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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for Google directed me to the Drive policy page -- specifically the section on sexually explicit material, which says, "Do not publish sexually explicit or pornographic images or videos....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.
than the Left...
I've been in the hosting market for a while and even though I've never had any directly pornographic contracts to fill I've had some that touch the edges, so to speak. One project I had was for a sex toy seller looking for a website, online transactions, marketing materials etc. I learned a lot in a few days reading T's and C's from hosting providers about what does and does not fly with certain providers. Given that the hosting sphere is basically dominated four or five big players and many thousands of their re-sellers it's not surprising to find that most web content hosts are very adult-theme sensitive. If the big players are against it then so are the vast majority of smaller ones.
I'd been of the understanding for a long time that Google Drive didn't want adult content on its service. As the title states: I'm genuinely surprised people had been successfully using Google Drive in such a fashion for such a long time by what appears to be a lot of people.
Ah well, there are alternatives at least. I feel like it would have been nice to tell users about exactly why their content is no longer allowed, but that's far too much for a consumer peon to ask from a faceless & soulless corporate golem.
Bonus: while typing out that last sentence the word golem flags my spell checker as being incorrect. The word "golem" has the spell check autocorrect suggestion of Google. I'm using Chrome. Irony levels are over 9000.
There are no stupid questions, just stupid people.
It's radical leftist feminists who are pushing for porn censorship these days because it "promotes sexual violence" and "objectifies women." The whole religious right puritan push died decades ago.
I wonder if you even live here.
Excellent google proof file compressors are FREE and LEGAL and trivial to install and use.
7-zip. Grown up software with constant updates and source code if you want it. Not this pre-packaged, corporate approved shit from apple, microsoft of google stores.
If you use the software (apps) that come with your OS, you're a fucking cretin. Worse, you help turn the world to shit.
The most fantastic thing about the computer revolution is that it is a people's revolution. The computer empowers everyone who cares to make even the slightest effort. Wanna code and create- the most insanely powerful hardware is cheap, and the most insanely powerful software is frequently free. But if you won't make even the slightest effort, there are monsters in the woods always waiting to lead you astray.
The New Puritanism is a terrifying movement, originally sold by the right in the 1980s, and now fully adopted and infinitely more weaponised by the left. It plays on the Human weakness known as 'guilt'- not guilt of something real, but guilt of things like one's own sexuality.
Images of the female breast are now even starting to be banned in Germany and France. The neo-liberal movement (a creation of Orwell's actual Ingsoc, the fabian movement of the UK, currently headed by Tony Blair) has fully subsumed the neo-con movement, and is now represented by the major left and right political parties of the West (Trump is 100% neo-liberal, as is Obama and Clinton).
What can the ordinary decent Human do? Not be a dumb-dumb. Disengage from all mainstream media outlets, and avoid all Soros fake indy ones. Seek information (pull) rather than allowing the gatekeeprs select and push 'information' at you.
And the computer world is a playground for GOOD, if only you make the tiniest of efforts. Install that ad-blocker (and subscibe to better filter lists as well). Use open source and free programs where possible- especially the portable and light weight apps- coders should be rewarded for efficiency and convenience.
Use FAKE NAMES for your accounts where you may want to say something political or controversial- otherwise the state will 100% use your words against you in the future if you ever become 'important'. There is no shame in using 'anonymous' as a shield when the enemies of humanity are so remorseless and vicious.
And NEVER EVER store your files unencrypted in 'the cloud'. Learn how automated tools 'scan' your files, and how to ensure your data is not visible to scanning. Zipping with a password is super fast and simple on modern hardware. Video containers should have included encryption options from the get-go, but for various reasons they did not, outsisde of DRM riddled streaming formats.
You may need to change the file extension for google MAY ban certain types of file that seem incorrectly formed down to the encryption- but believe me google will never dare restrict files to a list of known authorised types. A .mp4 that does not register as a .mp4 cos it is now encrypted may fail on googe drive, but in this case change the extension to an unknown type (like, say, .zkz) - cos google will always accept that it doesn't know about personal file projects and apps.
For sure this means changing your .mp4 into a .zip, then renaming .zip to say .zkz, but wow, what a little effort.
If google dares to move to the next stage of banning .zip files with passwords by examining every file, then the files will have to be fully encrypted - which means no headers within the files that reveal its type- ie., fully random data. Google can do nothing about fully random data except WHITELIST- that is only allow file types that Google can parse. Google will NEVER whitelist.
This is actually a good way to get doctors to stop using the service.
And the Puritans thought liquor was pretty dangerous, too, and actually outlawed it here in the 1920s. Prohibition was an enormous failure, back then, because you cannot legislate morality. You can, however, today, hashtag something from benign to "evil," because most all of the sheep are corralled in the same social media/mainstream media pens. In the end it is not a government ban on Porn that should scare you, it's the SJW turning of Porn into a thought crime that is the real danger.