Google Drive deleting text/documents?

[Anonjohn20]

I believe it's real; all my lewd chapters seem to be missing 50-100 words. Losing the stories isn't too bad (as they were unpublished), but I really hope I don't lose that account.

EDIT: I deleted everything in an educational setting (no more lewd acts in the university) so that Google stops assuming the characters are too young; hopefully that prevents my account from getting in trouble.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I once noticed that entire chapters were disappearing from my drafts.
A full chapter gone. And some of them I didn’t even remember writing so it felt like an irretrievable loss. It seemed strange to me that it wasn’t random fragments disappearing. That’s when I started investigating. It turned out that sometimes when I thought I was copying a chapter from the draft to edit it elsewhere, I had accidentally clicked “cut” instead of “copy.” So the chapter wasn’t really lost.
What if something like that happened to you too, guys?

Oh heck, did that with a shared doc in WORD back about ten years ago. There wound up being three very different versions of the same document floating around, and one section I put a lot of work into vanished before I could get the three reconciled.

 

[3guanoff]

Is there some legal basis to this?

I know services may be required to scan for inappropriate pictures and videos due to certain US and European laws. They certainly use AI tools for those purposes; and there are cases of people lawyering up after Google deleted their accounts due to those tools.

However, according to my degree in internet and inappropriate content law from the university of lunch breaks with a lawyer, this does not apply to textual content.

Admittedly, my "degree" is several years old. Have laws changed over there in the US?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Admittedly, my "degree" is several years old. Have laws changed over there in the US?

It would depend on the terms of use in the license agreement as there are no blanket laws that I am aware of (though a misapplication of the first amendment could be used to CHALLENGE them doing this, with or without a specific clause in the EULA).
As far as I can tell (from this thread and some of the linked articles), stuff you use only on your own devices is exempt from this, but the moment you share it with a device you don't own or a separate person, it becomes subject to their review, which leads to them "taking appropriate measures"

 

[HisDivineShadow]

Oh heck, did that with a shared doc in WORD back about ten years ago. There wound up being three very different versions of the same document floating around, and one section I put a lot of work into vanished before I could get the three reconciled.

Just in case, I backed everything up to a hard drive.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Just in case, I backed everything up to a hard drive.

I try to - but lost a lot when a computer just stopped working (including the hard drive)... And, of course, if I remember to do this 9 times out of 10, guess which time something goes wrong?

 

[HisDivineShadow]

And, of course, if I remember to do this 9 times out of 10, guess which time something goes wrong?

?
Yeah
That’s so true!

 

[JayMark]

After seeing this, I'm going to make sure I have at least one printed copy of all the shit I write.

I might be going back to ink and quill too.

 

[3guanoff]

It would depend on the terms of use in the license agreement as there are no blanket laws that I am aware of (though a misapplication of the first amendment could be used to CHALLENGE them doing this, with or without a specific clause in the EULA).

If there is no law, I do not see why they would spend money to proactively remove perfectly legal content.

It is unlikely to earn the ire of advertisers since, as far as I am aware, Google does not show ads inside of documents.
I cannot see how the existence of inappropriate documents might impact Google's bottom line. And if it is not losing them money or opening them up to legal challenges, why would they take action?

I doubt they suddenly deemed erotic literature harmful to society and started purging it out of the goodness of their bleeding green hearts?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

If there is no law, I do not see why they would spend money to proactively remove perfectly legal content.

It is unlikely to earn the ire of advertisers since, as far as I am aware, Google does not show ads inside of documents.
I cannot see how the existence of inappropriate documents might impact Google's bottom line. And if it is not losing them money or opening them up to legal challenges, why would they take action?

I doubt they suddenly deemed erotic literature harmful to society and started purging it out of the goodness of their bleeding green hearts?

That is part of it though - more likely, they are afraid laws WILL be passed (or that they will be banned from places that have such laws) if they aren't proactive.

 

[3guanoff]

That is part of it though - more likely, they are afraid laws WILL be passed (or that they will be banned from places that have such laws) if they aren't proactive.

I spose that is a possibility. Google certainly might know about such laws being passed long before we hear a word.