It does require legal change but not the one you're implying. I love how the conversation moved from the initial outrage of "they're scanning my private images!" to "ok, they are scanning my images but I need to have a legal recourse to get my accounts back in case I'm banned improperly".

There is no good excuse for this kind of spying apparatus, period. If anything, having a mandated formal process for reinstating banned accounts will make the scanning more acceptable, which it shouldn't be. "You see, yes, we're regularly checking out your dick pics but it's all good, we have a process in place and if we tag an image as CP, when it's not, you'll eventually be exonerated. No harm done"

I would agree with you, except for this which goes too far IMHO:

> If anything, having a mandated formal process for reinstating banned accounts will make the scanning more acceptable, which it shouldn't be.

We should fight first for a proper legal recourse, and once this happens, then we can also fight for no scanning.

Why? Why should be fight for legal recourse first before we tackle the real problem? (At least in this context, legal recourse for unwarranted service termination can also be useful for things unrelated to scanning of private data, but that's not the point) This sounds like the "step back" in the "two steps forward, one step backwards" ideom.

I'd argue because it would likely be an easier battle and would still win rights and, perhaps, set precedent for the limitations of entities like Google here and elsewhere. The alternative of blocking scanning all together is extremely easy to railroad.

>We should fight first for a proper legal recourse

It does not matter, because we don't have any fight left in us at all..

Speak for yourself.

I'm more than prepared to just stop working for a few days or even a week or two.

I already actively boycott Chinese products where possible (I buy non Chinese if at all possible, even at significant higher prices), support the Georgian Legion with my own cash and have probably spent hundreds of hours on unpaid online activism this half year on top of what I do for my church (although in all fairness it still does more for me).

If enough people band together and just plain stop working, sooner or later politicians will have to listen.

I think companies that have sufficiently significant market capture should be laden with a "universal service obligation" as an antitrust-type measure. They shouldn't be able to refuse service unless they can prove the customer is doing something illegal. If they do refuse service, the customer should have grounds to sue them to restore service.

This might go against some people's idea of a free market. I think it should only apply where there isn't a free market - when a customer doesn't have many other options, such as in the case of Google or Apple, or Visa/Mastercard, a major supermarket, or the choice of cellphone provider or Internet provider in markets where there are only a few options. It wouldn't apply to small independent traders by definition.

Capture enough of the market where there isn't enough competition and you get obligations to treat them fairly.

Companies like Google rely heavily on AI and automation and keep humans out of the loop to the extent possible. Once the models detect these sort of photos, they won't be stopping. If they don't add a permanent exception then the AI would flag it on the next pass and repeat the process. Google certainly won't be retraining the models to learn to exclude "but not photos for doctors". Having humans going through and flagging accounts (or photos) for exceptions will ruin the economies of scale.

This can't keep going on like this. To somebody like Google, an account might just be a profit source, but to the affected people it can be their lives or livelihood.

The issue of right of redress really needs to be forced, legislatively.

I wonder whether the man could sue Google for defamation because they've asserted that he's done something and taken an action as a result of that. As a result they're defaming him. I'm not a lawyer and definitely not sure of US law. It'd be interesting to hear a real lawyer consider this.

> a problem that requires legal change

Playing devil’s advocate, possession of CP is criminal with absolute liability [1]. Deleting someone’s account, far from it. (Civil. Maybe.)

Weighing someone who might have CP, even to an absurdly low probability, against them being suing and like two people deleting their Gmail accounts, I can see how someone chose the former. If they got the call wrong, Google would not only be liable for damages, the individuals involved could be criminally charged.

I’m assuming everyone in this chain would appreciate laws clarifying an email bill of rights. On the other hand, Google made their bed with its surveillance-first culture.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_liability

You are playing devil's advocate against the current legal situation. I don't agree, but fine. But you're responding to the suggestion to make a legal change, this legal change presumably would put a liability on these kinds of false positives too. One of the two could still have stiffer sanctions, and cause Google to prefer the other, but the idea is at least that this choice wouldn't be that obvious anymore.

I agree with you. I’m arguing one could likely get Google to back a reasonable proposal.

> they got the call wrong, Google would not only be liable for damages, the individuals involved could be criminally charged.

So how come this has never happened?

Google and Facebook have existed for decades, and so has CP, they didn't have automatic detection untill decently and yet none of their employees have ever been charged.