SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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for Google directed me to the Drive policy page—specifically the section on sexually explicit material, which says, "Do not publish sexually explicit or pornographic images or videos....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."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jelizondo on Sunday March 25 2018, @06:11PM (6 children)
I did not write 'read', I wrote 'agreed', big difference. I can place a contract in front of you and if you sign it, you agree to the terms, whether you read it or not.
The last paragraph of the summary makes it clear some people believe they can tell Google how to run its business. Google is not obliged to carry porn, anymore than YouTube is obliged to carry gun-related videos. They are private enterprises and can very much set any terms for the servcies they offer.
And of course, as you point out, porn will find a way using the latest tech, so good for them but they should stop whining.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday March 25 2018, @06:31PM (3 children)
Not in all jurisdictions. I've been told that in Quebec the terms of a contract you sign are not binding unless you read and understand them. I gather it is the notary whose responsibility it is to make sure you do understand the terms, and, if necessary, read them to you and explain them.
Anyone here really know this is so?
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 25 2018, @07:38PM (2 children)
So in Quebec you need a notary to enter any contract? Seems they have a lot of work for notaries there…
In Germany, there are only some contracts that need a notary (for example, when real estate is involved). And in those cases, it is indeed the notary's duty to read out all of the contract, and to explain anything that may be unclear. I'd expect that to be the case also in Quebec. I cannot imagine that every time you buy something at a shop, a notary reads you the general terms and conditions of the shop (remember, whenever you buy anything at a shop, you enter a contract).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Sunday March 25 2018, @11:57PM (1 child)
Well, no, that's obviously absurd. Almost always, when you reach an absurd result like that, you're missing something, and need to keep researching the topic.
As best I can find -- this isn't an area of interest for me -- sales in shops are oral contracts where a customer makes an offer and the shopkeeper accepts said offer simultaneously at the time of payment. Since it's an oral contract, you haven't signed it, and the GP was talking about written contracts. This essay is illustrative:
https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/contract-law/whether-display-of-goods-constitutes-an-offer-contract-law-essay.php [lawteacher.net]
Posted return policies of the store are probably considered to be implicitly part of the customer's oral offer.
A warning about the essay, though: Quebec likely has its sales contract law based on civil law, like Louisiana, which has not adopted the UCC for sales. In Louisiana, a sales contract has three elements: price, thing, and consent. The contract is void if any one of those is missing, but the contract need not be written to be valid. Since both jurisdictions have a similar French history, my best guess is that Quebec is the same way.
IANAL and this isn't legal advice.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday March 31 2018, @05:14PM
Quebec civil law is based on the French civil law from a few centuries ago.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 26 2018, @03:12AM
Since the beginning of the 'net, porn has been a problematic driver of traffic.
An openly posted porn video is, usually, downloaded many many more times than your average cute cat video - and that traffic is probably what gets most of them deleted. Now, for industry workers with just a few clients getting the files - Google must be doing some screening, presumably AI, to flag the content - still runs afoul of the TOS, and probably causes Google problems in more than a few jurisdictions if they don't enforce that part of the TOS.
In reality, this will just drive the adoption of encrypted video transfer. Simple enough to encrypt the stream to make it unreadable without a passphrase. I doubt that the porn industry will graduate from symmetric to asymmetric encryption, but they certainly could.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @09:12AM
That's true.
That's false. Because quite often whining results in change. Quietly accepting stuff is a lot less likely to result in the change you want.
You often don't know whether the whining is pointless till you try it enough :).
T&Cs can be changed and how they are applied and whether they are applied can vary. After all these bunch still have their accounts right?