Comment by zelphirkalt
4 years ago
> Just how tone deaf can Google be, continuing to treat these innocent folks as criminals in this passive aggressive statement even after being proven wrong? Do these people have no empathy at all?
They don't care a single bit about the effect their actions have on others. They only care about having to build a system, which can distinguish such cases from actually criminal ones. Because that wouldn't scale and would be bad for business $$$. So they try to turn and twist the image in the light of the public, that it is "right" what they did, so that the public does not cry out and demand change of their systems. Empathy doesn't even enter the equation for Google.
> They only care about having to build a system, which can distinguish such cases from actually criminal ones
There are only two ways to actually do that:
1) Make Google's policies 100% subservient to the United States legal system, which would look a lot like the "corporate / national lock-step unity" one sees in actual fascism
2) Google build its own court system, independent from the United States court system but with equivalent power
Are either of those scenarios desirable?
How about just saying in hindsight: "Hey, we were wrong! [Yes, it's possible! The allmighty Google can be wrong! Newsflash!] We are sorry, these things happen with our automated systems. Person XYZ is completely not guilty of our accusations and we will revert all actions taken from our side. It is in the nature of things, that these cases are difficult to distinguish, without information about the child as well as the parent and we need to stay vigilant about pictures of children being uploaded to our services. Please accept our apologies."
Instead of going: "Nooo! We were still right! We don't care what others say or what facts were found out!"
So I am thinking you are painting the scenario a bit wrong here, saying, that there are only 2 options. An honest apology and actions to make up for ones mistakes can go a long way. Of course I would not expect Google to act that way.