Google Drive accounts can be deleted for storing nudes

Companies that deliver a complete ecosystem can be very useful on a day-to-day basis, but having one or more Google erased can be a real problem for those who work and/or have everything stored in the same place.

Recently, Ygor Palopoli went viral on Twitter telling you that you had your account deleted after sending the backup of the WhatsApp to your account Google Drive🇧🇷 The reason, according to a review by Google robots, was that he had uploaded “harmful” content to the cloud. The most interesting thing is that this is not an isolated case and to get their access back, the user may even need to activate the Brazilian justice. Understand all the details right now.

Robots are banning Google accounts without warning

Artificial intelligence technologies can be a good way to automate processes and solve problems, but it's worth remembering that this is not the case for everything.

Users Google Drive report about two years ago that their accounts were deleted due to robots that review everything characterizing photos and videos as content that should not be stored. The big problem in all of this is that the account ban also makes other company services inaccessible, such as Gmail, YouTube, etc.

The most recent case that we know of was the presenter Ygor Palopoli, who had his Google account deleted after uploading the backup of WhatsApp to your account Google Drive, including all photos and videos that were previously saved only on your smartphone.

Two hours after completing the process, he received information that his account had been deactivated due to having “harmful content”, implying that there were nudes among the files sent. The problem is that because this review is done by a robot, it is not possible to indicate whether the photo was sent to the user with consent or not. The account will simply be deleted for having “inappropriate content”.

In a quick search on Twitter, it is not difficult to find people who have gone through the same problem. After uploading your personal photos to the cloud Google, users had their account deleted.

And having an account deleted means that access to all company services is also gone.

Dad's Google Account Deleted

The case of Ygor it was the most recent one that we are aware of, but it is not difficult to find people who experienced the same problem and ended up having their account deleted due to robot errors. One of the cases that gained the most visibility was that of a father in 2021. At the time, the man, who identified himself as Mark, was worried about swelling in his son's testicles and contacted a doctor to find out how to proceed amid the problem.

With the US and the rest of the world going through the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, he was told to photograph the newborn's organ and send it to the doctor so that the best medicine could be prescribed. He took the picture with his smartphone with Android and later, his wife uploaded the photo to the telemedicine platform through her iPhone.

Two hours after taking the photo, Mark has been informed that your Google account has been deleted due to the photo being uploaded to Drive. And the most alarming thing: upon realizing that the photo of a child without clothes was saved in the father's account, the Google called the police to report a case of pedophilia.

Fortunately, after an explanation of the whole case, Mark and his family managed to settle the matter with the San Francisco police and the 40-year-old father was exonerated. But he had to create a new account to go back to using the gmail e Google Calendar, as well as having to change phone numbers due to using the Google Fi service.

The case was embarrassing to say the least, since Mark even received a link citing child pornography as one of the cases where the account was deactivated. The company commented at the time citing that “Child sexual abuse material is abhorrent and we are committed to preventing its spread on our platforms".

What can Brazilian justice do?

The discussion on the subject is quite broad. There is still no law that specifically addresses what should be done if a Brazilian has his or her social network account unduly deleted, but it is possible to file a lawsuit in court for a human review to be carried out on the case.

In situations of embarrassment, the user can still ask for moral damages for the problem they experienced. Content creators can also claim material damages when they prove that they are losing money due to the bots' mistake.

One of the most successful cases was that of a user who filed a lawsuit against the Facebook after losing her account for undue reason in 2020. The woman, who won the lawsuit for moral damages, went through three blocks: one for three days, another for seven and another for 30 days. The social network claimed at the time that she failed to follow the terms and conditions of use by posting hateful, bullying and threatening content. But that never really happened and even then, she had her account blocked on all three occasions.

The judge of the 4th Special Civil Court of Brasília ordered Facebook Brasil not only to unblock the woman's account, but also to pay a fine of R$3 for the embarrassment of having her account suspended unduly. It was understood that the argument brought by Facebook Brazil was not enough to justify blocking the account, since no undue message was sent by the owner of the profile.

The account Facebook it was reactivated days later and many people who had problems with a deleted Google account are choosing to take legal action to regain the access removed by the robots. Contact by email is flawed and has not worked for these people either.

The problem for content creators

When starting their independent channels or projects, many people use their personal email account from Google to take the first steps and this access, already used on a daily basis, becomes a real work tool. But it is worth remembering that if the person connects your channel to YouTube or even use the email address to receive and send job offers, losing this account also means losing years of work.

And how does reviewing files from the Google Drive is not done by human employees, often the problem cannot be reversed. The attempt to contact to reactivate the account is also done through automated tools, which basically ends up being “more of the same”: a robot did the improper review and deactivated the account; now, another robot reviews the request and sends the response, based on the first decision (made by another robot).

In other words: the user who had his account banned improperly ends up entering a loop and it is always directed to send emails that will never be seen by “real people”. To avoid problems, it's always worth having everything separate: an account just for storing personal files (regardless of what they are) and another account just for work.

It is worth remembering that the robots that review the files sent to the Google Drive and despite the exception that “the contents may be used if they are for artistic, educational or scientific purposes”, it can take a long time to prove that nothing wrong has happened. Often, the chance of this succeeding is minimal.

Always have a backup option

However much the Google is quite complete and present in our routine, it is always worth keeping your files saved in other services so that if your account is blocked by a robot error, you don't lose everything. Options like the Onedrive e Outlook should not be discarded so that you do not stop working or cannot recover what is saved in just one account.

Speaking specifically about nudes, there are many apps that hide the most personal photos on the smartphone, without the need to upload it to cloud services. O showmetech already made a complete article just about how to hide nudes on android and ios, be sure to check it out.

What do you think of the case? Have any of your accounts ever been deleted for storing so-called “harmful content”? tell us Comment!

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Sources: Ygor Palopoli l Android Authority l New York Post l TJDFT