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posted by mrpg on Sunday March 25 2018, @03:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the paging-winston-smith dept.

Sex Workers Say Porn on Google Drive Is Suddenly Disappearing

[...] Six porn performers I talked to and more on social media said that they suddenly can't download adult content they keep on Google Drive. They also said they can't a[sic] share that content with other accounts or send to clients. In some cases, the adult content is disappearing from Drive without warning or explanation. The porn performers I talked to started sounding the alarm on Twitter last week. They said that Google Drive no longer seemed sex-trade friendly, detailing error messages and sharing cloud storage alternatives with each other.

When I asked about sexual content being blocked on Drive, a spokesperson for Google directed me to the Drive policy page—specifically the section on sexually explicit material, which says, "Do not publish sexually explicit or pornographic images or videos.... Additionally, we do not allow content that drives traffic to commercial pornography." Writing about porn and sex is permitted, the policy states, as long as it's not accompanied by sexually explicit images or videos. According to Google, Drive uses a combination of automated systems and manual review to decide what's in violation.

[...] "It seems like all of our videos in Google Drive are getting flagged by some sort of automated system," Stone said. "We're not even really getting notified of it, the only way we really found out was one of our customers told us he couldn't view or download the video we sent him."

Stone's files aren't removed from Drive, but when she tries to play the video or download it, she said Google gives her an error message: "Whoops! There was a problem playing this video" with an option to download the item, but the download link doesn't work.

Some sex workers are wondering if this has something to do with the impending vote on the SESTA-FOSTA bill, which is on the Senate floor for debate this week. [ed. note: it was passed]

It could also be that Google is suddenly enforcing its Terms of Service without warning.

[...] "I don't believe that Google should be allowed to dictate what you and another consenting adult send to each other through email."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:19PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:19PM (#657960)

    Duh to you, too. Read the summary - they use google drive to share photos/vids with their clients. How you gonna do that when they are encrypted? This is about whores and johns, not crypto peoples.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:23PM (#657962)

    Hand them a USB stick with instructions/software and the password?

    Crypto is survival, don't take my word, ask a banker.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:25PM (5 children)

    Duh to you, too. Read the summary - they use google drive to share photos/vids with their clients. How you gonna do that when they are encrypted? This is about whores and johns, not crypto peoples.

    Given that these are likely commercial transactions, strong encryption actually makes a lot of sense.

    Make the content freely available in encrypted form, and once payment is received, provide a decryption key.

    In fact, that would solve the problem completely. Google shouldn't be doing this, and presumably the actors/producers want to get paid. Strong encryption prevents the former and guarantees the latter.

    And, unless I read it wrong, these are not "whores" and "johns," they are creators and consumers of pornography. I assume you understand the difference, right? Or perhaps you should hit the dictionary and clear things up.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @08:02PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @08:02PM (#658039)

      DRM doesn't work. Key sharing is a real thing. BTW - A "whore" is a woman that uses sex to get money, aka a prostitute. A 'john" is her paying customer. I'll let you figure out what a "pimp" is all by yourself. Sheesh, this is the world's oldest profession. I thought everyone knew about it. Thank heavens for dictionaries.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by linuxrocks123 on Sunday March 25 2018, @11:26PM (1 child)

        by linuxrocks123 (2557) on Sunday March 25 2018, @11:26PM (#658123) Journal

        After looking up all the other words you're misusing, I've got another term for you.

        http://www.dictionary.com/browse/idiot [dictionary.com]

        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @06:00PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @06:00PM (#658570)

          So...you're an idiot? That's okay! Lots of people are too stupid to be a whore.

      • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday March 26 2018, @03:43AM (1 child)

        BTW - A "whore" is a woman that uses sex to get money, aka a prostitute. A 'john" is her paying customer. I'll let you figure out what a "pimp" is all by yourself. Sheesh, this is the world's oldest profession. I thought everyone knew about it. Thank heavens for dictionaries.

        Since you're obviously confused, I'll explain:

        The relationship between a prostitute and his/her customer is that something of value is exchanged for sexual activity *between those people*.

        An adult *performer* is not a prostitute, and a paying consumer of such performances has not engaged the services of a prostitute.

        I was really confused as to why you might think that things worked differently, then I realized that perhaps viewing porn was your only experience with sexuality. Then your statement made a lot more sense.

        I'll clue you in on something of which you're apparently not aware: Watching others in sexualized imagery or performing sex acts is *not* the same thing as having sex. If you pay me to write you an erotic story, that's not prostitution. If you pay me to send you photos/videos of me fucking someone, that's not prostitution. If you pay me to fuck *you*, that's prostitution.

        Given your apparent lack of knowledge about what is sex and what isn't, I'm going to assume that reading/viewing depictions of sexual activity is your only experience with sex. Unless you're fourteen, more's the pity.

        tl;dr: If you pay someone to interact in physical sexual activities *with you*, that's what's called prostitution. If you pay someone to provide images/video/written word *depictions* of sexual activities, that's performance, not prostitution.

        --
        No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @06:21PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @06:21PM (#658576)

          You seem confused. You seem to think that prostitution involves only intercourse between two people. "Sexual activity" and "sexual services" can be different things and more than just that. If I pay a whore to cram dildos up her ass and send me videos of it...yup, that's prostitution. Webcam girls? Prostitution. Heck, there are even pimps for webcam girls! I know it bakes your noodle thinking about it but performance can be prostitution and that would make the performer a whore in pretty much anybody's book. Make sure you know what you're talking about before you try to explain something. But it was nice of you to try.