5 ms·

Amazing that the Internet culture that vehemently opposed DRM and created things like bit torrent so quickly lined up behind algorithmic content moderation.

bil7 4y ago
fans of bittorrent and fans of services with auto content moderation share at least one common factor: they are free to use. Many people are not motivated much further than keeping their hard earned cash.
benglish11 4y ago
I think that internet (that opposed drm) and this one are very different. The anti drm movement was more of a popular movement and this one is a reaction by large corporations to new legal regulations (or threats of more regulations). It’s hard to even think of those as the same “culture”
fluoridation 4y ago
Yes, those two sets of people are one and the same.
TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
IMHO, the problem started when we all jumped on Gmail, knowing that there was no support, and if it broke, we got to keep both pieces. I watched my wife's account get taken over in real time a couple years ago. Ten years of personal and financial info, now in the hands of God-knows-who for God-knows-why. I simply deleted the account from her devices, and moved on. There was nothing I could do, and no one I could complain to about it. The WILD success of this model has led everyone else to do the same thing.
- lostgame 4y ago
  >> IMHO, the problem started when we all jumped on Gmail, knowing that there was no support Back when Gmail was invite-only, most people used Hotmail or Yahoo Mail, which would offer a base level of (I think) about 50-100MB of storage at the time. If you wanted more storage; you'd have to pay for your email service - an idea I don't think anyone born past 2000 has even heard of. Gmail came along, and suddenly offers us 1 GB of free storage, for free. This was around a quarter the size of some people's hard drives at this point. Of course we didn't care if there was no support! Are you kidding? I don't think Hotmail had support, either - (maybe I'm wrong?) - even if you paid for it; but here Google was offering a substantial value for anyone using any other existing mainstream email service, immediately. They even had STMP and IMAP support, meaning you could use whatever client you preferred. Back in the day most people used computer-side email clients and had local backups of emails anyway - so if one went missing from Google's side it wouldn't be so bad. There's a reason Gmail is still one of Google's strongest and unusually longest-lasting product of Google's. There's less reason now - but my God, when it was introduced it was an honest-to-God mindfuck as to how they were offering such a large amount of space and features for nothing.
  - koolba 4y ago
    IIRC, Hotmail provided 2 MB when Gmail was released. The 1 GB amount was so large by contrast that people thought it was a joke.
    - renata 4y ago
      I mean, it was also released on April Fools' Day.
    - mfoy87 4y ago
      That’s if you knew someone who would invite you!
  - cecilpl2 4y ago
    Other competing services gave you 2-5MB, which was so low that the standard thing to do was to delete email after you read it. The selling feature of Gmail was "Now you can keep all your mail and have a permanent searchable history of all your electronic communication".
  - birdyrooster 4y ago
    Unsurprisingly, after funding the initial round of Google investment, the DoD would come back not much later to eavesdrop on the email and uploads delivered to gmail into that storage.
    - halJordan 4y ago
      What i found is that darpa paid for research at a university and the students learned something from their project and then when they graduated they built something with their knowledge? It seems like the system of publicly funded research is working.
      - birdyrooster 4y ago
        Not DARPA, In-Q-Tel which is a non-profit venture capital group guided by CIA. They directly funded Google, after it was spun out from Stanford. "In-Q-Tel scouts the global market for commercially focused technologies with the potential to contribute to national security." - Source: iqt.org
rakoo 4y ago
The Internet culture fighting DRM and sharing of information is decidedly not the same group of people wishing for algorithmic content moderation
rad_gruchalski 4y ago
It’s a forced legislation in most places. Flagging is understandable, automatic removal with no way to recover is an awful practice.

bil7 4y ago

fans of bittorrent and fans of services with auto content moderation share at least one common factor: they are free to use. Many people are not motivated much further than keeping their hard earned cash.

benglish11 4y ago

I think that internet (that opposed drm) and this one are very different. The anti drm movement was more of a popular movement and this one is a reaction by large corporations to new legal regulations (or threats of more regulations). It’s hard to even think of those as the same “culture”

fluoridation 4y ago

Yes, those two sets of people are one and the same.

TheRealDunkirk 4y ago

IMHO, the problem started when we all jumped on Gmail, knowing that there was no support, and if it broke, we got to keep both pieces. I watched my wife's account get taken over in real time a couple years ago. Ten years of personal and financial info, now in the hands of God-knows-who for God-knows-why. I simply deleted the account from her devices, and moved on. There was nothing I could do, and no one I could complain to about it. The WILD success of this model has led everyone else to do the same thing.

lostgame 4y ago
>> IMHO, the problem started when we all jumped on Gmail, knowing that there was no support Back when Gmail was invite-only, most people used Hotmail or Yahoo Mail, which would offer a base level of (I think) about 50-100MB of storage at the time. If you wanted more storage; you'd have to pay for your email service - an idea I don't think anyone born past 2000 has even heard of. Gmail came along, and suddenly offers us 1 GB of free storage, for free. This was around a quarter the size of some people's hard drives at this point. Of course we didn't care if there was no support! Are you kidding? I don't think Hotmail had support, either - (maybe I'm wrong?) - even if you paid for it; but here Google was offering a substantial value for anyone using any other existing mainstream email service, immediately. They even had STMP and IMAP support, meaning you could use whatever client you preferred. Back in the day most people used computer-side email clients and had local backups of emails anyway - so if one went missing from Google's side it wouldn't be so bad. There's a reason Gmail is still one of Google's strongest and unusually longest-lasting product of Google's. There's less reason now - but my God, when it was introduced it was an honest-to-God mindfuck as to how they were offering such a large amount of space and features for nothing.
- koolba 4y ago
  IIRC, Hotmail provided 2 MB when Gmail was released. The 1 GB amount was so large by contrast that people thought it was a joke.
  - renata 4y ago
    I mean, it was also released on April Fools' Day.
  - mfoy87 4y ago
    That’s if you knew someone who would invite you!
- cecilpl2 4y ago
  Other competing services gave you 2-5MB, which was so low that the standard thing to do was to delete email after you read it. The selling feature of Gmail was "Now you can keep all your mail and have a permanent searchable history of all your electronic communication".
- birdyrooster 4y ago
  Unsurprisingly, after funding the initial round of Google investment, the DoD would come back not much later to eavesdrop on the email and uploads delivered to gmail into that storage.
  - halJordan 4y ago
    What i found is that darpa paid for research at a university and the students learned something from their project and then when they graduated they built something with their knowledge? It seems like the system of publicly funded research is working.
    - birdyrooster 4y ago
      Not DARPA, In-Q-Tel which is a non-profit venture capital group guided by CIA. They directly funded Google, after it was spun out from Stanford. "In-Q-Tel scouts the global market for commercially focused technologies with the potential to contribute to national security." - Source: iqt.org

rakoo 4y ago

The Internet culture fighting DRM and sharing of information is decidedly not the same group of people wishing for algorithmic content moderation

rad_gruchalski 4y ago

It’s a forced legislation in most places. Flagging is understandable, automatic removal with no way to recover is an awful practice.