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After Grammarly spent millions of dollars on Google ads, I expect them not to accept valid criticism on Google platforms. But it's unfair to block a guy that t

After Grammarly spent millions of dollars on Google ads, I expect them not to accept valid criticism on Google platforms. But it's unfair to block a guy that talked about a real flaw in Grammarly's plagiarism checker, at least pretend that you allow free speech and take down that video for a random reason specified in your ToS.

evilksandr 5y ago
Thanks for your support!
maxltv 5y ago
First, Grammarly has nothing to do with this suspension or any problem with the videos in question. Second, this is not a flaw or a hack but an unsuccessful attempt to use Grammarly for an UNINTENDED purpose. Grammarly is not meant for anti-plagiarism enforcement. Grammarly aims to help users avoid accidental or unintentional plagiarism by highlighting parts that may need to be cited. So it does not attempt to deal with any plagiarisms enforcement countermeasures - if someone is deliberately masking plagiarism, it's definitely not unintentional or accidental. It's trivial to overcome these particular counter-measures but that's just not what Grammarly is for.
- evilksandr 5y ago
  Grammarly has a separate plagiarism checker https://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism-checker https://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism-checker which was in my report
  - maxltv 5y ago
    Oleksandre, you got an official response that this is by design. I explained why. This is a landing page, not a separate product, and the description of the plagiarism feature clearly states it's not for policing: "...Our free plagiarism check will tell you whether or not your text contains duplicate content. Our Premium plagiarism check highlights passages that require citations and gives you the resources you need to properly credit your sources."
    - evilksandr 5y ago
      We continued our discussion in this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29933516#29947146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29933516#29947146
smcl 5y ago
I think you've incorrectly invoked "free speech" here, IMO this isn't a free speech issue. It may be a TOS issue and it does sound like Google are being a bit unreasonable but "free speech" isn't really something Google ever promised to permit on their platforms
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Why is that not a free speech issue? It is not a legal issue of course, but removal of critical opinions very much qualifies to be a violation of the principle.
  - smcl 5y ago
    Because it's basically never been a thing there. Facebook, Twitter, Google - all of these platforms can and do remove things from their platforms for whatever reason they feel like. There's nothing we can do about it, there is no free speech there and acting indignant like they're eroding some right that you previously had is just pointless. It'd be like complaining that you can't get sushi at McDonalds anymore. You couldn't ever do that, McDonalds haven't indicated that they would offer this and we all know it's not going to happen.
    - foxfluff 5y ago
      There's no "anymore" in these complaints though. There's just the complaint. It's not "my parents started beating me while they in the past didn't", it's just "parents are beating me." Or "google is suppressing my speech." Past actions of the involved entities do not invalidate the complaint. Likewise, "the grocery store next door doesn't sell sushi" is a legit complaint for the afflicted regardless of whether sushi was sold in the past or not. (Coincidentally, my go-to store just stopped selling sushi a week or two ago)
      - smcl 5y ago
        > But it's unfair to block a guy that talked about a real flaw in Grammarly's plagiarism checker, at least pretend that you allow free speech and take down that video for a random reason specified in your ToS. See italicised section, it suggests there's a promise of free speech on Google that are somehow reneging on. I am just saying that this is a mistake, and now loads of people seem to be mad at the idea that I'm attacking "free speech". One of the reasons I thought it shouldn't be here is that it's fairly complex topic that IMO is orthogonal to the case in question because it raises all sorts of thorny side-issues that distract from the main thing: someone got booted from Google quite unfairly.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
joelbondurant1 5y ago

evilksandr 5y ago

Thanks for your support!

maxltv 5y ago

First, Grammarly has nothing to do with this suspension or any problem with the videos in question. Second, this is not a flaw or a hack but an unsuccessful attempt to use Grammarly for an UNINTENDED purpose. Grammarly is not meant for anti-plagiarism enforcement. Grammarly aims to help users avoid accidental or unintentional plagiarism by highlighting parts that may need to be cited. So it does not attempt to deal with any plagiarisms enforcement countermeasures - if someone is deliberately masking plagiarism, it's definitely not unintentional or accidental. It's trivial to overcome these particular counter-measures but that's just not what Grammarly is for.

evilksandr 5y ago
Grammarly has a separate plagiarism checker https://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism-checker https://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism-checker which was in my report
- maxltv 5y ago
  Oleksandre, you got an official response that this is by design. I explained why. This is a landing page, not a separate product, and the description of the plagiarism feature clearly states it's not for policing: "...Our free plagiarism check will tell you whether or not your text contains duplicate content. Our Premium plagiarism check highlights passages that require citations and gives you the resources you need to properly credit your sources."
  - evilksandr 5y ago
    We continued our discussion in this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29933516#29947146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29933516#29947146

smcl 5y ago

I think you've incorrectly invoked "free speech" here, IMO this isn't a free speech issue. It may be a TOS issue and it does sound like Google are being a bit unreasonable but "free speech" isn't really something Google ever promised to permit on their platforms

raxxorrax 5y ago
Why is that not a free speech issue? It is not a legal issue of course, but removal of critical opinions very much qualifies to be a violation of the principle.
- smcl 5y ago
  Because it's basically never been a thing there. Facebook, Twitter, Google - all of these platforms can and do remove things from their platforms for whatever reason they feel like. There's nothing we can do about it, there is no free speech there and acting indignant like they're eroding some right that you previously had is just pointless. It'd be like complaining that you can't get sushi at McDonalds anymore. You couldn't ever do that, McDonalds haven't indicated that they would offer this and we all know it's not going to happen.
  - foxfluff 5y ago
    There's no "anymore" in these complaints though. There's just the complaint. It's not "my parents started beating me while they in the past didn't", it's just "parents are beating me." Or "google is suppressing my speech." Past actions of the involved entities do not invalidate the complaint. Likewise, "the grocery store next door doesn't sell sushi" is a legit complaint for the afflicted regardless of whether sushi was sold in the past or not. (Coincidentally, my go-to store just stopped selling sushi a week or two ago)
    - smcl 5y ago
      > But it's unfair to block a guy that talked about a real flaw in Grammarly's plagiarism checker, at least pretend that you allow free speech and take down that video for a random reason specified in your ToS. See italicised section, it suggests there's a promise of free speech on Google that are somehow reneging on. I am just saying that this is a mistake, and now loads of people seem to be mad at the idea that I'm attacking "free speech". One of the reasons I thought it shouldn't be here is that it's fairly complex topic that IMO is orthogonal to the case in question because it raises all sorts of thorny side-issues that distract from the main thing: someone got booted from Google quite unfairly.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

joelbondurant1 5y ago