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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for Google directed me to the Drive policy page -- specifically the section on sexually explicit material, which says, "Do not publish sexually explicit or pornographic images or videos....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.
I follow a few cosplay people on Twitter, and some have been saying that even files that have no nudity but just filenames that contain explicit terms, are being locked such that they cannot be accessed nor downloaded.
Some people were storing their ONLY copy of an image on Google Drive, for the cosplayers these may represent the results of expensive photoshoots they paid for...
I never really got into using Google Drive and I'm pretty thankful I never did. It is absurd that any file you uploaded may suddenly be seized such that you will never see it again.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And this is exactly why people should not trust the cloud.
'The cloud' is a fancy way of saying, "somebody else's computer". And they can control what stays on their computer. They control what security (if any) is in place to protect your data.
These services and companies can not be trusted.
-I only code in BASIC.-
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.
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.
Just because you pay for it doesn't mean it won't disappear or be subject to content 'shadow bans.'
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.
This story reveals a violation of assumptions I had made about Google(TM)'s handling of my data
This story reveals a VALIDATION of assumptions I had made about Google's handling of my data. Which is why I try not to let Google have anything I care about.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
This is actually a good way to get doctors to stop using the service.
Is this what slashdot is reduced to, giving free advertising to some wank site?
Slashdot's motto has always been: "Nudes for Nerds!"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
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.
SpiderOak offers End-to-end encyption and Zero-Knowledge Encryption too.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
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