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".
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.