Category Archives: Weird

Business, Law, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society, Weird

The Latest (Weird) Google Evil

25 Comments

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.

Business, Technology and Society, Weird

LinkedIn Weirdness

11 Comments

Well, the weirdness of some people on LinkedIn. Occasionally, I’ll make the mistake of accepting an invitation from someone, and they’ll immediately want to initiate a conversation with me, as though I have infinite time for such things. In some cases, it’s an attractive Asian woman (generally Chinese), which makes me suspect a scam. It would never occur to me to use LinkedIn as a penpal service, but apparently some people do.

[Update a few minutes later]

I should add that the easiest way to get them to stop bugging me is to tell them that I hate communicating on my phone (because they always want to chat on WhatsApp or Signal, or texting), which not only discourages them, but has the additional virtue of being true. When I tell them my preferred mode of communication is email, they tell me that they only use email for work. OK, your problem, not mine.

[Update on July 7th

Here’s an example of an invitation I just got. An Asian-appearing woman with a man’s name. Bizarre.

[Bumped]