The TechCrunch crew has a long history of "calling out" major companies on their product decisions, in the absence of any of the data or context in which such complex decisions are made.
P.S. I love how Tom has turned into the elder statesman of social networks.
I have never seen any story like "ROBIN WAUTERS WONDERS WHY ROBIN WAUTERS ISN'T IN THE HEADLINES," like you see multiple times per week with MG...on HN. Is he the most gossipy person there, now? This is usually the kind of drama you see with Perez Hilton type personalities.
That's a good point: MG might just be bored because he doesn't have enough interesting work to do, so he's going to stink up the place until people give him work/money/cocktail-weenies.
What I loved most was Tom's handling of putting out MG's little fire: "You are a loveable renegade. :-)" and also "clearing not roaming the badlands." MG does come off as trying a little too hard to sound tough/badass on Twitter and elsewhere.
Frankly, I've grown increasingly disinterested in anything TechCrunch(ers) have to say. Siegler's pieces in particular remind me of partisan political editorials.
He's not "seriously upset" about the photo. He thinks what's happening is ridiculous, and therefore took the time to ridicule it. He's clearly right. But it's not a moral crusade.
Tom Anderson gets it the wrong way round, and completely misses Siegler's point.
The question is not is why does Siegler care. He can reasonably expect to care: it's his photo attached to his personal profile and his photo is part of how he chooses to portray himself online. Siegler now knows that he cannot be himself on Google+, and now thousands of others know that they cannot be themselves on Google+ either.
The question is: why does Google care so much that about the minutae of how individuals choose to portray themselves while they face much greater problems related to the success or otherwise of their new social network?
Putting aside the spam problems that render Google+ at best noisy and at worse useless, if Google is so intolerant that it silently censors a hand gesture considered impolite in where their HQ is based, how else will they behave? Will they censor every gesture that might be considered offensive somewhere in the world (there are many)? Or will they remain purely focused on the North American hand gestures, and, by extension, North American culture and the limited audience that it brings?
There are public sections of G+ and private sections. If you have a private album limited to 4chan buddies or whatever with tubgirl, goatse, the lemon party, etc. and they took that down, I would find issue with it. But if you've got goatse as your public profile picture, that is an issue that Google has to deal with. I use those examples not because they are directly comparable to what Siegler put up, but because I imagine most of the people here on hn would find those images offensive.
When you're dealing with a really massive user base, you're inevitably going to have a lot of people that would find an image of a guy flipping the bird to be horribly offensive (their heads would simply explode if they ever saw goatse). Should you cater to those people? Where do you draw the line? Do you go with the U.S. Supreme Court's definition of obscenity? Siegler's picture is certainly not obscene, but it would certainly make a prude think twice about signing up for G+. I would rather not cater to the prudes of the world, but if Google wants every person with access to the internet on G+, then they'll have to offer some concessions to them.
So what if people are horribly offended? Let them be offended. It's not like anything bad will happen. "Someone flipped me the bird, I found it offensive and the next morning I had leprosy!" (Riffing off Steve Hughes, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cycXuYzmzNg watch this, it's pretty much my whole argument)
It's a finger for fuck's sake. It's not hurting anyone. If you're offended by it you really need to grow up and stop living in 19th century Victorian England.
Yes, pictures of dicks and gore is disgusting, but a finger? That's just childish, and reacting to that is also childish.
My point is that it's all relative, and from Google's perspective, something bad will happen--people won't use their service. Telling your potential users to grow up and act like reasonable people is not going to be a successful strategy when your goal is getting literally everyone with an internet connection to use your service. Lots of people are not rational, reasonable or mature. Personally, I don't find dicks and gore to be disgusting. It's just absurd to me. Of course, I understand perfectly well that other people find it disgusting, just as I can understand that there are a lot of people in the U.S. that find the middle finger to be objectionable (hey, maybe they aren't even offended by it, maybe they just don't want to explain what that gesture means to their kid, who then runs around flipping off everyone at their school [true story, I did that when I was about 4 years old]).
Almost any business that is targeted at a mass audience understands this and governs their products accordingly. If you find their censorship to be prudish and ridiculous, you can boycott them and use the Fuck You Network. I suppose if enough people boycott G+ for being unreasonably prudish, maybe they'll change their position, but judging by past performance, it seems like the prudes win these fights. Social networks are not like content distributors like HBO, that can appeal to a relatively small niche and be successful, for G+ it's all or nothing.
You've inadvertantly identified precisely what the real issue is: where is the line drawn? To you, it's at dicks and gore. Dicks and gore HAVE to be taken down!
Well, I've got news for you. Not everyone has the same threshold for tolerance of offensive material. Maybe the middle finger is devastating to me, but I love seeing gore. Who are you to tell me that's childish?
There are rules. Even HN has a set. If you don't like them, don't play.
The adult thing is to not be a child who thinks flipping the bird in his profile is something to be proud of. Siegler's little renegade act probably wouldn't work so well with the people who still think you can be a badass tech writer if he refrained, though.
MC Siegler and his fans are completely and totally allowed to share pictures of them fingering at each other (that came out wrong, but I'm leaving it for posterity) in private circles on G+, aren't they? But Google doesn't want it in people's public feeds.
I don't find it offensive--I do find it stupid in that sort of "oh, look at the Internet Tough Guy" way, but that's a far cry from taking offense--but at the same time I can entirely get why Google wouldn't be all happy and such with that sort of picture in folks' public feeds. Like it or not, there are some venues where you get to be a little civilized if you want to be out in public, and Google's decided that they have a bit of a dress code in their neck of the woods: shirt optional, pants optional, tie not required, birds verboten. Not a big deal; the total of this tragedy is pretty much that MC Siegler will have to resort to other methods than a bird in a profile picture to show what a trendy rebel with his fingers on the pulse of Technoeverything he really is.
Maybe he could do it with a thoughtful, well-written, incisive arti...ahahahahaha. I made myself laugh. =)
>The adult thing is to not be a child who thinks flipping the bird in his profile is something to be proud of.
That's the adult thing for him to do. But the adult thing for the rest of us to do is mind our own business. If I start to start a conversation with someone but find their speech offends me, I walk away. If his picture offends you, just take him off your feed. No big deal.
No, the new "adult thing" to do is try to control what other do and say, so that no one ever has to experience the traumatic effects of being offended.
I think many people here are conflating offensiveness and propriety. You don't have to be offended by something to find it inappropriate for a service that you run. (I don't find profanity offensive, but I also don't find it appropriate for business conversation. I doubt Googlers find a bird all that offensive, but the people making decisions apparently don't find birds appropriate for public G+ feeds. Oh noes?)
He, and you, and I, have no inherent right to do whatever we want on a private service. Their house, their rules. Maybe he should start his own social network (with blackjack, and...). He can call it CrunchPlaid. =)
He's not on my feed. I don't use G+ and wouldn't follow Siegler if I did.
I don't really see many people not minding their business, though. I see a few (including me) saying "meh, it's Google's house, they choose the rules", and that's about it.
It's Google's social network that they give everyone for free, they can refuse service to anyone. I don't agree with the level of censorship personally (it's a little bit too PC), but I respect Google's right to run their website how they see fit.
Of course they have a right to run their website how they see fit. But we also have a right to talk about what they're doing, and make informed decisions as to whether we'll be a part of their social network.
It's a <insert whatever YOU find ofensive> for fuck's sake, so get over it.
The amount of moralizing over what people are "allowed" to find offensive here is amazing. If it were my network, I wouldn't give a rat's ass what MG was doing in his picture, but it isn't my network.
The adult thing would be to act responsibly in the first place. Simplicity describes that spirit best: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or another sentiment is: would you do/show that to your grandmother (any beloved elder)?
So if it would in the slightest bother you, then don't bother doing it.
The MG criticism is over the top, as expected, since G+ is far more "public" out of the gate than previous networks it needs to be more proactive rather than reactive. As FB becomes more public they will begin to grapple with the same issues, it's only a matter of time...
Actually, Tom gets it right. It's called discretion. Use his public example, for instance. If you were, for example, a cross-dresser who loved wearing women's underwear - and only women's underwear - would that be tolerated by the general public if you were roaming around a mall?
"But this is who I really am, and it's how I want to portray myself in public!"
It's Google's playground, and you either play by the rules or suffer the consequences. You wouldn't berate mall cops if they had to remove offensive people from the premises.
I find it interesting that most attempts to support Google in this instances uses far more extreme examples to justify it.
I don't think anyone is insisting that there are no types of images that are so bad that it wouldn't be ok for Google to remove them. At least I haven't seen anyone claim so.
As long as that is the case, using examples that the vast majority would agree are worse than the one that was actually taken down just weakens your point dramatically.
If you were, for example, a cross-dresser who loved wearing women's underwear - and only women's underwear - would that be tolerated by the general public if you were roaming around a mall?
No, but one can disagree with both Google and the general public.
It's Google's playground, and you either play by the rules or suffer the consequences.
That doesn't mean we can't publicly disagree with the rules.
You wouldn't berate mall cops if they had to remove offensive people from the premises.
Mall cops don't decide the rules, they just apply them. It's different.
If I do that in public there are laws and elected officials, there are courts and ways for me to appeal. A clear and explicit notification is always given and if not I can sue. Most importantly, some things I’m definitely and always allowed to do are explicitly written down.
If you are in favor of Google treating their site like a public space then Google is doing very poorly.
Maybe he should stop to think that more than one person could have reported the photo. It would then be google's obligation to remove it because at that point you could not justify NOT removing it.
Seems silly. I could possibly see that point if you HAD to view his public profile, but it seems like that's entirely optional. Millions of users never see his public profile image. Those offended can simply not "follow" (circle?) him.
It would be easy to justify NOT removing it, even if EVERYONE else found it offensive. There's an option to not follow/view his profile. Under your view, the only votes would be those who found the picture offensive. If the criteria to remove something is that more than one person finds it offensive, almost everything on the internet would be removed.
A (much) better solution is that items that are flagged as potentially offensive come with a warning. Google+ users could choose the level they're comfortable with, much like they do with Google's search results. They deserve to be called out for making an arbitrary decision here, on something so trivial.
> If the criteria to remove something is that more than one person finds it offensive, almost everything on the internet would be removed.
Reductionist strawman. While a middle finger may not be particularly offensive to most people (including me), more people are likely to be offended by it than are likely to get their knickers in a twist over such a photo being removed. Ergo, it gets removed.
Waste time with warnings about offensive content and blah-blah-derpa-blah? No. Your potentially-offensive content can be kept in private circles and you can exercise good judgement about what you make public. That is the better solution. (And just in case--save the "well, what is offensive, how do we know?" silliness. That little brat Siegler knew perfectly well that he was doing something stupid and possibly/probably in contravention of Google's rules. Anderson called him out on it, too.)
It's not at all a reductionist straw-man argument. The post I responded to argued that if more than one person flagged the post as offensive that the content should be removed. The argument assumed that there should/could be a vote on if something is offensive, and if more people found it offensive it should be removed.
That line of reasoning is flawed, especially since there's no way to vote that you're not offended (other than the original person posting). That's an absurd system, where only the offended can voice their opinion. Even if those not offended could vote, who would vote on everything they're not offended by. That's still silly. Any system that attempts to allow people to vote/flag offensive material is inherently flawed.
That leaves us (or really Google) with an arbitrary decision on what should be allowed and what should be banned. Asking me (or anyone else) to save the "well, what is offensive" argument is silly. That's the WHOLE point. It's an arbitrary decision, one we all might come to different conclusions on. That underlines my point, that it's an arbitrary decision, and one that's been made for no good reason, given a system where you don't have to follow MG on Google+. There's a natural option (and given your obvious attitude on Mr. Siegler, the one you'll likely take), just don't follow him or look at his Google+ page. There's no reason to remove the content, and Google should be called out for it. MG might have over-reacted, and might be worthy of being called out too. I'm only calling out the system of "voting" to determine what's offensive. That's just a silly system.
Right. It's an arbitrary decision. The fact that they made a (arguably silly) decision doesn't prevent that decision from being called out for being silly. It is silly. G+ is certainly entitled to make whatever decisions they want to, provided those decisions are legal. That doesn't make them impervious to criticism.
I definitely disagree that he's "clearly" right, and disagree that he's right at all. Tom made the good point that this is Google's social network, and if you want to use it, then you should play by the rules, which are IMO mor than reasonable (why do I want to see people flipping me off).
I don't know why everyone is making it sound like this sets a precedent for more "censoring" when this is already the standard for any currently popular social network.
Wait. Wait. Wait. I'm not wading into the "debate" about whether Google can or should mess with people's profile photos. I could care less. I'm saying:
It is clearly ridiculous for Google to be policing profile photos looking for people flipping other people the bird.
Right? Wrong? Who cares? It's ridiculous. It can't possibly work. By doing it, Google sends a message that they're fundamentally unserious about taking on Facebook. Nobody who's serious could possibly have the time to deal with stuff like this. It's like Facebook banning cartoon profile pictures --- which is the kind of thing you can sort of do when you're the social network for a bunch of colleges, but couldn't even consider doing when you're the default social network for the entire world.
Actually, one of Tom's core arguments was that Google just happens to be policing content better than its competitors.
While I can't claim to know for certain exactly what content Facebook moderates, it most certainly does moderate. Is it purely a coincidence that the entire ecosystem on FB is noticeably 'cleaner' than its predecessor MySpace?
I think Tom is right that MySpace lost out to facebook because it is underpoliced. It became the cesspool of the internet. Policing can take many forms, for instance, Facebook doesn't allow people to add a lot of "bling" to their profiles as MySpace does/did. Reddit and Slashdot crowdsource their policing, by having a rating/karma system that discourages people from posting stuff that is bothersome to others. There are all kinds of things that can be done.
But just letting anyone do anything is not a good approach. The small minority who will get up in arms about such a thing is nothing compared to the masses that will leave when they decide that the anything goes approach has allowed G+ to become a cesspool like MySpace.
In my opinion, Facebook was better not because of it's policing, but because it had a better UI and lacked the hideous looking profile themes of MySpace.
I read most of the guy's article, I think, but I might have missed this last point you're making. I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying it's too technically difficult to do it (via machine learning or whatever) or there would be too many false positives?
If there's one company that doesn't usually use humans to do any kind of spam filtering, it's probably Google. Also, I'm pretty sure they'd work out the kinks eventually.
Both of those, and also: the amount of effort it takes, for no benefit whatsoever. They're doing it because they don't know what they're doing yet. It's not a moral outrage. It's a "tell".
As far as I'm concerned, if a service you like, does something you dislike, you should complain, and you should tell people about it. Especially if the service is used by tens of millions of people and is growing at the rate that Google+ is.
It sounds like you disagree with this though. Why? Why do you think he should have kept his mouth shut?
"this is already the standard for any currently popular social network"
And it will remain so, if people don't complain loudly enough that an alternative is created which behaves differently.
He's not complaining about anything that anyone has a problem with (ok maybe SOME people do want to see people giving them the finger in their stream). He's just whining about G+ like he always does, like a baby.
Your general statements don't apply here. If you want to argue, then tell me why you want to see people flicking you off on G+ and why you think that's something that should be OK for everyone.
I dont "want to see people giving them the finger in their stream" but at the same time I want even less for Google to censor minor stuff like that. If they're going to be that restrictive I have very little reason to believe they won't also censor things I'd care a lot more about.
I already use Google+ far more than Facebook, but they keep stepping in it and making me less and less hopeful about it being long term viable as a replacement.
If you want to argue, then tell me why you want to see people flicking you off on G+ and why you think that's something that should be OK for everyone.
It has nothing to do with wanting to see people flicking someone off, but with not wanting to see Google take the role of moral censor and deciding for us what's "offensive" or not.
I see. So the reason you think he should keep his mouth shut, is because you perceive his issue to be a minority issue. How many people need to have a problem with something before it's ok for them to complain about it?
Just because you disagree with somebodys opinion, doesn't mean they were wrong to express it.
I didn't say any of these things. He can keep his mouth open if he wants and he has every right to express his opinion. It's just a matter of judgement on which opinions to express, and "clearly" he misused his judgement here.
However, the point I'm making is, all things considered, I don't think he had much of an argument for this case, and it's more of just a cheap shot at G+ (he could have instead addressed it to all social networks instead of G+ too..). He kind of has a track record for these things though..
Let me put it this way: if somebody's profile picture bugs me, and it appears in my stream more than a couple times, that's on me. It's quite simple to take somebody out of your circles, and even to block them completely.
I like how humble Tom is about MySpace. All these years later, and he's still my only friend...
In all seriousness, he should be proud of what they accomplished. Yes, it kind of turned into a cesspool, but there was no model of how a social network should be until Facebook came along. MySpace was an evolution of Geocities, more than it was an attempt to have the kind of "respectable" social presence that facebook shot for. MySpace was still the startup that proved social would be huge.
Rather, there was no widespread knowledge and/or consensus on how a social network should be at the time. Models were a plenty. For example, Lunarstorm started out some 3 years (2000) before MySpace and in a year (2001) reached 600k users (it would plateau at 1.2m in 2007) but it had none of the Geocities stylings of MySpace. Instead it had a feed of your friends' activities, private messaging, notes (called diary), and message boards. It's just that the Internet back then was not the sharing ground it has grown into today, and people in other countries than Sweden were probably not aware of this particular site.
According to the linked complaint by MG, he is not whining about the policy so much as about the deletion without warning:
> My problem isn’t so much with the fact that I couldn’t have a profile picture of myself giving everyone the finger — which I can and do on Twitter and elsewhere — it’s that no one bothered to tell me or warn me before they just went into my account and deleted the picture.
he does also take issue with the policy itself, but as an aside not as his main point:
> Bigger picture: this seems like a ridiculous thing for Google to be policing. [...]
> This also seems like a slippery slope. In certain cultures, various hand gestures mean different things. Is Google also going to delete my profile picture if I have my fingers up to my chin, for example?
It betrays his technical competence to say they went "into my account," doesn't it? I don't think it's helpful or appropriate for him to use property terms for a topic like this.
On the other hand, lots of people in this thread are saying google's policy is the right thing in this case. Would they say the same if apple was refusing an app with a middle finger icon? A book? A song?
I think they're both wrong, but I understand that having something open for all, you'll get adults but children too, and as a parent your definition of objectionable content for your children may differ. But for me, simply removing the content is wrong. Maybe better parental control technology may make the situation better.
Completely misses the fundamental difference between "not allowing", "not displaying" and bluntly "removing" the photo.
Online companies seem to be completely insensitive to what is pretty intuitive in the physical realm: you may tell me what not to do in your shop, but don't touch my stuff.
That's not a valid argument. At the end of the day, if Google wants G+ to succeed they have to draw the line on offensive profile pics somewhere. Regardless of where the line falls, there will always be people who think it should be moved in one direction or another. To just say "I'm not offended by this content, Google must be doing it wrong" is ignoring the reality of the situation and failing to contribute to the discussion on how the issue could be handled better.
I'll expand a bit on why I think they're doing it wrong.
When you choose to follow/friend/circle/whatever someone you are making the choice to establish a social connection with that person. Social connections are far too broad to police. I might want to be friends with someone because they make horribly offensive jokes. I might want to be friends with someone because they produce art that could be considered offensive to someone. I might be friends with someone who I like enough to tolerate their offensive side. Whatever the dynamics of that relationship may be Google has no role in its complexities.
The next problem is consistency. I can be way more offensive with words than I can be with pictures. If they want to successfully police people's relationships they will have to also delete anything I say that might be offensive to someone else even if they're not my friend and even if I'm making a private post. As a user I don't think I can possibly understand everything that might offend Google or the millions of users of Google+. That's a huge burden to put on the user. Do I really want to spend the time writing a post on Google+ that may disappear because someone I don't know finds it offensive? I don't think they're doing this yet but if they're choosing to go down this road they are taking the responsibility so they will have to someday. A middle-finger is a pretty low bar. Right off the bat you have to ban 'fuck' from all posts because they are the same meaning.
The solution is pretty obvious. Either hide the profile picture until you friend/circle/whatever someone or give users the ability to rate themselves which solves a variety of other potential problems. I have no problem marking my profile NC-17 or whatever the equivalent would be.
Of course it's Google's site so they can do whatever they want with it. Questioning Google's policies is like a can of soup having an existential crisis.
And we can choose to criticize them for that choice. Ain't free speech wonderful?
How about when your kid/elderly relative does a search on google and sees it?
If I believe my kid is too young to see that, I wouldn't let him search on Google by himself. As for an elderly relative, I'm pretty sure any of mine can cope with a picture of someone flipping them off.
Sure, Google can choose to do whatever they want, but those choices have consequences. This policy could have the effect of making people feel like they can't "be themselves" on G+, and cause a drop in participation. I'm not saying this particular incident would have that effect (MG Siegler appears to not actually care), but it could for other cases.
G+ is an international social network. It's interesting how you assume that what's offensive to a large number of people in the US (maybe 100M people) should be offensive to the world (7B).
News content from Fox perpetuating lies that cause soldiers and civilians to die: front page in search results.
Google has demonstrated with the photo that its willing to act as a censor. Now that we've agreed that censorship is ok, can we now talk about what we would like to censor?
Sorry but I still don't understand why deleting that picture is such big deal? Google has the right to build their community with the rules that they want and the people eager to accept those rules. Mr Sieger has also the right to complain and he did so that should close the case right?
I made an analogy yesterday between this site and reddit and the differences between the cultures on both sites. A lot of people downvote that post (not sure why because I wasn't say anything offensive) and that's the kind of things that you have to accept in social sites... There are rules.. You either accept them or just move on...
The "accept or move on" rule applies less when such sites are used by the majority of the population.
When it's used by the majority it becomes something you, in many cases, have to be part, that you like it, or not.
That even include "to be accepted at school", mind you. (just like you didn't have to smoke back in the days, but also you were gay if you did not, no matter how wrong that reasoning is).
Based on that new perspective, you may understand that restricting free speech on such services is actually "big" deal (yeah, the quotes are important here. i'd go for medium deal in the current state of affairs.)
I found your reasoning so wrong it left me momentarily at a loss for words. No, sites don't ever become subject to a different set of rules just because the majority of people use them. That kind of thinking leads down a very dangerous road.
And if you still care about "to be accepted at school", grow up. Speaking as a "four-eyes" and a nerd, some of us never bothered caring about that in the first place. Unfortunately, the people that did care grew up to form "the majority of the population", leading to quite a few of the social problems that currently plague us.
Free speech only applies to governments, and it applies there specifically because there you truly do have a "whether you like it or not" situation when it comes to governmental policies. It does not, and should not, extend to speech made on someone else's site. That remains entirely subject to the policies of the site owner, who may set them however they wish, keeping in mind that any choice they make may gain them some users and lose others.
Now, that said, I think better solutions existed for the particular issue at hand (so to speak) than immediate deletion without notification (such as hiding potentially offensive profile pictures for people who don't have that person circled), but that remains entirely up to Google's policy. I personally think that policy ought to change somewhat, but I'd never argue that anyone other than Google has the right to determine that policy.
> Different laws apply to companies in a monopoly position,
That doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as "used by the majority of people", since people can and do use many different sites rather than choosing one exclusively. Those laws also doesn't have anything to do with the absurd schoolyard notions suggested by the comment I responded to; monopoly laws exist primarily to keep monopolies from preventing others from entering the market and disrupting that monopoly.
> and that is right and proper.
In your opinion; I strongly disagree with the notion that such laws have any basis in morality.
>That even include "to be accepted at school", mind you. (just like you didn't have to smoke back in the days, but also you were gay if you did not, no matter how wrong that reasoning is).
Sorry for disagree, but I think people should have more personality and do not take decision affected by what the majority is doing.
Maybe I am being too naive, but if I can't find an online community that fixes with my way of think then I am going to build one... Isn't that what Internet is all about?
Same here. A lot of google+ pages have this effect. It seems safari on the ipad 1 got a LOT les stable with iOS 5. It used to never crash, and now I won't even try to visit techcrunch, as it crashes 100% of the time.
I think you guys are all thinking about this the wrong way. Siegler's post is about finding the lines that define acceptable content not caring about his exact photo.
Knowing what a company like google defines as inappropriate is important for being able to make informed choices about what products you should use and who you should be giving all your personal data to for free.
"If you had a T-shirt that said "I hate White People" and you walked into a mall wearing it, the security would probably ask you to leave, or ask you to cover up your shirt."
And that's the problem with Google+ here. They didn't ask anything. They did the t-shirt in a mall equivalent of stealing his t-shirt while he wasn't looking.
It seems pretty obvious how this should work:
(1) Google enables a flag for offensive photos (some automated system might work in tandem with this).
(2) Someone who's offended by a photo (or automated system) flags it.
(3) The user sees that someone has flagged it, might change it himself.
(4) Google sees the flag and reviews the image for possible action. Some sort of adjudication record is created and available for both the user the image belongs to and anyone who reported it.
(5) The user has some recourse to appeal if Google takes action to remove the user's picture.
Google, having a terrible customer service background, just went with the big brother approach.
> "If you had a T-shirt that said "I hate White People" and you walked into a mall wearing it, the security would probably ask you to leave, or ask you to cover up your shirt."
> And that's the problem with Google+ here. They didn't ask anything. They did the t-shirt in a mall equivalent of stealing his t-shirt while he wasn't looking.
And that's the problem with analogies relating the Internet to the real world: they often fail because the Internet doesn't work like the real world. (I will say that this does come remarkably closer to the concept of "stealing bits" than how people usually use terms like "stealing", since the original owner might not have those bits anymore, but who would leave their only copy of a picture on a site they don't own, particularly one whose policies don't include preserving your data no matter what?)
Another marginally more accurate analogy, though still potentially flawed if you try to read too much into it: if you rented space in a mall, and displayed offensive material there, they might ask you to leave, or they might just close up your shop for you and kick you and your stuff out, and either way they have every right to do so.
The fifth point is a great idea that more services need to get behind in all areas. But aside from that one, this all sounds like pointless bureaucracy and foot-dragging, and well beyond what just about any other service on the planet does. (I've moderated a number of forums, and I can't think of a one where we routinely gave people a record of how their flags were resolved.)
I would love to see the mall that turns away people wearing a shirt that gives the finger.
Is this a very exaggerated example or does this thing exist out there, in the modern world?
Like others, I'm surprised that G+ is spending time solving this problem. Why don't they flip the switch on their safesearch technology on G+ and call it a day?
You see "Google has limited resources" and "cannot warn you before removal".
Made my day.
ps: most removals are actually automated, and warning are (as in would be) obviously automated.
And of course, nothing bad with a finger up (or even in a naked body in fact, but hey).
I much prefer the "adult filter" of YouTube, which uhm, is also automated (user vote based).
I don't think you'd actually get in trouble for an "I hate White People" t-shirt. It would probably be seen as a political statement. We have whole college majors devoted to elucidating the evils of white people. It's hip to hate them.
When this sort of tech pundit makes himself the center of a non-story I do my best to ignore it, I recommend that everyone do the same. Tech blogging has deteriorated to parroting PR releases and slobbering over iStuff, I draw the line at appeasing the attention whores.
Tom makes a great point here. Policies are policies and the difference is that this policy actually has action behind it. Oh well. Social networks don't really hide their policies and this one isn't all that radical at that. If you don't like it, find another service or comply with the rules, (or if you're really that stressed about it make your own social network).
If some random 16 year old from Middle-O-Nowhere Indiana complained on his blog about the same thing we wouldn't even read past the first paragraph. But MG Siegler does it and it becomes a real issue? The only difference between Siegler and the hypothetical teenager is that Siegler is well known and can write so his tantrum gets play.
Really, the issue of the offensive profile picture shouldnt be the issue at all. The issue should be whether Siegler is allowed to use his notoriety to dupe us into thinking this is an issue worthy of discussion.
Really? An "'I hate white people' t-shirt" parallel?
Don't even get me started on that atrocious "we don't need to see this" line of argumentation. If the Google+ is going to censor (let's call things by their proper names) pictures that "people don't need to see", where's the goddamned line?
Imbecile.
That such a poorly constructed argument makes its way to the Hacker News homepage is worrisome. I had the hope that people who use logic for a living would have higher standards.
Suppressing racist speech is also censorship, so it seems like you're actually affirming the parallel. Since you seem to think it's self-evident that racist content should be banned and equally self-evident that this content should not be, why don't you tell us where the line is? This is very fine line to walk — you will anger somebody no matter what you do — so if you have any insights, I'm sure the people faced with the decision will appreciate them.
The line is where they, as a company, decide to put it. I would not go to a social networking site that had gore or porn polluting my feeds. Similarly, you might not go to a website that disallows any content. That's our prerogative. It's facile to paint it as a free speech argument.
Why would you subscribe to users that post gore or porn to your feeds?
Tumblr has plenty of porn, but you can certainly use it without ever getting it on your dashboard. It's just a matter of, you know, not following the people who post it.
I have heard of people being thrown out of mall's because they were wearing an offensive t-shirt. I think the analogy that google+ is basically private property that is open to the public. The website isn't owned by the public instead it is owned by google. The point of google censoring offensive content is to not only follow their own rules but to make the company that provides this service to still look good and keep up their public image.
...and, to add to your point, as a not-public organization they build this product for company benefit. They let you do things on it that they benefit from. Why on earth would they be required to let you do things that are bad for their business?
Sure, but good luck finding a company who cares more about letting you express your "fuck you's" than they do about money, and good luck to them in building to scale with money only from advertisers who don't mind being next to MG's middle finger.
good luck to them in building to scale with money only from advertisers who don't mind being next to MG's middle finger.
But would they have to? I mean, Google's whole business model is to match ads to the right content, and they specifically say they're good with detecting such "offensive" images, so they could simply content match advertisers who were looking for "edgy" images.
But, and I'm just throwing this out there so hold off on that downvote for a second, if a website has a comments section, doesn't such a feature act as something similar to a "town square"?
In which case, if a website has a comments section or other area where users can interact with one another, should that area be a "public" place, and allow free speech etc.?
Addition: since the purpose of free speech law is to allow anyone to say things that may well not be liked by an authority figure, companies being censors could act as a surprisingly effective loophole to free speech law. Just make all methods of communication between citizens pass through a company, who handles the censorship, leaving the tyrant free to go about their day.
I mean, I didn't read it, but I'm sure somewhere along the way of my signing up for Google+ I agreed to their terms of service stating that they could remove whatever content they deemed unacceptable that I post or create.
As for your addition, to make all methods of communications pass through a company would either require a law, which would be unconstitutional, or would require more insidious methods. The government already has plenty of insidious methods of dealing with people.
I think it's offensive, and I would like to not see things like that pop up in my stream.
Isn't this one of those things that are on the line where if just 1 person says it's offensive, then it should be treated as such. It's kind of like if there were only 10 men and 2 women in a room, then by democracy, you'd probably end up with rape being OK.
I find a lot of religious imagery horribly offensive.
Also a lot of right wing politicians. Republicans for example. Actually most Democrats too - I'm not American.
And political statements against meat eaters - I want my steaks, and I want them bloody.
I can go on. I'd rather not see any of the above pop up in my stream.
At the same time, if the choice is between having to see them in my stream or having censorship, I'll tolerate seeing them in my stream. Together with people giving me the finger.
IANAL, but I think your #1 and #2 do apply most of the time for anything that can be seen in the public. Defamation of people's religions in a dis-respectful way is generally unlawful (though maybe not illegal). The act of giving someone the finger is generally regarded as a sign of violence.
You might have more liberal views than me, but I do think it's a violent gesture. I get the point you're trying to make, but I simply disagree that for this specific case, this should be something that is generally acceptable in a public social network with 13+ year olds on it.
"Defamation of people's religions" falls squarely under free speech in any country that has it. And if you consider "defamation of religion" a "violent gesture", consider re-examining your values. The attitudes you suggest would fit right in in countries still ruled by religious bodies, but they have no place in in civilized societies. (Any country that still places restrictions on speech, or intertwines religion and government, hasn't quite figured out "civilized" yet.)
Also, "unlawful" and "illegal" mean the same thing.
Now, I'd absolutely agree that defamation of religion can potentially offend people. And I suspect that if someone had a profile picture that defamed someone's religion, Google would remove that one too, because they want to keep profile pictures inoffensive to most of their target audience. That does not make such images illegal, though.
For that matter, promotion of religion can potentially offend people, but I doubt Google would remove profile pictures with overtly religious messages, because they don't particularly care about the small number of people offended, and they don't want the massive backlash from religious people, whose ability to stir up angry mobs has only grown with modern technology. (Oops, I've defamed religion there.)
Google could also choose to delete all profile pictures that contained the color red because they don't fit a preferred color scheme. If they did so, they'd attract quite a lot of complaints and ridicule, but they certainly have the right to do it.
> Isn't this one of those things that are on the line where if just 1 person says it's offensive, then it should be treated as such.
I find your post offensive, but I'd never suggest that you shouldn't have the right to post it. (Hacker News would certainly have every right to delete it if they wanted, but I'd find that even more offensive.)
> It's kind of like if there were only 10 men and 2 women in a room, then by democracy, you'd probably end up with rape being OK.
Speaking of offensive, you just implied that at least three out of ten men would find that an acceptable outcome. I understand the point I hope you meant there ("majority rule" has serious problems if you don't preserve fundamental rights), but you picked a truly awful way to express it.
P.S. I love how Tom has turned into the elder statesman of social networks.