I’m a member of a mailing list on Googlegroups. It’s a private list, and I’ve been a member for many years. Today, I got the following email, Subject: Your Content On Google Groups
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Hello simberg@interglobal.org,
We’re letting you know that we’ve permanently removed the content at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/coolpeople2808/4SscdySTE04/WIigOQEpAQAJ
Why did this happen?
An external report flagged the content for illegal content or policy violations. As a result, our legal content and policy standards team removed the content for the following reason: unwanted content.
Learn more
You can learn more about our content policies and enforcement at our help center.
What you can do next
You may have the option to pursue your claims in court. If you have legal questions or wish to examine legal options that may be available to you, you may want to consult with your own legal counsel.
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WTF?!
a) They don’t tell me what the allegedly objectionable content was and (b) it’s a private list. How can there be an “external report” on it? I forwarded the email to the list, and we’re all scratching our heads about it.
No such thing as truly private on Google (or many other big ‘groups’). Merely not open to the general public.
No one at Google should be monitoring a small private email list. And it said it was from an “external report.” Again, WTF?
Obviously, that’s either a lie or they mean “we took it upon ourselves to scan your group for wrongthink.”
Probably some form of “AI” scanner.
Eh, maybe. I’ve had a couple of instances where years-old Facebook posts get deleted out of the blue for “violating community standards.” I figure they’re updating their Newspeak dictionaries and then looking for “new” things to ding you for.
If Chrome “Private Mode” wasn’t, why would you think they’d treat “private” group email any differently?
Forget it, Rand. It’s Mountain View.
Perhaps they’ve been sharing with the government/independent disinformation minders again and someone flagged this as dangerous speechcrime. Or maybe it’s just a nonsense boilerplate so people don’t automatically blame Google’s automated censors.
I do wonder what triggered the shutdown. It’s nonsense that they don’t bother to state what the violation is. I bet if they tried the same sort of vagueness on their employees, they’d face endless lawsuits. If you don’t say why you performed the disciplinary action on an employee, then you can’t prove that you did it for legal reasons.
By external they mean by them.
Their computers do read & store everything as pointed out. Anything you put on their system, any post made anywhere using Goo or Disqus it’s theirs..
Reorganize on Rumble or Twitter, get off Goo.
Big Sister is watching you!
It’s sometimes annoying that I can’t get access to groups or contribute to sites because I refuse to have a login account with Evil, Inc. Then something like this comes up and reaffirms that I have made the right decision.
Big Sister /snicker
Rand, you are clearly an evil Right Wing Death Beast (h/t Tim Blair).
That’s enough.
“Right Wing Death Beast”
Almost spilled my beer. Really. I was was just sitting down and trying to manage multiple gravity vectors. Laughter ensued. Things got a little more complicated.
Upvote for “multiple gravity vectors.
That’s EVIL right wing death beast 😉
“External report” … as in, Big Xer is outsourcing the job of monitoring you to some undisclosed contractor in some undisclosed location.
“Unwanted content” … as in truth and reason that contradicts the “expert” narratives of our social technocracy and its Pedestaled Elite.
Someone in the group is guilty of wrong-think and they decided to clear everything that person touched, just in case it spread. You aren’t allowed to have debate of any kind, because that leads to unauthorized thoughts
The closest you can come is a private newsgroup on a private server in your physical custody. But I’m reminded of the death of sff.net, which was exactly that. “Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead.”
We are back to cutting out words from magazines and dead drops.
You need to accept the fact that you now live in the panopticon. Privacy doesn’t exist as long as there are any electronics involved.
Privacy itself is a thought crime.
The part which made me chortle was “reason: unwanted content”. Talk about a catch-all which can take in anything including “we don’t approve of your politics”.
No surer sign that you said nothing specifically which was immoral or unethical.
Does your Google Group send emails for each post, either by default or as an option?
If so, you should consult with an attorney about whether a third party (possibly not Google, though you’d name them for discovery) violated the Electronic Stored Communications Act. The act may not apply to online-only forums, but it does apply to emails, including emails whose content is stored in the cloud.
Yes, it’s primarily an email list.
I gather the list is still viable, it’s just that Google Groups won’t generate a web interface for the list anymore. One argument here might be that you waived your rights under said law when you allowed Google Groups to do that or when you sent the email to the mailing list (arguing that it is now public communications not private). They might even have boilerplate EULA (End User License Agreement) that protects them in this case.