I'm surprised no one has mentioned one very plausible scenario for the doxing. The site had many sockpuppets. They probably wanted to bring that under control. So they notice that a whole bunch of folks are posting from the same IP. Now they want to determine whether that's legitimate (a widely shared IP) or not.
Presto... the site is now in possession of the dox.
Seriously what do you do, as a news site, when you now find that a public person not only is offering controversial opinions, but is also running a ring of sockpuppets?
Sockpuppetry is a manipulative offense, like spamming. People who do it lose protection against doxing. The person is after all making it appear that many people hold an opinion -- which hijacks comment sections -- when in fact only one person does.
Come on folks. YT settles its longstanding litigation on March 18th. It reforms ContentID by March 27th. That is really fast.
The last thing Google would have wanted was the appeal to go back to the district court on remand to consider new facts: whether Google was facilitating EVIL EVIL PIRACY by crippling its ContentID system. Remember that syndication of content ("MCNs") was a specific point that Viacom was arguing in the case.
ContentID -- and that rightsholders admitted that ContentID was awesome -- was a key part of Google's case in that suit. Viacom had stipulated that YouTube's infringement had stopped when ContentID was rolled out. Do you think that Viacom was looking for a way to get out of that stipulation, since the rest of their case collapsed? Would a change to ContentID have let Viacom try to do that? Yes, obviously.
This isn't a matter of "customer service on the internet." The MCNs included negotiated business deals (I think), not just self service reskinning. Of course partners would be upset and let Google know. Maybe threaten to end the MCN deals. Maybe actually end them. Google aren't dummies; when their salespeople can't sell, they don't ignore the salespeople.
Chris, I enjoyed your post. Your discussion and expectations of Google highlight a contradiction I've wanted to point out but didn't know where. This is the spot. :-)
It's nice when Google stands up for the rest of us. But you know, sometimes it needs help. On net neutrality say: Google's position hasn't changed. I'm sure it doesn't want to pay for transit unnecessarily. But where is the effecive public pressure saying 'we want net neutrality?' Every few weeks there's another major news article about how big, bad, rich Google is taking X and not paying for it, where X is bandwidth, news articles, infringing music, illegal videos, etc. etc.
Google has a lot of outstanding disagreements with the EU. It sounds like the EU wants to redesign Google's search results pages now. Google has to buy off some of the disagreements or they'll lose on every issue because they're big, bad, rich, and uncooperative. They can't fight the world and win, they need some friends. If they think they have to buy off the telecoms and newspapers to avoid a Government-led redesign, well gee maybe the rest of us should, I dunno, do something about that if we don't like it?
Why is it in Google's enlightened self-interest to fight these battles when so few people care, and even fewer people care to change the law to encourage the better outcomes?
"This study actually just proves how bad doctors are at running control experiments." What evidence do you have for that slam? I don't see any, and that comment seems to me to miss the entire point of the study.
BTW, the comment "Thus, the subjects in trials can usually work out whether they?ve been given a real drug or not" isn't even remotely true. Many who feel something will _think_ they are in the treatment group, even though a good proportion of those people will actually be in the control group, but they believe that a particular feeling is an effect of the drug.
Is there really this much confusion about the placebo effect? Please, read the study. You'll learn a lot.
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the sockpuppetry is key
I'm surprised no one has mentioned one very plausible scenario for the doxing. The site had many sockpuppets. They probably wanted to bring that under control. So they notice that a whole bunch of folks are posting from the same IP. Now they want to determine whether that's legitimate (a widely shared IP) or not.
Presto... the site is now in possession of the dox.
Seriously what do you do, as a news site, when you now find that a public person not only is offering controversial opinions, but is also running a ring of sockpuppets?
Sockpuppetry is a manipulative offense, like spamming. People who do it lose protection against doxing. The person is after all making it appear that many people hold an opinion -- which hijacks comment sections -- when in fact only one person does.
it's all in the timing
Come on folks. YT settles its longstanding litigation on March 18th. It reforms ContentID by March 27th. That is really fast.
The last thing Google would have wanted was the appeal to go back to the district court on remand to consider new facts: whether Google was facilitating EVIL EVIL PIRACY by crippling its ContentID system. Remember that syndication of content ("MCNs") was a specific point that Viacom was arguing in the case.
ContentID -- and that rightsholders admitted that ContentID was awesome -- was a key part of Google's case in that suit. Viacom had stipulated that YouTube's infringement had stopped when ContentID was rolled out. Do you think that Viacom was looking for a way to get out of that stipulation, since the rest of their case collapsed? Would a change to ContentID have let Viacom try to do that? Yes, obviously.
This isn't a matter of "customer service on the internet." The MCNs included negotiated business deals (I think), not just self service reskinning. Of course partners would be upset and let Google know. Maybe threaten to end the MCN deals. Maybe actually end them. Google aren't dummies; when their salespeople can't sell, they don't ignore the salespeople.
Google needs some help here
Chris, I enjoyed your post. Your discussion and expectations of Google highlight a contradiction I've wanted to point out but didn't know where. This is the spot. :-)
It's nice when Google stands up for the rest of us. But you know, sometimes it needs help. On net neutrality say: Google's position hasn't changed. I'm sure it doesn't want to pay for transit unnecessarily. But where is the effecive public pressure saying 'we want net neutrality?' Every few weeks there's another major news article about how big, bad, rich Google is taking X and not paying for it, where X is bandwidth, news articles, infringing music, illegal videos, etc. etc.
Google has a lot of outstanding disagreements with the EU. It sounds like the EU wants to redesign Google's search results pages now. Google has to buy off some of the disagreements or they'll lose on every issue because they're big, bad, rich, and uncooperative. They can't fight the world and win, they need some friends. If they think they have to buy off the telecoms and newspapers to avoid a Government-led redesign, well gee maybe the rest of us should, I dunno, do something about that if we don't like it?
Why is it in Google's enlightened self-interest to fight these battles when so few people care, and even fewer people care to change the law to encourage the better outcomes?
Confused by the placebo comment
"This study actually just proves how bad doctors are at running control experiments." What evidence do you have for that slam? I don't see any, and that comment seems to me to miss the entire point of the study.
BTW, the comment "Thus, the subjects in trials can usually work out whether they?ve been given a real drug or not" isn't even remotely true. Many who feel something will _think_ they are in the treatment group, even though a good proportion of those people will actually be in the control group, but they believe that a particular feeling is an effect of the drug.
Is there really this much confusion about the placebo effect? Please, read the study. You'll learn a lot.