-platforming for people whose opinions they don't like. I think big techs should consider a public-court like system - where in order to deplatform, a jury of peers should be used to make judgements.
- eitland 7y ago
  > The big techs cannot differentiate between legitimate de-platforming I can try to give some guidelines, I'd love to see improvements (and also like to know if anyone points out I'm wrong :-) Legitimate de-platforming is a) when an individual or organization is removed from the platform based on a request from law enforcement followed by a review by the platforms staff to verify that the request is genuine and that the reasons stated are valid. The account should still not be deleted for a certain number of days, and if requested by the user or organization, relevant details should be made available to them to take fight it in court against the relevant law enforcement agency. b) when an individual or organization is removed from the platform based on an written policy, known by the users of the platform in advance and verified by a second team. Upon request an explanation of why the account was deplatformed should be made available.

hosteur 7y ago

How do you backup Gmail?

theduder99 7y ago
https://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+do+you+backup+gmail https://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+do+you+backup+gmail
benhurmarcel 7y ago
You can download everything at once using Google Takeout. Or you can set up an email client with IMAP to download your email.
- hosteur 7y ago
  That seems to be for one-in-a-while use case only. The parent poster mentioned that they backs up their google data. So I am assuming some kind of regular backup. I find that hard to do with gmail. And as I understand it will soon be impossible due to their updated API/authentication?
rovr138 7y ago
I use imapsync, http://imapsync.lamiral.info/ http://imapsync.lamiral.info/

seanmcdirmid 7y ago

Maybe have multiple independent google IDs for activities you want to do? So if you do YouTube videos and android apps, don’t do them on the same google ID, so an accidental account suspension in one doesn’t affect the other.

IX-103 7y ago
That typically doesn't work. Google antifraud detects and groups these "related" accounts, so they potentially could suspend them all at once.

meshenna 7y ago

Happened to me a few years ago. Google account got terminated with no explanation. I used it for personal e-mail, watching videos on Youtube and to store personal files on Google Drive. I never posted anything anywhere public, including commenting on Youtube. Since then I've been self-hosting everything I can.

jplayer01 7y ago

I don't know what is do if I lost access to my Gmail account. I have tons of accounts on other services that only know me by that email address.