[ExI] Just say no to Google

[John Klos]

>  By the way, why don't you let Google Groups host this list? It's free, you
>  can still have a moderator if you want one, and there's no problem in
>  posting large photographs or charts. And best of all it's far far more
>  reliable. I don't know if things have improved but from the day I joined in
>  1993 this list was constantly going down, sometimes for a few hours,
>  sometimes for a few days, sometimes for a few weeks. In the last five years
>  Google Groups hasn't died once.

Do you want a monoculture? Because that's how you get a monoculture ;)

First, Google wants the whole world to move to them for all email. They feed 
everything that goes through them to their "AI", they sell access to private 
information, and it's more than likely they sell unfettered access to all data 
to the US government. Even though lists in general are public, the idea that we 
should normalize having for-profit corporate entities have access to all data 
everywhere is just wrong and broken.

Second, as more and more people who don't know any better move to Google, they 
have less incentive to properly interoperate with the rest of the world. Google 
Groups functionality is limited in email clients that aren't basically web 
browsers, which means that people with older browsers, older computers and/or 
non-mainstream browsers or OSes have issues using Google Groups. Signing in is 
more problematic in non-western countries and with less common software.

Their filters are unknowable. They do what they want and don't tell anyone what 
they do, so we have to guess. This means they're non-deterministic, which is 
why you have to check your spam folder for email that comes from people with 
whom you've corresponded for years. Sometimes the filters are outright 
censorship:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google

But most importantly, if someone lodges complaints and Google decides to take 
action, what will you do? There is literally no way to talk to an actual human 
at Google unless you 1) pay them a shitton of money or 2) you physically go do 
one of their offices and wait outside.

Even if you can talk to a human at Google, can you talk to one that can 
actually get anything done? Can you find out why your list was taken down? Can 
you refute the complaints and get the list put back in place?

If you think this is rhetorical, consider how many huge YouTube channels can't 
communicate with YouTube (which Google owns, obviously) such as the "Legal 
Eagle" channel which considered suing Google because of the inability to 
communicate with actual humans, or (sometimes huge) artists who get "copyright 
strikes" for their own work, and who can't get those strikes removed even when 
they prove the work is their own, or people or companies who lose access to 
their Gmail accounts and can't even find out why until a big enough fuss is 
made in social media for someone at Google to take notice.

As the administrator of the servers hosting extropy.org and this mailing list, 
you should know that in the last few months I've gotten quite a number of 
(probably mostly "AI" generated) complaints demanding that the site and lists 
be taken down. It seems to be a concerted campaign to hurt the community. My 
guess is because of "trans" being part of the word "transhuman", but I don't 
know for sure because the complaints have no actual content (no examples of 
wrongdoing or specific claims). Some say that the site and lists are 
"anti-family" and "harmful to children", but offer no examples.

Would this campaign work to get a list taken down from Google Groups? Would you 
want to take that chance, particularly when you have no recourse if it does 
work?

Also, Google isn't as reliable as you might guess. When there are problems, the 
complete lack of ability to communicate with them has conditioned people to 
believing the problem is with the Internet connection, the local computer, the 
browser, et cetera. I see Google issues all the time. This was just two days 
ago:

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/live/google-down-live-updates-outage-11-12-25

So do you really want the list to move to a megacorporation with whom mortals 
can't communicate?

Instead I might suggest Extropolis consider moving AWAY from Google. You never 
know when something will go wrong. Or if not move away from Google, at least 
maintain a non-Google Groups backup so things can't be lost or manipulated.

John