There are many examples of Google's automated systems making egregious mistakes while scanning user data with no human in the loop to review the decision.
>Ed Francis studies the evolution of military technology over at his YouTube channel, Armoured Archives. But this week, Francis says five years’ worth of research stored on Google Drive has become inaccessible thanks to Google’s automated error.
Francis says the file in question was simply a collection of data on various tanks for a coming video on how military vehicles have evolved across historical conflicts. But Google’s automated systems deemed the file a terrorist threat, resulting in a complete lockdown of his YouTube, GMail, and Google Drive accounts.
I remember that story, I came across a post asking people to upvote the support ticket on the r/datahoarder subreddit by a fan on the 17th. I came across it and cross posted a link on hacker news on the 22nd in the evening and by the following morning the account was restored and taken care of. I can't say for sure how much posting it here helped, but based on the timeline I think it made a difference. I believe it was also one of the highest upvoted stories of that day.
What stood out to me what one of the first couple comments in the support thread was the contact information for the Museum Director of the Swedish Tank Museum.
My unconfirmed theory is that Google's OCR pdf service flagged specific text and pages in the pdf of tank plans and repair manuals as they are considered classified and shouldn't be in the public unredacted. It's historically significant and absolutely worth preserving, but I can see why it might get flagged.
This was also interesting in that it got the entire account taken down. Usually Google flags a file and disables sharing completely. Google disabled sharing backups of a recent Kanye interview that was filled with hate speech called "Kanye champs removed video.mp4". I have not watched it but it was my first time seeing something removed because it "may violate Google Drive's Hate Speech Policy. Some features related to this file were restricted."
I am not sure if it was the post to HN or various videos other made that helped, but it made me realize that the one of the best ways to get in touch with a human at Google is posting here on HN and that Google will continue to become more aggressive with scanning files.
Section 230 was modified by FOSTA-SESTA when related to hosting sexual solicitation, and EARN IT is back under review by congress which would effectively make E2EE illegal and make hosts liable for illegal content uploaded by its users.
Would scanning be okay if there is a government entity with a human you can appeal to that would override any flags made by automated systems? No corporation wants more government oversight, and the only way to avoid it is to do good faith self policing. EARN IT would receive a lot more support if the public sentiment changes to believe Google and Apple and other hosts intentionally choose to ignore problematic materials. Reddit is criticized often because it allowed problematic subreddits to grow. I am not sure where things will end up.
I'm not defending this at all, but one of the reasons why there are no (or few) humans that can be contacted is that they* said that it was tried before and it caused a lot more issues with mistakes/takeovers due to social engineering.
* Can't remember who said it but it was at a town hall this year
> one of the reasons why there are no (or few) humans that can be contacted is that they* said that it was tried before
This just sounds like yet another excuse for holding payroll down as much as possible.
If I am a customer of Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Walmart or any number of the other companies with a similar market cap, I can get access to real live human beings who provide customer support.
>Ed Francis studies the evolution of military technology over at his YouTube channel, Armoured Archives. But this week, Francis says five years’ worth of research stored on Google Drive has become inaccessible thanks to Google’s automated error.
Francis says the file in question was simply a collection of data on various tanks for a coming video on how military vehicles have evolved across historical conflicts. But Google’s automated systems deemed the file a terrorist threat, resulting in a complete lockdown of his YouTube, GMail, and Google Drive accounts.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8yj7/google-locks-historia...
Having a shitty algorithm kill your whole Google account with no way to reach a human to fix the problem is one thing.
Having a shitty algorithm report you to the police for taking pictures of your child's first bath is a bridge too far.