Google Docs Is Randomly Flagging Files for Violating Its Terms of Service (vice.com) 190
Louise Matsakis, writing for Motherboard: Google Docs, the collaborative, cloud-based word processing software, appears to be randomly flagging files for supposedly "violating" Google's Terms of Service. A member of Motherboard's team, as well as numerous users on Twitter, report that their documents are being locked for no apparent reason. Once a document is flagged, the owner of that document can no longer share it with other users. Users who have already been shared on a document that's been flagged are kicked out and can no longer access it. When a draft Motherboard article was locked on Monday morning, a message took over the screen that read "This item has been flagged as inappropriate and can no longer be shared." It's not clear why this is happening, but it may be the result of a glitch in the system Google uses to monitor Google Docs. DownDetector is currently reporting Google Drive problems in the US and Europe, which may be part of the problem.
Sounds like the perfect time... (Score:5, Funny)
But it won't happen to me! (Score:5, Insightful)
It continues to astound me how many people I know, who'd I'd expect to know better, have all their emails only accessed by webmail. No POP client to save a local copy.
Ditto those who entire contact database is only on their cellphone.
Re:But it won't happen to me! (Score:5, Funny)
*Hangs head in shame*
* Makes a todo item in his Google Calendar to create a local copy of my inbox.
Re:But it won't happen to me! (Score:4, Insightful)
IMAP is better, if you use both a mail client and a web interface.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Then why the fuck do you use outlook? Never happened to me and i use thunderbird.
Re: (Score:3)
IMAP is better...
Until you use Outlook ...
Yeah, but you can fill in any words and it is still true.
"Life is better than death, until you're stuck using Outlook"
Re: (Score:3)
"Going back to my ex is a horrid idea, until you... nah, still a horrid idea"
Sry, I've been doing QA work all day, I'm on a run breaking things.
Re:But it won't happen to me! (Score:4, Insightful)
I use a custom IMAP script to interface with my mail, but keeping a local backup is not a universal need.
If my mail service went down, I'd care more about restoring access and moving my hosting so that I can send and receive mail again, much much more than having access to historical emails. Even the historical emails, there is very little data that cannot simply be re-requested!
What continues to astound me is how many people there are who seem at first glance to understand technology, but on deeper examination have no concept at all of the use cases and so don't actually understand how to apply the technology. They're like a person who is an expert at math, but can't read words at all and so can't apply the math to anything other than a math test.
You might be interested to know that people whose contact database is "only in their cell phone" probably have that contact list backed up by their vendor. A new phone would get that same contact list installed automatically when they activated it, they wouldn't need to enter the information in by hand from a paper backup. Also, even if they use a prepaid dumb phone, they can usually log into a website and access their call history and recover the important/common numbers.
In the old days, we didn't have cell phones, but we had little address books we would carry around with all our numbers. Sometimes it would get lost. And there was no automatic backup. When you lost it, you'd ask your friends to copy numbers from their book, so minimize the number of people you had to share the mistake with. People who compulsively made a second copy of their addressbook also had 100s of other things to back up too, because everything was on paper and nothing had automatic backups. Keeping backups as a default behavior was something that people with certain types of OCD did, and it consumed hours out of every day. The same people often take notes of all conversations; "said good morning to bagofbeans at 8:23am" and things like that. Endless notebooks, boxes and boxes full of filled notebooks. It is not an absolute requirement for life, but sadly for some people that point seems confused.
probably? (Score:2)
I suggest that 'probably' and 'backup' are a scary combination.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm more concerned about the complete lack of use case considerations in your "analysis."
Re: (Score:2)
My vendor (Pixel on T-Mobile)? no.
Google? yup. I literally only had to sign into my phone and auth my phone from my desktop (which was auth'd from one of three yubikeys) and *everything* was there within a few hours.
All apps (that were compatible, there was one that worked on the Nexus5 but not the Pixel), contacts, call history, SMS history, WiFi network credentials, *EVERYTHING*.
All in all I considered this to be brilliant (and I knew it was being done because I turned it all on).
For the stuff that I don
monitoring? (Score:2)
wtf does this mean? the cynic in me can fill in the blanks but I'll wait for a more informed bit of info
Re: (Score:3)
Presumably, Google is scanning files uploaded to Docs for more than just viruses, which they do to any file uploaded there which is under a certain fairly large size. They are probably also scanning them for copyright violation, and also searching for their confidential documents because why wouldn't you? They almost certainly have given themselves the right to scan your documents for basically any reason they see fit, which is limited only by law, and not very much. They can't retain your medical informati
Re: (Score:3)
They can't retain your medical information even if they find it, for example
No, they absolutely can do that if they want, well, in the US at least. In Europe they would be subject to privacy laws....
Re: (Score:2)
HIPPA, Pretty sure they'd be in deep shit in the US too if they kept *medical* info about you.
From what I understand they basically don't screen private stuff for much beyond viruses and CP. Once you share it, it becomes subject to tighter scrutiny.
Re: (Score:3)
HIPPA, Pretty sure they'd be in deep shit in the US too if they kept *medical* info about you.
HIPAA regulations apply SOLELY to HIPAA-Covered Entities which are health plans and clearinghouses (Insurance companies) and health providers; the rules don't have any affect and cannot be enforced against anyone else, Except sometimes when a covered entity engages the services of a 3rd party company who will handle some PHI, the covered entity may be required to make the 3rd party sign a special agreement cal
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Google Drive Terms of Service [google.com]
We may review your conduct and content in Google Drive for compliance with the Terms and our Program Policies.
When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through Google Drive, you give Google a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly displ
Re:monitoring? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing his point in quoting all that is to show that, legally, when you upload your data to Google Drive, it's now *theirs*, and they can do what they want with it. If that means searching through it for stuff they don't like and then flagging it for violations, that's their right. If you don't like that, don't use it.
Re: (Score:2)
More like they're sniffing through your shit so they can use it to improve their shit, and lock you out of your shit by patenting it. It's clearly written right there in their ToS. As evidenced by "The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our services, and to develop new ones."
You have a paper on energy efficiency in programs and Google sees it and suspends your account, and then a couple weeks later something similar to what you were working on
Re: (Score:2)
This sounds a bit conspiracy-theorish, but if it's true, I don't have much sympathy: as you said, it's in their ToS, and it's dumb to trust some faceless company with your private data like that. We got along just fine for decades using word processors on our PCs and saving files locally. And just ask any government what they think of saving classified materials in "the cloud". If you want to keep something private and secret, you don't stick it on the internet somewhere. I'm honestly sick of people cho
Re: (Score:2)
Bullshit, it's completely correct. And WTF are you talking about anyway? If you don't like gay marriage, your first line is correct: don't get a gay marriage. No one's forcing you to. Are you trying to claim that other people have some kind of right to dictate what you can and can't do in your personal life?
Re: (Score:2)
And everyone, on three: (Score:4, Insightful)
"Cloud is a nicer way of saying 'someone else's computer that you have no control over'."
Re: (Score:3)
It's not even that. It's "Someone else's computer that you have no control over, and don't even know who owns it or in what country it resides. Or whether it will be on the same one tomorrow.".
Re: (Score:2)
My cloud resides in "The Planet" datacenter down in Brea, CA, USA.
I have control over it, though it's someone else's HW (VPS).
Re: (Score:2)
OK. And it's possible to have "own cloud" servers that you actually own and control. But that's not the normal state of affairs, and you shouldn't assume that when someone tells you they've stored something on the cloud.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The "cloud" is just someone else's computer. (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess they won't make that mistake again.
You really overestimate their intelligence. These are likely the same people who use Facebook and Windows despite repeated instances of blatant malicious behavior. There is a large portion of users that will not quit using abusive systems no matter the cost.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess they won't make that mistake again.
You really overestimate their intelligence. These are likely the same people who use Facebook and Windows despite repeated instances of blatant malicious behavior. There is a large portion of users that will not quit using abusive systems no matter the cost.
Hate to point out the obvious, but cost is the main reason cheap-ass users put up with the abuse, particularly with social media.
Facebook could start stealing identities and destroying credit scores tomorrow, and users would still brag that it's free.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
So... masochism, then.
Re: (Score:2)
hey... S&M has a big following. He's just added "on the internet" to it. The old .com business model at its finest!
Re: (Score:2)
No one "needs" to use Facebook. It's purely a platform for entertainment.
Re: (Score:2)
I can't force people to think and act rationally. I wish I could, but I can't. If I had that power, than religion wouldn't exist. If people are going to act in a completely irrational manner, there's nothing I can do about that, other than to point out that Facebook is garbage and not something that anyone *needs*.
It would help if Zuckerberg didn't run around promoting "progressive" politicial views while simultaneously consciously enabling white nationalism, because that's the type of "news" that exists
Encryption is your friend (Score:3)
This probably doesn't apply to google docs or any other online office systems. But it certainly applies to online storage like dropbox or whatever the fuck microsoft is calling theirs this week. If you are going to use such services encrypt your damn documents. They can't remove if they can't read it, unless they just decide to remove all encrypted documents.
And for god sakes keep recent, local backups. Since dropbox stores shit in a folder on your computer just have that folder get backuped up in
Re: (Score:3)
I guess they won't make that mistake again.
Yes they will, because the people who are stupid enough to use this for important stuff are stupid enough to make this mistake over and over again.
I've said from the very beginning of the "Store your data on someone else's servers" (euphemistically called, "Cloud Computing") explosion that this is exactly what would happen. Despite all the counter-arguments from people saying that the Cloud is best used as a backup for your locally stored data, it's too much work for most people to duplicate their data loc
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody believes me that not only did Commander Keen 4 predict what the cloud [welovedosgames.net] is like, but that the cloud can get angry and zap you in the butt with lightning....
Clearly still in beta (Score:2)
Again, no such shit with Apple (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Got any proof of that? I believe it's closed source, so proving that would be a bit difficult.
Re: (Score:2)
i am sure if you shared some copy right material... you willl figure it out pretty quickly...
Re: (Score:2)
Given their very public stance WRT to the iPhone crypto issue I would tend to believe them more than some others...
Or at least be willing to give them benefit of doubt.
Re: (Score:2)
OK, I'd be more willing to believe Apple than some others. That, however, is a long way from saying I'd believe their claim without actual proof for anything important.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple haters gonna hate to admit this, but Apple's iCloud Drive does not read your docs.
And I'm sure Apple never loses or deletes people's documents. Right...
I'm guessing you have owned more than one Apple product.
How things have changed! (Score:3)
Now cloud, which is actually water vapor, is all the rage and everyone and his brother wants to put their stuff in the cloud.
Cloudy thinking. (Score:2)
Funny.
Gmail keeps asking for my phone number (Score:2)
It's your fault (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You seem a bit confused. It isn't a private document; the sharing mode simply has the word "private" in it.
For example, there is a device called a "safe," but if your documents are in it that doesn't mean they are literally safe; maybe they are, maybe they're not!
When you check a box and tell google, "Please keep this document private" that doesn't mean it is a "private" document; it doesn't mean you're asking google not to read it. It means you're asking google not to show it to other people without your p
That answers that (Score:2)
Pretty much answers the question: should you move your personal computing into the cloud? Just how brain damaged would you need to be, to buy Google's (or any other megacorp's) koolaid pitch about the cloud, as opposed to just downloading Libreoffice for free, and using it securely in the safety of your own device? Which of course is running Linux to actually be safe... oh, I forgot, there is a lot of brain damage going down out there.
Word to the wise: use the cloud only for throwaway stuff you don't mind s
Re: (Score:2)
No.
Re: (Score:2)
This advice applies to Gmail and its ilk too,
That doesn't help, because the send you send email to or from is (anymore) just about certain to be using gmail as well. So Google gets a copy of your mail no matter what you do locally.
Most of the people I correspond with do not use Gmail, perhaps because they tend to be more technically literate than average. When corresponding with Gmailers, I take great care with the information content.
Truth: sending serious email from a free webmail account makes you look bad. Never correspond with a prospective employer or client that way. Never use webmail for your business, just don't. Webmail is great for registering to sites you don't care about, and are probably going to spam you.
Bug Report or Policy Change? (Score:2)
Thanks for the tech support update. It doesn't sounds like Google has changed any kind of policy - rather is having an issue enforcing current policy.
In other news - my Intel video driver update is causing Outlook to draw a black page when I plug in an external monitor. Choosing "disable hardware acceleration" appears to be the work around.
Public service --- Just incase anyone else needs to know about that bug too. I'll post it to twitter hoping to make it a Slashdot article. The twitter universe - wh
Wait....What? (Score:2)
But the that's none of my business. I hope someone loses a shitload of money when Google does this. That would be pretty entertaining.
Use a "free" service, get what you pay for. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've never had a word processing application on my laptop start denying access to my own files. Use a hosted service, get hosted service problems.
I use the cloud, but it doesn't use me (Score:2)
I have stuff on Google Docs, but if they locked it, I have local copies on my desktop, laptop, and thumb drive, not to mention other online places.
Pffffffff! Cut! (Score:2)
Don't be silly. That would have shown up in testing.
In other words: This tool is unusable (Score:2)
What an utterly stupid fault to build in as a feature. Obviously Google Doc is viewed as a toy at best by Google.
Bad Title (Score:2)
Google is a convenient way to share and store documents, but if you use ANY one method of storage without any backup or c
Re:Paging Ric Romero (again . . . ) (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone who follows any sort of weapons or gaming or political channel on YouTube knows just how over-aggressive the Google's flagging bots can be. Very bland content now routinely gets flagged for no apparent reason and must be manually appealed. Sure, the bots are intended to do something Google actually wants: demonitize genuinely offensive content so that advertizers aren't embarassed, but that's not what the bots actually do. The collateral damage seems to be 10x the intended effect, with real harm done to people earning their living as vloggers.
I'm betting this is just more of the same. Google has some stuff they legitimately want to ban (e.g., sharing pirated content form you Google drive), but then the bots are badly written and poorly tested, and wreak havoc.
I'd call it poor customer service, but of course we know we're not Google's customers - only their ad buyers are their customers. Still, seems a bad way to treat your product.
I'm not certain who their customers are (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it's only the Wall Street crowd?
It's certainly not the advertisers because they're getting screwed every which way possible as well. It wasn't that long ago that several companies showed that the effectiveness of online advertising just isn't there. So what did Alphabet do? It must be those pesky content generating people who make their platform worthwhile in going to in the first place. We must crack down on them!
Let's not talk about how ineffective certain targeted ads are. Let's not talk about how the system was abused for propaganda purposes.
No. Instead let's work on cutting into people's livelihoods and make everyone nervous that instead. That's the distracting ticket!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
It's for your own feeling's protection.
Re:Paging Ric Romero (again . . . ) (Score:4, Funny)
...Still, seems a bad way to treat your product.
ssshhhh... be quite or they'll print a EULA under your clothes and shrink wrap you!
Re: (Score:2)
with real harm done to people earning their living as vloggers.
Then maybe they should go get themselves a real job, or set up their own video service if they're not happy with YouTube. YouTube doesn't owe them anything.
I'd call it poor customer service, but of course we know we're not Google's customers - only their ad buyers are their customers. Still, seems a bad way to treat your product.
Sure, and if you don't like it, don't use it. No one's forcing these people to use YouTube.
Re:Paging Ric Romero (again . . . ) (Score:5, Insightful)
YouTube is a defacto monopoly at this point. It was set up to be a Commons where everybody could participate. It has no competitor of a similar scale.
So perhaps it should be broken away from Google and made a separate entity again. Google can still contract with them to sell ads on it.
Or maybe it should be made into a true Commons without a corporate overlord running it.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It's not a monopoly. There are other video services out there, such as Vimeo. Or you can just set up your own website and serve your own videos. You don't need YouTube to make video available to people.
As for not having a corporate overlord, how exactly do you think such a thing would keep running? It costs a lot of money to keep a system like that in operation.
Re: (Score:3)
I never said the other options were as convenient. Freedom usually isn't convenient; just ask any Linux desktop user about their selection of common proprietary applications (Photoshop, etc.). But YouTube is not a monopoly as claimed before: there other other options out there, even if you don't like them as much.
Re:Paging Ric Romero (again . . . ) (Score:4, Interesting)
Just how would you propose supporting it as a true commons? The only two sources of support I can think of are ads and subscriptions, and subscriptions don't meet much approval. (Possibly when I get a refillable credit card I'll consider supporting a lot of places I approve of, but I don't really trust committing funds over the open web. I need a way to limit my exposure that isn't too inconvenient.)
Re: (Score:2)
Nationalize that shit homey
Re: (Score:2)
Nationalize it? Then it won't work at all; there's no way they'd be able to continue operating with different people in Congress fighting over how it should be administered, and worse they won't be able to hire competent help to run it, so it'll have to be outsourced to some corporation to run (the US government can't even run its own intranet or email systems, it's outsourced to HPE).
Re: Paging Ric Romero (again . . . ) (Score:2)
Fedgov is totally capable of running its own email system, should it choose to do so. The point of outsourcing is for some well-connected capitalists to get a nice fat Federal contract.
Re:Paging Ric Romero (again . . . ) (Score:4, Informative)
YouTube is a defacto monopoly at this point. It was set up to be a Commons where everybody could participate. It has no competitor of a similar scale.
So perhaps it should be broken away from Google and made a separate entity again. Google can still contract with them to sell ads on it.
Or maybe it should be made into a true Commons without a corporate overlord running it.
A "true commons" is not something that can exist under US law, thankfully. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Here all land is owned. Even land you have a right to access is owned, probably by a government entity, and that entity is charged with regulating access. For example, in the traditional example of common land used for grazing, in the United States grazing on government-owned land is regulated and requires permits. There is no Commons.
Youtube may or may not be a "defacto" monopoly as that is a loose and subjective phrase that can mean anything. Here in the US we only care if a monopoly results in the two banned things; harming consumers, and harming competition.
To claim harm to competition you'd have to be able to show losses or lack of access because of youtube's monopoly; but nobody else (other than pornographers) have even been able to make a profit on user-contributed internet video. They would have to be able to show that youtube is somehow preventing competition. But the nature of the internet makes that unlikely unless they were using some sort of active strategy that keeps people out; yet, their market dominance is based solely on customer preference! Customers aren't even locked in in any way. (As for the pornographers, youtube doesn't allow porn and so don't compete directly, and therefore doesn't harm them at all)
To claim harm to consumers you'd have to be able to show that prices were higher because of youtube. That's not going to happen, it is a free service!
If something is bad for the "vloggers" it doesn't matter; they're only protected as a consumer, and they're being paid so they're not even a consumer they're a business partner. It is only customers and competitors, rather than business partners, that are protected.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
YouTube has an effective monopoly over the community produced video streaming sector, just as Microsoft had an effective monopoly over the desktop operating system back in the late 90's, when they got in trouble for bundling Internet Explorer in an deliberate move to undermine Mozilla.
YouTube is using its control of its monetization tools to undermine whatever content they think should not be produced. Do you really want to pretend that Google's massive advertising operation is just some glorified web host
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sorry, your assertion is just plain stupid. MS had an effective monopoly on PC OSes because of compatibility problems: you can't (easily) run Microsoft Office on Linux, for instance, nor many many other very popular programs, many of which are critical for business use (like Photoshop, various engineering packages like CATIA or AutoCad, etc.). This phenomenon is called "lock-in".
There's no lock-in with YouTube. There's no requirement that you host videos on YouTube; just ask the people at XVideos, Yo
Re: (Score:2)
Just as Microsoft had an effective monopoly over the desktop operating system back in the late 90's, when they got in trouble for bundling Internet Explorer in an deliberate move to undermine Mozilla.
Pretty sure it was Netscape that Microsoft put out of business in the late 90s.
Re:Paging Ric Romero (again . . . ) (Score:5, Insightful)
Then maybe they should go get themselves a real job
If you work a full week in order to produce content, how is that not a real job? If you employ a staff, and are actually running a small business, how are these not real jobs?
They are new kinds of jobs, but real jobs nonetheless.
or set up their own video service if they're not happy with YouTube
Oh, everyone is very aware that YouTube is not their friend at this point. The problem is, most of the alternatives have either been scammers, or poor re-implementations of YouTube with all the same issues. None of them, for example, allow role-based administration of a channel (needed as soon as you grow beyond a 1-man shop).
Everyone I follow with a larger following is Patreon-funded now, but you have to build your channel to that point, and you need an established service to build that following.
No one's forcing these people to use YouTube.
It's the only realistic option today. Sure, Google may "owe them" nothing .. nothing that is beyond not being a dick to your fellow man (aka: don't be evil).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
TIL Chevy dealers are Serfs.
Re: (Score:2)
If you work a full week in order to produce content, how is that not a real job?
A real job has a real paycheck. If you can actually make a real living at it, OK, but most YouTube bloggers are just yahoos doing this in their spare time, or worse, have delusions of making it big like a small handful have and forsake actually working at a real career for this pipe dream.
Anyway, I could quit my job now and write some open-source software on github, and I could easily work a full week doing that. If I can't pa
Re: Paging Ric Romero (again . . . ) (Score:2)
The Google workers I've encountered all seemed to have an imaginatively high opinion of themselves. It must be difficult for many of them to accept that the general public has opened its eyes.
That they are now widely regarded as enemies of freedom. That people see their despicable surveillance-based business model and recoil in disgust.
That Google's obsession with constantly snooping and spying positively reeks of oppressive state surveillance, and people can no longer ignore the smell. That almost everyo
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone who follows any sort of weapons or gaming or political channel on YouTube knows
... or should know, that they're really out in the fringe, outside of commentary careful enough to commit to words, but well within the range suitable for blathering on anyways.
The situation in the story is a lot more sympathetic; media outlet has their words flagged, while on a service that offers private sharing, even though those words are suitable for public display and even though those words were not yet shared with the public.
Much more sympathetic than, "Illiterate nutters have their videos flagged o
Re:Paging Ric Romero (again . . . ) (Score:4, Informative)
Unplug from wall, remove cover, tap out chuck,pull bearing,press new bearing in, insert chuck, screw cover back on.
Re: (Score:2)
The operating noises of an antique drill sound like Lido Pimienta.
Re:Paging Ric Romero (again . . . ) (Score:4, Informative)
"Gaming" is hardly fringe these days. It's a bigger business than the movies. Is your mind still in the 90s?
Re: (Score:3)
Is your mind still in the 90s?
Doesn't asking this question worry you? Don't you wonder why you changed your way of thinking? Whose idea was it?
Me, I'm darn proud of the fact that I'm trying to keep my mind as close to what it was in the 90s as is practicable given the onslaught of garbage data.
Re: (Score:2)
Me, I'm darn proud of the fact that I'm trying to keep my mind as close to what it was in the 90s as is practicable given the onslaught of garbage data.
If you want to keep your mind sharp, you might want to consider gaming. So far the aggregate of the scientific studies done on the subject suggest that gaming is very good for your brain.
;-)
Re:Paging Ric Romero (again . . . ) (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone who follows any sort of weapons or gaming or political channel on YouTube knows just how over-aggressive the Google's flagging bots can be.
I don't think "aggressive" is even the correct category of term to use here.
The most amazing and baffling example I've seen was after a live stream.
The stream lasted almost 3 hours, and all was well. At the end of the stream the VOD was marked to post to the channel in its entirety.
Either the stream or the archived full copy was flagged at all.
The next morning editing began, which was to cut the original video into segments aligned to the few topics discussed on stream. 5 segments in all.
2 of those 5 were flagged as not suitable for advertisers. Keep in mind, those 2 segments were exact copies from the original stream, which is still suitable for advertisers.
So the bot had decided that one copy of the video was not suitable for ads, which is an exact copy of time marks 36m-72m within another video which was sutable for ads
What this shows is that you can upload the exact same video multiple times, with the exact same description text, and the same title but with " - 1" or " - 2" etc. appended, and have a non-zero chance that some but not all of those copies will get flagged while the other copies will remain fine, despite being identical copies.
This is not simply being aggressive, this is being broken and incapable of basic pattern matching.
Re:Paging Ric Romero (again . . . ) (Score:4, Interesting)
It could be certain word(s) that are above a threshold in the smaller segments but those things are talked about in the other segments so the appearance rate is lower, and below the threshold, in the combined video.
Re: (Score:3)
MAYBE IT HAS A YELLING FILTER?
Ahem. Take two. What I mean to say is, maybe it's got some metrics about the density of certain words or topics. Spread over a bigger piece, it doesn't trigger the alarms but in the shorter clip it does. Just a wild guess, though. It could also be a bug in the algorithm that just doesn't work on longer pieces or something. Or randomization. Or wild inconsistency.
Re: (Score:3)
> Very bland content now routinely gets flagged for no apparent reason and must be manually appealed.
It is worse then that. When even a black screen [youtube.com] gets flagged for "copyright violation" you know YouTube is seriously broken.
Google doesn't give a shit about quality assurance. Witness their mentality -- everything is in "Beta" aka "Broken".
A different source (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
... this word from our sponsors.
Why buy just a video game from Atari or Intellivision? Invest in the wonder-computer of the 1980s for under $300! The Commodore Vic-20! Unlike games it has a real computer keyboard. With the Commodore Vic-20 the whole family can learn computing at home! Plays great games too. Under $300! The Wonder-Computer of the 1980s, Commodore Vic-20.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I love the way he stands there disinterested, hands in pockets, reading the script off the floor and glancing casually at the came
Re: (Score:2)
Github is working out just fine for me, thanks.
But if by 'cloud' you mean ad revenue-seeking behavior-tracking service by a company that promised to do no evil but frequently does, then yeah I try to avoid that.
Re: (Score:2)
Github works well from me only because of local copies. But I wouldn't want to use it for email.
OTOH, it works for shared documents, as long as you are willing to use a proper license.
Re: (Score:2)
It's working out extremely well. These giant corporations are making a killing by convincing rubes that they need to put all their private data in "the cloud", and then the rubes do so, experience a lot of problems (service disruptions, having their stuff "flagged" for ToS violations, etc.), and then they whine and complain but they refuse to stop using the cloud services.
Re: (Score:2)
Who wants to risk some other party inspecting networked files?
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, but that doesn't suffice. You also need backups stored at remote locations.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)