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Covid-19 repairer thread deleted due to Google

Pete Thomas

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I'm very sorry folks, we got a Google violation notice re: the thread about Repairers and Covid-19.

Seems Google interpreted some of the content as incorrect Coronavirus information and we got a warning.

Don't shoot the messenger. @U CAN CALL ME AL and others who contributed.

Seems they are watching - we cannot afford to get blacklisted.
 
Yes it was good info but I'd prefer to be safe and not have the site be in violation.
There's no danger of violation of anything if you're just talking about sterilising an object. We should avoid any further mention of specific names.
 
There's no danger of violation of anything if you're just talking about sterilising an object. We should avoid any further mention of specific names.
With the violation notice in place there is no problem in mentioning Coronavirus, just not in regard to prevention, precautions, treatment etc. It's very annoying - I am not happy - but it is what it is.
 
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The reason I came here so quickly is because I got an email notification and when I clicked, the post was inexistent. Thanks for clearing up the mystery.
 
@Pete Thomas @Stephen Howard @jbtsax Sorry that the forum has incurred a violation notice due to my posted thread. There was some very useful information, and I posted out of genuine concern for our techies. I hate google! I now use Bing for everything, and have for a long while, even ’though it’s not as good a search engine IMHO. Thanks to all who took time to engage. Regards Al
 
Seems Google interpreted some of the content as incorrect Coronavirus information and we got a warning.

OMG! Big brother is watching us! o_O That's AI in action under our very eyes.
 
I perfectly understand your stand and you obviously have no choice.

But this shows how the big guys like Google can influence what can or cannot be discussed on the net. But when I say the big guys, who is actually behind that warning? A human being?!?! Just an algorithm?!?! What's the basis for this ruling?

We definitely live in a strange world. Now 'Google' is the wise guy!

If you think about it, these are the new GODS. I'm worried. :w00t:
 
Was it my disinfecting UV leaklight that activated Google's data policebot?

Was it? Was it?

You heard it second here folks
 
That's not the internet we want .... We are going to see many scary things from now on....
 
Am I the only one who's not too exercised by this? At a time when reliable information is so important it doesn't seem so bad to shut down any potentially harmful advice, if that means people can only access official sources.
Not that I'm saying any advice in the thread was bad - most of it seemed quite sensible, but I'm not in a position to judge (and I'd hazard that few of us here actually are). However, in the absence of a panel of experts overseeing every possible source of potentially harmful information, it appears logical to limit what's out there, even if it does mean restricting good with the bad. And you don't have to be around the internet long to know there's a LOT of bad stuff out there, about this topic as much as any other.
Ordinarily I would be concerned about the Big Brother aspects of this, but extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.
 
Remember, Google itself is operating with reduced human staff, the algorithms detect anything resembling advice related to the disease and it errs in the direction of caution. It saw the text because this site comes up vary often in searches on anything. To give an example, I searched on Robert Pepper (as per the request of someone here) and her questions came up at the top of the list. Pete has mentioned the OT tag reasoning was because of this signal in search results. Being as that's true, it's best that virus name + apparent advice be filtered. There's nothing at all nefarious or against freedom of expression here. It was a surprise, though.
 
AI or not, YouTube is full of false advice about this issue and they point their fingers to legimate entities such as this forum. Facebook blocks messages and posts as well.

They have much more power than they should IMO.
 
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