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Sex Workers Say Porn On Google Drive Is Suddenly Disappearing (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Porn performer Avey Moon was trying to send the lucky winner of her Chaturbate contest his prize -- one of her videos, titled "POV Blowjob" -- through her Google Drive account. But it wouldn't send, and Google wasn't telling her why. "I thought there was something wrong with my file and I got rather worried," Moon told me in a Twitter message. "I had promised this guy his content and he was so good to me. I was panicked because I thought if I couldn't give him his prize, he would feel like he got ripped off and never come back again or worse, he could actually file a complaint with Chaturbate about me and they can take money from me." She's not alone. 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 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for Google directed me to the Drive policy page -- specifically the section on sexually explicit material, which says, "Do not publish sexually explicit or pornographic images or videos....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. One worker said they've been using Google Drive for most of the last five and a half years but just recently received an error message when sending a video, saying that the item may violate Google's Terms of Service, with a link to request a review. In this case, the video title was explicit, but other adult performers report similar messages when sending content with non-explicit titles. "Some sex workers are wondering if this has something to do with the impending vote on the SESTA-FOSTA bill," reports Motherboard. We now have learned that the Senate has passed the bill.
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. One worker said they've been using Google Drive for most of the last five and a half years but just recently received an error message when sending a video, saying that the item may violate Google's Terms of Service, with a link to request a review. In this case, the video title was explicit, but other adult performers report similar messages when sending content with non-explicit titles. "Some sex workers are wondering if this has something to do with the impending vote on the SESTA-FOSTA bill," reports Motherboard. We now have learned that the Senate has passed the bill.
It is not clear whether or not those accounts are the free accounts, or if they are paid for.
I switched from Drive to Dropbox a while ago. I wasn't cool with having a fair amount of important data locked up in a 'free' solution that could be turned off at any time. I'd rather pay the couple of dollars a month for Dropbox.
There's the problem. Don't store your only copy of expensive data on Someone Else's Computer aka The Cloud(tm). At least have a local backup.
If it's on someone else's computer, they can impose their rules, laws, and religious superstitions on you.
If you need cloud hosting, go with a non-US provider. The US is gradually reverting to a pit of Puritanism and religious zealotry. More evolved societies only worry about what can actually harm people (i.e. terrorist recruitment material), not about the naked human body.
Seems like violence and gunplay is fine in US media and TV shows, but the moment you see one-fifth of an areola, the Puritans get up in arms.
Everyone knows how that ends. Everyone who cheers when the big companies clamp down on thinking the wrong thoughts will soon find that no one will support them when they are silenced.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
First they banned racists, and I did not speak out because I was not a racist.
Then they banned gun owners, and I did not speak out because I was not a gun owner.
Then they banned porn, and I did not speak out because I did not distribute porn.
Then then banned me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
This is why if you believe in freedom of speech, you have to protect even speech you find reprehensible. If you do not, you are giving the morality police control over what speech is allowed. Reprehensible speech should be deemed reprehensible because people have viewed or listened to it and deemed it reprehensible. Not because someone in a position of power in government or some company has deemed it reprehensible and prevented the public from viewing or hearing it.
Porn has nothing to worry about from the Right, and knows it I even read someplace that Utah is the state with the largest number of porn downloads, on the average. Porn *IS* terrified that the #MeToo and #KillHarvey and whatever other movements percolating up from the feminist Left that demonize the objectification of women will begin to impact porn consumption.
While I would agree mostly, that if you dont like a TOS go somewhere else, but google and apple phones use their own services.
Microsoft apps want to backup to microsoft drive. Google apps want to backup to gdrive. Apple to idrive. You get the idea.
It's very dishonest when a company owns a majority of a market like android phones, combines services then tries to tell you how to use it.
If they didn't like LGBT and started removing your LGBT apps would that be an issue? How about your hunting pictures, your state legal pot, your protest photos?
Damn slippery slope for the Internet generation. These companies are basically public services, if you own A PC, A MAC or a Android device, they are a defacto monopoly to their platform. You wouldn't want your ISP to block you, your Telecom to block you, your Power company to block you, why would you want your storage device to block you, your email app to block you, your social media site to block you, your free speech goes all along those lines.
Stallman was only partially correct, its not copyright that will be used to control you, its the Terms of Service.
Demand a free and open internet, free speech, free use, no censorship.
If you're going to store anything in " The Cloud ", encrypt the file prior to upload and change the name to something that doesn't make it obvious as to what the file may contain.
IE: Insane Blowjob while smeared in Green Jello -> Cat Video #3
This really should be common sense by now.
Damn slippery slope for the Internet generation.
What really makes me sad is how many of the younger generation in the USA are perfectly ok with censorship, as long as the people censored are the ones they dislike. This seems to happen more and more, in universities, in public forums, in social media.
I used to live in one of the former Iron Curtain countries, and freedom of speech was something we could only dream of. After the fall of communism, being able to speak one's mind in public was pure joy. I can't believe people born with the right to free speech can be so dismissive of it.
Nope. They're in charge at Google.
In Denmark there is a system called NemID (EasyID, if you want to translate it) which is used for ALL COMMUNICATION with the authorities, banks, etc.
And as of 2018 they're phasing out the physical one-time pads in favor of a smart phone app. I assure you, using a smart phone is something Danish citizens are very soon FORCED to do.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Because thier motto was always "leave people alone."
It never was. It never, ever was. It was always "those people are different from us, let's get 'em!" Or of course, it has also been "those people aren't really people, so it's okay to enslave them".
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So technically she was in violation of GDrive TOS for 5 and a half years then.
I'm no friend of Google snooping in your data that you entrusted them with, but with the threat of criminal prosecution for NOT doing it, I can't blame them for following the laws.
bickerdyke
No, it's about moral busybodies inflicting their whims on others as a power trip... And no side has a monopoly on that. Third wave feminists, social justice fanatics, Google/Twitter, evangelicals, Republicans, etc... All of them desperately want to tell me who I can be, what I can say, who I can fuck, what I can read, what I can see, and so on.
This is why the Constitution and Bill of Rights are so critically important to uphold. It isn't just old paper. It's an enumeration of our freedom and protections, which would be stolen and destroyed by those listed above if we let them.
Because thier motto was always "leave people alone."
It never was. It never, ever was. It was always "those people are different from us, let's get 'em!" Or of course, it has also been "those people aren't really people, so it's okay to enslave them".
The Democrats- the left- have always been the slave party. That 'southern strategy' tale about everybody switching sides in the 60's has always been a bunch of rubbish that Democrats tell each other, as they promulgate endlessly racist and racial policies. Your pals on the left have switched from racial malevolence to racial condescension, which I suppose is a small improvement. Maybe in another 60 years you'll actually treat people like people, instead of grievance groups to be pitted against each other for electoral gain.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.