This is a serious problem. I think the only durable solution is legislation that requires these companies to provide access to your data, or at least a way to export or transfer it, even after an account ban. Otherwise, if they delete your account for any reason, even for a legitimate policy violation, they can effectively cut you off from information you have built up and stored over years. In Apple’s case, an account lock can even leave a device unusable.
I have read several blog posts from people describing how frustrating it is to have an account locked. Because Google, like many large companies, provides little to no effective support, the only thing that seemed to work was getting a post to trend on Hacker News so that someone inside Google noticed and intervened to resolve it.
Fine, restrict the OpenClaw usage. Fine, cancel the AI Pro subscription. But nuking Gmail, Google Photos, Drive — years of irreplaceable personal data — as punishment for how you routed tokens? That's not enforcement, that's collective punishment.
No bank closes your checking account because you used your debit card at a competitor's ATM.
The offense and the penalty are in completely different weight classes. That's what makes this indefensible regardless of whether the policy itself is legitimate.
Fair point, I was going off the "quoted suspension email" in the OP. If it's only the AI service and not the full account, that is definitely not as bad. Either way the zero-warning policy though is a big issue IMP.
Google does give you a way to export data partially if your account is banned.
But that's still not enough. I can't easily reconstruct this data in a way that will be usable to me, not without having something like Gemini build a UI for me. Oh wait.
It's garbage now it's main purpose is to confuse older people with ai slop or ragebait them with politics.
It's really unfortunate that these people don't know, don't understand or even don't believe that this is algoritmic feed tailored specifically for you.
I have people in my family which basically believe that there is a pride march every Tuesday in cities around or country.
American culture can access Europeans at any time. Europeans consume American culture daily.Just to clarify. Website banned are often hostile propaganda or extremists.
This is only cringy lousy provocation for appearance of moral superiority.
Coming from a government notorious for spying on it's citizens it seems pretty ludicrous.
"Europe" is a continent made up of independent nation states. Each of those nations has chosen to have its own rules about what is and is not legal, which is the right of every country. Those nation states want companies operating within their territory to follow their rules. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, it is up to each individual country.
At the same time, I do not understand how what you wrote is in any way relevant to the topic.
Sorry, I clearly misunderstood the intent of your comment. I thought you were saying they should just build their own platform if they want to moderate it. My mistake.
In any case, you’re right. The only concern is that projects like this that start in Europe often end up being acquired by American companies, so I’m worried it could end up the same way.
Yea it's total dogshit. I would even conspire that this is intentional to drive engagement. I certainly don't believe that one of the biggest corporations don't have the capabilities to recognize gore. Because a free version of chatgpt can do that without problem.
I would say they have these algorithms. They just know they can do it because literally nobody is forcing them not to. They buy politicians in US and it seems like EU fines are too small for them and even sparks and outrage of US policitcans when applied.
I surely hope so they end up like Standart oil. Broken down into small companies, because this monopol is absolutely net negative value for society.
I have read several blog posts from people describing how frustrating it is to have an account locked. Because Google, like many large companies, provides little to no effective support, the only thing that seemed to work was getting a post to trend on Hacker News so that someone inside Google noticed and intervened to resolve it.
reply