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Comment by modeless | Hacker News Reader

From Reddit: "I've read a few of Cooper's books and the short answer is yes, pedophilia is a common theme in his writing (as is incest and necrophilia)." [1]

I'm calling it now. It was child porn. Google doesn't like to go around deleting people's stuff. When this has happened in the past it's been child porn, which Google is obligated by governments everywhere to delete with extreme prejudice. And of course they're not going to go around publicly accusing the guy of having child porn, even if he did, so they will remain silent. Neither will they tell someone who had child porn which exact piece of child porn tripped their child porn detector, for obvious reasons. This is not a Google issue; this is a law enforcement issue.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/4sx9aa/dennis_cooper...

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It's still problematic, even if the work was distasteful or even illegal. There was no process involved, no chance for appeal, no explanation of the charges that precipitated it. If it truly is illegal materials that violate laws, then deleting it is deleting evidence and helping cover up crimes. If it was art that borders on distasteful to some then google is deciding taste and public values with private algorithms.

I'm not sure what the right thing is here. To require any publishing platform to retain works they decide violates their TOS seems like a big burden. But we live in a world where publishing seemingly requires the cooperation the private sector. If not google, at very least a hosting company of some kind. If we want the allow social norms to change we can't stifle everything that falls outside of the norm.

The data resided on Google's servers -- their property. Read the terms and conditions you agree to, Google doesn't owe you anything.

    > If it was art that borders on distasteful to some 
    > then google is deciding taste and public values with 
    > private algorithms.

But that's well within their right to do. If you don't like it, there's an easy solution: don't use Google.

This behavior is well-known (remember Google Reader?) and expected out of Google. If you have any data on any cloud storage facility, you probably have no guarantee of its long-term persistence. You should regularly backup all your data that you value. You can get a 3 Terabyte backup drive today on Amazon for < $120, which is more than enough for most people to backup their valued data.

    > I'm not sure what the right thing is here. To require 
    > any publishing platform to retain works they decide 
    > violates their TOS seems like a big burden. But we 
    > live in a world where publishing seemingly requires 
    > the cooperation the private sector. If not google, at 
    > very least a hosting company of some kind. If we want 
    > the allow social norms to change we can't stifle 
    > everything that falls outside of the norm.

Agreed. But, there are alternatives to using a hosting company and there are ways outside of the internet to distribute information. Just because you have a right to publish does not imply that you have a right to be published, nor should it. The author was no customer of Google so the fact that so many people are upset is indicative of the growing technological entitlement mentality. Hosting isn't free, and Google was providing a gratis service to a user. For all we know, a government put pressure on Google to remove the blog -- do we really expect Google to spend money on a legal team to resist such a request?

People either don't value the ability to express distasteful opinions, or they are completely unaware of these practices in modern technology companies.

    >  the fact that so many people are upset is indicative of the growing technological entitlement mentality

A mentality Google fosters constantly with virtually all of their products.

    > You can get a 3 Terabyte backup drive today on Amazon

The first words you see when you visit https://www.google.com/drive/ is "A safe place for all your files".

    > there are alternatives to using a hosting company

Like what? Deeply technical p2p hosting solutions that are completely inaccessible to all but the most adept readers and publishers?

    > there are ways outside of the internet to distribute information

Sure, but as we move most of our communication to the internet, this kind of thing becomes more and more problematic.

    >  A mentality Google fosters constantly with virtually 
    > all of their products.

This statement has no relevance to the conversation -- it doesn't magically produce any obligation for Google to act differently than it does.

    > The first words you see when you visit 
    > https://www.google.com/drive/ is "A safe place for 
    > all your files".

And clearly in the terms of service (the only thing that actually matters,) it says:

    > Google may also stop providing Services to you, or 
    > add or create new limits to our Services at any time. [1]

Safety is subjective, that's how they can get away with this. The terms of service go on to say:

    > WHEN PERMITTED BY LAW, GOOGLE, AND GOOGLE’S SUPPLIERS 
    > AND DISTRIBUTORS, WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST 
    > PROFITS, REVENUES, OR DATA, FINANCIAL LOSSES OR 
    > INDIRECT, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR 
    > PUNITIVE DAMAGES. [1]

That pretty much seals the deal. The user provides affirmative consent to all of this.

    > Like what? Deeply technical p2p hosting solutions 
    > that are completely inaccessible to all but the most 
    > adept readers and publishers?

Self hosting is a thing. Again, none of this is Google's problem.

    > Sure, but as we move most of our communication to 
    > the internet, this kind of thing becomes more and 
    > more problematic.

Using any service (online or offline) is inherently risky. Users are deciding to take that risk and then whining when the risk does not pay off. You remain free to distribute information however you like.

I'm not saying these aren't problems -- I'm saying these aren't Google's problems. They're running a business, not a technology charity. If you don't like it, don't use Google products and encourage others not to. It's simple cause and effect: Google treats us badly, we stop using Google. Google is free to operate however they like and I'm free to stop using their services.

[1] https://www.google.com/policies/terms/

EDIT: s/risking/risky/

This statement has no relevance to the conversation -- it doesn't magically produce any obligation for Google to act differently than it does.

It's true that no obligation is created under our current legal structure, but I think the statement still has relevance. Your stance reminds of me people that said, in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis, "well those loans were legal and the people who defaulted were free not to take them." Yes, that is true, and we definitely would all be better off if people took the accountability and personal responsibility to avoid getting into these situations.

But really, what does that argument achieve? It absolves the centralized powerful entity of any responsibility, shifting it to a decentralized collection of individuals that lack cohesive power to effect change. In terms of pure efficacy, I don't think that style of reasoning is going to move the needle on actually getting the desired result out of the system. In other words, would it be easier to educate all of those people on proper usage of online services, or to maybe change some legal language somewhere so that these services have some responsibility to their users?

I think we can try to encourage personal responsibility in people, and simultaneously acknowledge that it would also be good if the services that hold power and influence were more accountable to their users, because that's just going to be better for everyone collectively.

    > It's true that no obligation is created under our 
    > current legal structure, but I think the statement 
    > still has relevance. Your stance reminds of me people 
    > that said, in the wake of the subprime mortgage 
    > crisis, "well those loans were legal and the people 
    > who defaulted were free not to take them." Yes, that 
    > is true, and we definitely would all be better off if 
    > people took the accountability and personal 
    > responsibility to avoid getting into these situations.

I know what you're getting at here, but it's not really right to compare a policy that resulted in the loss a blog with a set of ethically questionable banking practices that objectively caused one of the worst recessions we've ever seen, resulting in literal death, poverty, and all-around regress.

There's also this key component: the average user is not Google's customer -- they never pay a penny for the services they receive. I think that you and I both agree that consumer protection laws are a good thing; if you pay for access to Google's data storage services then it should be illegal if they suddenly revoke that access. That is an obvious case of breach-of-contract.

Outside the context of a customer-business relation, this amounts to the government ordering Google to supply a service at no charge. Note that certain things (I believe in the states water) have to be given freely to people who request it, but I wouldn't dream of suggesting that access to data that you knowingly stored some place with questionable data persistence guarantees is as fundamental as access to water. You may disagree.

In the end, I suggest educating consumers about the generally sketchy cloud data persistence guarantees is easier and wiser than requiring companies to offer free services. You and I both probably agree that the cloud is a significantly easier approach to organizing, storing, and using data than traditional approaches. Since it has become so ubiquitous, its users should know the dangers. This avoids setting a somewhat strong precedent that such a protection law would make.

After a quick Google (heh, the irony!) there doesn't seem like there's an easy way to backup cloud data. This seems like it might actually be a good personal project for me...

I wouldn't dream of suggesting that access to data that you knowingly stored some place with questionable data persistence guarantees is as fundamental as access to water. You may disagree.

Personally I would like to see society move in this direction. The data persistence guarantees should not be questionable, they should be legally enforced. I'm pretty sure we could come up with some terms that aren't realistically that onerous to Google (and other providers), but give users some assurances.

We're treading new ground with the concept of digital goods that are extremely cheap to manufacture, distribute, and store, and this idea that ubiquitously useful services can be provided to everyone for free by extracting value from the data generated by their usage. In the pre-digital era, the government "ordering Google to supply a service at no charge" would probably be an untenable precedent, but today that could happen with almost negligible impact to their business, because it already operates like that.

You and I both probably agree that the cloud is a significantly easier approach to organizing, storing, and using data than traditional approaches.

This is exactly why we should recognize it as a public utility and endeavor to reduce the inherent dangers, just like we go to great effort to make clean water available instead of teaching everyone how to test and treat it themselves.

I respect that opinion, and I'm with you on treating (computation in general, in fact) as a public utility. It seems that you and I have different attitudes regarding the scope of government involvement in this sort of thing.

I appreciate the discussion and your thoughtful and forthcoming attitude:) Makes the internet much more enjoyable to use when disagreements are carefully examined rather than the usual tendency in comment threads to degenerate into being just plain mean.

Likewise, thanks :)

Google provides a service called takeout[1] which lets users export their data from other Google services including Drive and Blogger.

[1] https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout

Disclaimer: Alphabet employee, but not related to the takeout service.

And that's great! They just need to make it so when an account is shut down, there is a link to takeout, and it continues to work for 30 or 90 days.

While formally and legally you are correct, Money is data and data is money.

I believe that argument at hand is that massive digital services providers, by power of the market forces, had become just as essential part of our infrastructure as banks. Their behaviour has played a huge role in establishing this position and setting this expectation.

So, the philosophical question is whether Google, AWS, Facebook, et.al. are now "too big to fail" to be subjects of regulation due to their critical role in ensuring preservation and accessibility of human knowledge. They are already being regulated by tons of parties, domestic and foreign, to keep some (lots?) information inaccessible.

> After a quick Google (heh, the irony!) there doesn't seem like there's an easy way to backup cloud data. This seems like it might actually be a good personal project for me...

https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout

You can download all your google data from there. I wish all cloud services provided such a feature.

It's true that a lot of those subprime loans were legal - however, they were moved off the originators books in a fraudulent manner. If no one would have bought the loans from the originator then they most likely would have never offered them to people with little means to repay.

What that argument achieves is educating people about the dangers of the decisions they make. The alternative is basically "carry on as you were and hope next time it works out."

*This statement has no relevance to the conversation -- it doesn't magically produce any obligation for Google to act differently than it does."

Actually it kind of does -- saying one thing and doing another is a deceptive business practice, and deceiving consumers is generally frowned upon.

    > Actually it kind of does -- saying one thing and doing 
    > another is a deceptive business practice, and deceiving 
    > consumers is generally frowned upon

False advertisement isn't the question here -- nice strawman.

Google specifically states they make no guarantees, so they're not "saying one thing and doing another." They're saying one thing and doing that thing. The parent mentioned that Google encouraged technological entitlement -- that may or may not be true, that would be a tough thing to have a reasonable conversation about -- not that Google is making blatantly false claims about its services.

It's rather unfair to accuse the other person of creating a strawman.

Google was quoted above as calling the service "A safe place for all your files", and deletion is clearly not "safe", and there have been court decisions saying that fine print caveats cannot completely negate the clear English part of the advertising.

Of course, there have been court decisions saying the opposite, too, but that's sufficient for the OP's point to be better than "strawman" material even if, hypothetically, their argument turns out to be incorrect.

Right, but that's not what they were responding to. OP was trying to make it seem like Google acting hypocritically by allegedly helping foster an entitlement mentality was the same as false advertising.

"Entitlement mentality" is a highly loaded and manipulative term, and I reject its use in this context.

Managing consumer expectations in a way that does not reflect reality is the same as false advertising, however.

>Google was quoted above as calling the service "A safe place for all your files", and deletion is clearly not "safe"

Then most files aren't safe. A file on your computer isn't safe.

There is nothing that is perfectly safe, nor perfectly smooth, nor perfectly white, nor perfectly anything.

That doesn't mean that words mean nothing, just because absolutes generally don't exist.

In this case, a "reasonable person" (which is often the litmus test that courts use) might well think that "A safe place for all your files" means that Google will take reasonable precautions to keep your files safe, within reason, given current technology and economics and practices.

Unilaterally deleting things without notice and without recourse absolutely does not fit that sort of reasonable definition, although it may well be legal nonetheless for various reasons.

And regardless of all that, there still is no reason to accuse the OP of a strawman argument, which is kind of rude unless there is a truly strong reason for it -- that's the primary thing I'm arguing, not about philosophical absolutes nor even legality.

>Unilaterally deleting things without notice and without recourse absolutely does not fit that sort of reasonable definition, although it may well be legal nonetheless for various reasons.

If it is a 1 in a million (or less) chance, then its safer than storing them on your own computer, which I think would fit the definition of safe. You're requiring that Google meet an extreme defintion of safety that is beyond what a reasonable person would expect (since a reasonable person woud likely not backup files, or back them up locally, both of which are less safe than google).

You're conflating control with safety. As in, you're committing the same fallacy that people who are afraid of flying on airplanes do. An airplane is safer than a vehicle. Drive is safer than a computer. People are afriad of airplanes not because it is more dangerous, but because they are sacrificing control.

>there still is no reason to accuse the OP of a strawman argument

I didn't. That was someone else, but I appreciate the downvote nonetheless.

> I appreciate the downvote nonetheless.

You're too paranoid. I don't yet even have the ability to downvote people; my rating is too low.

> the same fallacy

Gee thanks. We're not just in disagreement, I'm the idiot who can't reason correctly.

I think your logic is unreasonable. I already said why; google isn't living up to what a hypothetical "reasonable person" would expect -- such a person wouldn't expect deletion with no recourse.

And if it happened to you, obviously you would change your attitude about what is and is not reasonable; no one wants their stuff deleted. So arguing about it seems possibly disingenuous, regardless of the fine details.

> You're requiring that Google meet an extreme defintion of safety that is beyond what a reasonable person would expect

Actively deleting files is included in the definition of "safety"? I think not.

However again, my main point isn't whether the above person is correct, it's that his point is reasonable enough that it is uncalled for to say he's arguing a strawman.

Surely the line "a safe place for your files" is only saying that it's secure from hackers and they won't be deleted by mistake. It says nothing of them being deleted if they're against Google's terms. Similarly Amazon's marketing of a 3 terabyte backup drive - the use of the word backup implies that you shouldn't rely on it as the only copy of your files. It's not a backup if there's only one copy.

The first word you see when you visit "Honest Al's Used Car Lot" is "Honest". Doesn't mean anyone should just trust it.

Your house should be safe, secure, a place to store all your valuables, yet it's understood it could be robbed, destroyed by nature, or burn down by accident.

You're responsible for making backups or taking out whatever insurance you think is reasonable for your data.

There is a difference between deliberate vs accidental deletion. This was not a random act. Thus is like the fire department coming and burning down your house.

Arson is a thing, and you should be insured against it. Plus, sometimes the fire department does set fires: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/alberta/firefighter-char...

But possession of child pornography is what's illegal. They very well may have reported the owner of the blog to the authorities but, in the mean time, google was both possessing and distributing the material.

It's not that it's violating their TOS, it's that Google thought they may have been violating the law.

EDIT: At least if that's what the content was.

From the OP who said:

> "I've read a few of Cooper's books and the short answer is yes, pedophilia is a common theme in his writing (as is incest and necrophilia)."

Because of the words 'book' and 'writing', I have the impression that everything there is written text and no certainly no pictures.

This puts it in a nebulous position, at least in the USA.

Dunlop v. U.S., 165 U.S. 486 (1897), ended up ruling that text-only content can be deemed obscene and being text-only is not a reason to get total 1st amendment protection. However later cases, decided there was a division between erotica and obscene material, which is essentially decided on a case-by-case basis subjectively.

When it comes to things such as obscenity, its not really enough to go by our 'feelings' and intuition on the matter.

For instance, would you believe the US is a fully functioning, 1st world democracy, where sex toys are illegal (Alabama, upheld by State Supreme court and enforced as recently as 2009)?

To me, personally, anything that comes entirely from someones fanciful imagination, no matter how distasteful, should not be considered illegal unless it directly results in the harm of another individual.

So in the US (and Japan and only a handful of other countries), fictional depictions of under age or incestual content isn't illegal (per the court case you referenced above), so long as you're not using real people to act it out.

This doesn't hold true for ... most of the rest of the planet. In the UK a man was put in jail for Simpsons porn, something that's legal in the US (although potentially a trademark violation; unless you can argue it's satire).

In Cooper's home country of France, fictional depictions are actually illegal (books like Lolita are banned).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_regarding_child_pornograp...

But as already stated, even if legality wasn't the issue, yes they are still a private company and can do what they want. The article mentions this and there really needs to be an effort to educate people that they need multiple backups, not just on-line, but on their own media.

> So in the US (and Japan and only a handful of other countries), fictional depictions of under age or incestual content isn't illegal (per the court case you referenced above), so long as you're not using real people to act it out.

Actually, visual incest pornography exists in the US. I am not sure why (I am within the industry, but I don't actually keep tabs on legalities that I'm not involved in), but it seems that 2 years ago VISA decided it was okay for it to take credit card payments for incest-fantasy sites, and since then there's been an explosion of mainstream studios supporting said material.

Cynically speaking, it seems to me that the adult industry is more scared of how their merchant banks will react to their content, than any chance of being taken down by the US government.

No, Lolita by Nabokov is not banned in France. I saw this book myself in a French library a few years ago. And according to French wikipedia (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita#Les_traductions_fran.C3...), a new French translation was published in 2001.

It's been a while since I've read _Lolita_. If my memory serves me correctly, the novel contains no depictions of sex or sexual intimacy.

Amazing work of literature, by the way.

That's incorrect. For example, the scene where HH climaxes with Dolly on his lap.

(I don't think Lolita should be banned anywhere. It's not a pro-pedophilia artwork.)

According to the article linked, Cooper is mainly a visual artist.

> Cooper used the blog to post his fiction, research, and visual art, and as Artforum explains, it was also “a platform through which he engaged almost daily with a community of followers and fellow artists.” His latest GIF novel (as the term suggests, a novel constructed with animated GIFs) was also mostly saved to the blog.

Meanwhile, on google.com, I can read excerpts of Lolita, by Nabokov:

https://books.google.com/books/about/Lolita.html?id=TOQxAgAA...

To be fair, it would be very unreasonable for anyone to make the claim that Lolita is erotica.

The Supreme Court define obscenity as being a work that was reasonably lude by the standards of the day, and lacked "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." Lolita doesn't really fit this description due to its literary and artistic value.

I haven't read the blog in question, but obviously issues like this are trickier to decide with contemporary artists that are unestablished. Google certainly doesn't want to be labeled as being a distributor of child pornography, and you can't really compare some guy's blog to a book like Lolita.

Actually erotica is not automatically obscene. Lolita need not be non-erotic, to be non-obscene.

"Directly resulting in their harm" is an unenforceable standard, unless you are referring to hitting someone with a printed copy, which I suspect you are not.

An example of direct harm, would be an totally imaginary article that aims to humiliate or defame someone. It's not true; it's not real, but its directly aimed at destroying a persons reputation anyways.

This is something that current day harassment laws (and in some countries slander laws) already cover.

It works poorly. A true article that destroys someone's reputation is equally harmful, but (in the US), completely protected.

Then suspend the blog, and allow for some process to deal with the situation. Don't just torch everything on some suspicion of something going wrong. This isn't a new issue for Google. They're notorious for fucking with people's accounts and providing no recourse or customer support. Something happens? Better hope your uncle works at Google or your shit out of luck.

Hell, I've hosted most of my personal domains' email accounts via Google. A few months ago one of them was deleted. I never really used the email, but I certainly had things on their I would like to have for posterity. When Google deleted the account I was given no recourse or ability to appeal. It was just gone. It's not as if the account was even anything controversial, it was just my contact-me email for an old NES modding site I had.

I mean, who's to say that isn't the case. The blog might still exist on Google's side, and it's just been quarantined or otherwise looks like it's been deleted from the outside.

The point is not the "soft delete" vs "hard delete" but their total lack of transparency or customer support. It doesn't matter to the end user the difference if all outward appearance is that the blog was deleted.

If there's any legal thing going on they wont be able to make any statements on it anyway...

They don't say a damned thing anytime your account gets nuked. Hell, when I tried buying a Nexus 4 it mysteriously never shipped and I only could get in touch with a robot support person. I said fuck it, cancelled the order, and went to a T-Mobile store. Never bothered to deal with them again.

"Due to ongoing litigation we are unable to comment" would still be valuable in that case. Radio silence on the other hand, is not acceptable.

In some jurisdictions it is illegal to let your client know they are being secretely investigated. Such statement may interfere with the investigation - they may destroy the evidence etc.

If that's actually what's happening. Google's policy seems to be radio silence in all cases.

> "Google's policy seems to be radio silence in all cases"

This may be an intentional decision to cooperate with law enforcement. If they only go silent in the case of ongoing investigations, then "Google went silent" functions in the same way as "the warrant canary disappeared" does for other sites, which could in theory jeopardize an investigation.

"Torch everything" is perhaps a poor way to convey you mean "soft delete".

>Don't just torch everything on some suspicion of something going wrong.

You can rest assured, if it was child porn, they'd be obligued to keep backups as proof for law enforcement. I doubt the material is actually deleted, just hidden until they sort it out with the feds.

>Hell, I've hosted most of my personal domains' email accounts via Google. A few months ago one of them was deleted. I never really used the email, but I certainly had things on their I would like to have for posterity.

That's what you get for not making backups. This isn't rocket science. You're using someone else's free service, and they have zero obligation to continue to provide that service to you. Even if they didn't intentionally delete your account, mistakes do happen sometimes. Who actually thinks it's a good idea to keep only one copy of data that you value? Especially on a site with the name "Hacker News"? Do hackers these days not understand backups?

Maybe I'm just a lazy fuck? I know backups, I get it, but you know what? I'm human.

A very very lazy human if you cant backup for 14 years....i hate mowing my lawn or doing my shopping but i have to do it. Going to work each day is a chore but somehow it happens...being lazy and human is the poorest excuse ive heard for not backing up over such a long period of time, and I deal with data loss whiners every day. If you dont want to lose it, make a copy, end of story.

It is astounding to contemplate that it's possible to type a series of English words which would be illegal to _possess_! Even if I was the only one to know about these words and, for example, kept them in a safe.

It's a pure risk management problem.

Child pornography is contraband. It's the virtual equivalent of a kilo of cocaine. If, as a service provider, you come across someone's artistic expression that is reckoned to be close enough to the line you have a problem. You need to worry about whether there's an elevated risk that the next post will cross the line, you shut it down.

Your freedom of speech doesn't require a third party to broadcast your speech.

I'm not sure what the right thing is here

But I know. Either Google hosts a platform for other people to share their life, in which case Google should not have done anything without a warrant. Or Google owns the entire platform and all content, in which case they should be held liable for every bit of disputed content on their servers (including Youtube).

There is no middle ground. Either you are a (de-facto) common carrier, or you're not.

If the customer violated Google's TOS, the terms he agreed to when signing up, he already agreed to having his stuff deleted.

> no process involved, no chance for appeal, no explanation of the charges

Child porn is not a TOS issue. It's a legal issue, and he has legal recourse. He can sue and get a judge or jury to decide his case. Google is doing what the law requires, so if you have a problem with that you have a problem with the law, not with Google.

Trust me, there was very much a process involved here. You just don't know it. And there was no removal of evidence - you can be sure everything is very well documented - just not on the public internet.

To require any publishing platform to retain works they decide violates their TOS seems like a big burden. But we live in a world where publishing seemingly requires the cooperation the private sector.

Was it any different in the days of the printing press? Newspaper companies didn't have any requirement to keep around material they didn't want to print, and unless you wanted to build/buy and operate your own printing press, you depended on the private sector...

Much like freedom of travel, while nobody can stop you, nobody must provide you a free platform either.

> But we live in a world where publishing seemingly requires the cooperation the private sector

With real net-neutrality protections, I believe this is false. You are free to connect your own server to the internet and serve your own content through it. Also, if you do host with a third-party, it still makes sense to do backups of your data so if something like this does happen, you can move to another host.

He's not a Google customer. Hard to establish standing when a property owner cleans up your graffiti.

This is a terrible metaphor and the entire thought behind it. If you provide some sort of consideration in exchange for something even if that consideration is your eyeballs which the provider can rent out you are a customer.

I doubt they actually deleted the data.

You are welcome to host his 'art' on your own computer.

Childporn seems to be the trigger here, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. This story illustrates a huge problem facing nearly all social media re child pornography. The laws seem like bright line, but in reality they are no such thing. Nearly everything is a judgment call. Nearly every daily decision is based on vague and uncertain definitions.

(Fyi, I try to avoid the now-popular term "child abuse imagery" because that is both too loaded and too narrow.)

I teach the definition of child porn to forensics students because they will be running into it in the profession. It is massively complicated. My child porn lecture goes as follows: Here are the rules (cases, laws etc). Then I show a series of images and clips that, given the definitions we just went through, cause the cops in the room to reach for their handcuffs. Then I show where the clips are from: popular pg13 movies and TV shows, none of which would ever be considered illegal. I do this to illustrate the lack of bright lines, and how definitions and treatments change based on context.

To avoid uncomfortable discussions best done only in person, let me simply say that there exists a range of material at issue here, from 1 to 10. 1 is stuff that while it trigger flags clearly isn't illegal. 10 is stuff where there is no debate. The law declares everything above 5 a crime, but nothing below 8 is ever prosecuted absent political pressure (webeweb et al). To be safe, Google moves against anything a 3, as happened here. So there is a range of stuff, from 3 to 8, that may or may not be illegal. It will be deleted/reported by the likes of Google but will never result in prosecution.

This is yet another a horrible story of an artist suddenly finding himself in that gray area between 3 and 7. His stuff is probably not illegal, but nobody can say for certain. Google has chosen to run in fear, but we outsiders, most of whom have not seen the material, tend to side with the artist against the big evil corporation. And nobody want to speak openly for fear of the labels that attach. It's a messy area full of emotions and pitfalls. Society needs to address this problem.

This should be the most upvoted comment.

Writing about incest, necrophilia, sex with children; these are not child pornography. Neither are artistic renderings about such subjects.

Only obscene photographs of actual children (and apparently 3d models with photographic skins) are considered to be child pornography (and those primarily because they are artifacts of child abuse).

Unless he crossed that line, there's still no legal cause to pull down his material. It's worth remembering that there are stories of Google deleting accounts due to pictures of cherubs as well, so there is reason to doubt Google's reasons for bringing the account down.

Even if you find the material distasteful, it's not a reason to condemn someone, nor condone the censorship of that material. Remember, there are some who consider images of women not covered by a hijab to be distasteful and obscene.

> Writing about incest, necrophilia, sex with children; these are not child pornography. Neither are artistic renderings about such subjects.

In the US and a few other countries, yes, images where no real person other than the artist was involved is classified as Child Pornography.

It's disgusting and squarely in the realm of thought crime, but no one cares because once you think of the children you can do almost anything.

The US law that did that that was struck down as unconstitutional more than 14 years ago, so the "is classified" claim is false.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/16/national/16CND-PORN.html

Wrong Law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Handley

That law currently stands.

PROTECT has been upheld to the extent that it only criminalized virtual explicit child sex content that also met the obscenity test, which -- since obscenity had separately been ruled outside of First Amendment protections irrespective of whether it is factual at all, much less whether or not it contains real images of children, is unsurprising; this distinguished it from previous laws that had been struck down that included blanket band on virtual explicit child sex content. To the extent provisions of it appear on their face to go further, they have been viewed unfavorably by the courts, including being expressly found unconstitutional by the trial court in the Handley case you refer to.

The way obscenity laws in the US and the states work is that these drawn images will always be looked at as obscene.

The standard currently used for obscene is

(a)whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole,appeals to the prurient interest

(b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law

Now, would the 'average American' find lilocon/shotacon to be excessively focused on sex? (yes) would it be found offensive under applicable laws, in this case child porn laws (yes). Would the 'average American' take any random manga as having serious literary or artistic value? (no). So, is lolicon/shotacon illegal? It sure is.

The problem with the above is it is not a measurable standard, it is left up to interpretation, and that interpretation will come down on the side of obscene with anything that is not regarded mainstream. Not that long ago homosexual porn was, and in some states it's still difficult to sell sex toys because of obscenity laws. Obscenity laws are used as an end run around the First Amendment for these cases, as it was here. You can say it wasn't because of the PROTECT Act, but the fact remains he had to plead guilty to possession of shotacon and he was facing the penalties of the PROTECT Act because the court could go ahead and call it obscene to bypass the problem of explicitly calling something illegal.

Images of children engaging in sex, or lilocon/shotacon are considered illegal in the US as kiddy porn, either by the PROTECT act explicitly in jurisdictions outside that courts ruling, or by obscenity laws in general. And that is disgusting because it is a thought crime.

The exception would be Oregon which shot down general obscenity laws in their entirety.

Google doesn't need a legal cause. It is their service, so they only need a cause defined in their own terms of service.

Google acts like it is a public utility when it is convenient to them, and a private service when it isn't.

They're a private service all the time. Keep that in mind and you'll go far.

Corporations such as Google are much more like quasi-governmental municipal corporations than like Mom & Pop's Private Bakery.

Quasi governmental corporations are typically granted special privileges (protected monopolies). If Google doesn't have some arrangement like all blogging must be done on blogspot, they're not quasi government.

When an entity has a formal governance structure, elected leaders, armed security forces, issues its own bonds, negotiates directly with foreign governments, and has a "GDP" greater than most nations, it has a lot more in common with governments than it does with a typical private business.

This phenomenon of "private" corporations amassing the power of governments without the responsibilities of governments is a relatively new chapter in history and still needs to be sorted out.

Some would call that marketing.

If you have N copies, assume the next state will mean have N-1. What would you do different if you could postpone the state change? Do it.

Bull.

It's the artist's own fault that he didn't make a backup.

Do have an example?

It's perfectly reasonable for Google to not wish to host drawings of naked children, nor sex stories about underage children. That isn't censorship.

>Censorship is the suppression of free speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions. Governments, private organizations and individuals may engage in censorship.

Sounds like censorship to me, just a socially acceptable form of it. The "only governments are capable of censorship because my understanding of the idea of freedom of speech deliberately stops at the First Amendment" meme needs to die.

Meme? That's what freedom of speech is. It specifically has to do with the government. Censorship is a broader term, but don't invoke "free speech" if you don't want it to apply to the government case.

That's what freedom of speech is. It specifically has to do with the government.

No, it damn well is not.

Freedom of speech is the principle, the first amendment is the law. The law protects a principle our society has deemed important. The principle exists with or without a government.

In this case, it certainly does only apply to the government. You can't force another person or entity to host your content - they're allowed to set whatever conditions they want to.

You can't force another person or entity to host your content

Which literally nobody here suggested that they should be obligated to do so. What's your point?

What use is the legal right to speech if your neighbors will bash your head in for it? Freedom of speech is not just the right, but also the idea of a society that tolerates it. This is what bothers me: Every time an internet corporation deletes someone's account for wrongthink, a herd of crypto-facists pops up to remind everyone that the First only pertains to government censorship (or even erroneously claim that only governments are capable of censorship). They are missing (and indeed proving) the point. The point is that they live in a society that encourages the limitation of expression, and that they are happy about this as long as they don't like the things being censored.

In this (US) society, you can speak your mind just about all you want without worrying about the government sending jack-booted thugs to haul you away.

However, this does not mean that a private company is obligated to give you a free platform to disseminate your speech. You can go make yourself a sign and stand on a street corner if you want, but no one has an obligation to listen to you, or to help you spread your speech.

This is why the distinction about government censorship is so important. People like you seem to think that private entities have an obligation to host other peoples' speech. If some neo-Nazis knocked on your door and asked to post a bunch of their signs on your lawn, would you agree to it? It's only a problem when the government censors because there's only one government, and they have enforcers who can use deadly force. If a private party censors you by refusing to help air your views, you can go somewhere else, like a street corner, and you don't have to worry about going to jail or being shot.

> It's only a problem when the government censors because there's only one government, and they have enforcers who can use deadly force.

I would add that it's also because the government can censor people when it otherwise wouldn't be involved - a person hosting a blog with a third party, for example. Ordinarily, only that third party gets to decide whether or not to provide a platform for your data.

Just because it's reasonable doesn't mean it's not censorship.

Going a step further, there's nothing inherently wrong with censorship.

> Going a step further, there's nothing inherently wrong with censorship.

So long as they're censoring the things you want them to censor. Of course, everybody would like something different to be censored, which is why it's better to err on the side of "no censorship". There's a reason librarians tend to fight against any form of censorship.

I think even the more politically minded librarians are OK with a private company deleting a blog that has child pornography images on it.

Unlikely, since if it was art (and not photographic porn), most of the librarians work in libraries with manga collections.

Just because it's not mandated by the government does not mean that it is not censorship.

> Censorship: the system or practice of censoring books, movies, letters, etc.

> Censoring: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable

As a private company, yes they do. And the article even states people like the writer need to be educated about backing up their work and not trusting cloud storage alone.

On a side note though, if it's fictional stories and art involving under age people, that's actually legal (kinda/sorta/not tested often in court) in the US and Japan but not in most of Europe (including France).

For example: drawing of Bart fucking Lisa Simpson. Legal in the US (and if you argue it right, possibly not even a trademark violation under parody/satire -- depends on the judge really). In the UK, that exact drawing sent a man to prison and put him on the sex offender registry.

Exactly.

I think you have a fairly limited definition of pornography.

Any kind of writing with a purely puerile sexual-intent, lacking in any redeeming scientific, cultural or educational merit, is considered pornographic.

Considering the writing is pornographic... then the fact it used literally representing of people under the age of 18, would make it 'pornography involving children' or... as a short hand 'child pornography'.

Let's not argue over definitions here. If you feel that this man shouldn't be prosecuted because no real people were harmed, that's a good place to start. Obscenity laws need to be clarified.

I'm arguing that Google likely does not have a legal requirement to do what they've done, which is opposite what the grandparent was arguing. I'm not arguing that they do or do not have the right to make their own decisions about the content, but the phrase "child pornography" has a very specific legal definition.

Ah, it may not be a legal requirement, but its against their terms of service. They're pretty clear with banning "textual content that depicts or encourages rape, incest, bestiality, or necrophilia."

As children (even depicted imaginary ones) can't give consent, its automatically rape material.

Whelp. I hope you're wrong.

A former in-law was detained and deported by the USA, leaving family behind. I hate this man and all he's done. So while my liberal pinko commie sensibilities opposes everything done to him, and how it was done, it couldn't have happened to a nicer person.

Being conflicted like that is a terrible feeling. It shows the need for rules. If the rules are applied unevenly, especially against those we don't like, they're no longer rules but state sanctioned grudges.

I hate this man and all he's done... it couldn't have happened to a nicer person.

I'm... confused.

Do you mean it wouldn't have happened to a nicer person?

"couldn't have happened to a nicer person" suggests this individual is the nicest person you've ever met.

Edit: completely missed the ironic usage.

"Couldn't have happened to a nicer person" is often used in an ironic sense.

Apologies. Idiomatic sarcasm. Too late for me to edit for clarity.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/it-couldn-t-happen-to-a-nic...

Came here to make roughly this same assertion. As soon as I started reading about 'art' I was like well... the only reason google would pop it and not say anything is because it contained pedophilia material/underage 'art' and they probably wont be able to make an official statement until a police investigation results in either the material being released/oked or the guy getting charged.

Or the alternative, google didn't want to continue hosting the questionable content since it resides on their servers.

And, for as odd as it might sound, there are routine stories about run-of-the-mill criminals calling law enforcement to report their criminal behavior was the victim of somebody else's criminal behavior[1] to keep as a reference point.

[1] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ohio-coke-head-call...

Sounds like mostly a TOS violation type thing though, which, if he sues, we'll delve a little deeper into I suppose.

Wouldn't Google also be obligated (or at least highly self-interested) in reporting Cooper to the police? I wouldn't expect Google to publicly accuse him of anything... but if he published child pornography and Google had digital records of it, I think we could reasonably expect legal actions to be taken against Cooper, and swiftly. Have there been any? If there haven't been or won't be any, I'd suggest this is reasonable evidence he actually didn't publish anything criminal. But who knows, perhaps the authorities are building a case and this a wait-and-see thing.

If there is nothing criminal here- Google is absolutely within its rights to delete his blog. However given the power that Google has a gatekeeper to information, I think the public should be highly interested in how Google allows or disallows information to be published using its services. Especially if they are censoring materials they find offensive or in poor taste.

Your link does not really support your claim.

It looks like this guy's blog hosted photos of necrophilia (or what seems to have been labeled as such): https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogs...

Anal fisting: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fphotos1.bl...

Naked children from 1970s calendars: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogs...

And something in the vein of bestiality (whether it is or not, I have no desire to know): https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogs...

I'm expressing no opinion here about what qualifies as art (or not) or what is legal (or not). But it is the type of content that, taken together, could cause a blog to be deleted for TOS violations.

It seems to me that if you want a free place to publish photos that appear to be necrophilia, anal fisting, and bestiality, well, maybe pay $5 a month to host your site somewhere yourself? I suspect that any free blog hosting service is not the place for you.

your guess sounds reasonable... however:

if its true, its an issue for law enforcement to address, not you or I

if its false, you've just smeared a man's name out in a public and effectively permanent forum.

Ok, so that's a pretty serious accusation you're leveling at the author and their reputation.

What bothers me about the lack of transparency is that it makes it very difficult for any person in such a situation -- whom I think should be presumed innocent until and if they're proven guilty -- to defend their reputation against such presumptions.

In which case they should have reported him to the authorities. I'm curious f they have done so.

Which would also explain why he wouldn't have local back-ups, to avoid prosecution. Though this may be something of a case of, "Innocent until algorithms say otherwise."

Considering how few people actually take backups, I'm willing to assume laziness.

You wouldn't believe how many people I know who say things like, "Yeah I'd lose my entire PhD project if this laptop died, because I haven't taken a backup in X years" (and proceed to continue not backing up their work)

Maybe we should take a day of the year and declare it "Official Set Up Automated Backups".

Oh hang on, it already exists. March 31st. http://www.worldbackupday.com/en/

Man we really need to publicize that one more.

[edit] The lesson here is: Before you start "Official Thing", actually google "Official Thing".

You could be the backup-backup day.

Or restore day.

This seems a step before that sense of the word "backup". The guy's PC did not die.

He apparently created "GIF novels", which presumably involved using some application to work on a file on his local hard drive. What did he do after uploading the finished GIF to his blog? Manually delete it from his hard drive? Why?

Or maybe it was always just saved as a draft on his blog (or on Google Docs/Drive/whatever). It's perfectly possible that he did all his work in a web browser and that it never touched his drive (aside from browser cache).

Maybe he wasn't even creating his own images, instead building the story through a meme generator, or something.

When is their birthday. Gift them one of those 64GB USB-sticks. Write "BACKUPS" on it with a nice marker or something. Tell them to copy their important stuff into a folder YYYY-MM-DD. If the laptop is there, make them do it now :) Depending on how big that crucial data is (given it's a few years old laptop, can't be too big, right?), after you've shown them it takes just 15 minutes or so, tell them to do this every so often so it's full for their next birthday :) [again, depending how large the data is, and/or how much you're willing to spend on a life-saving birthday gift ;)]

Sure it's not a bullet-proof system, but maybe as they experience the feeling of security, they'll get a taste for implementing something more comprehensive. Lots of low-hanging fruit, too :) But this is already a hundred times better than what they (don't) have now.

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