hi !! can we have any sort of source about the google docs thing? I use it for pretty much everything and I want to know for sure before I move everything somewhere

I'm not sure if you're from the US but I'm not and I don't if it's something happening everywhere or somewhere specific

I absolutely appreciate warning people about something that could cost someone their hard work but I doing so without any sort of checkable source could get people kinda panicked

(genuine message/request, I don't mean to discredit your personal experience at all, I don't think what you've shared is made up, I just wanna look into on my own too and couldn't find anything)

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yeah, so sorry about that! I was so busy telling all of my writer friends, who know I wouldn’t lie about something like this that I personally watched occur, that I totally forgot people outside of my circle would not just need “hey this happened in front of me” as confirmation something’s real. Also this blog isn’t that big so I thought it would just be in the writer circles I’m in, I’ve never seen so many notifications! I’m writing this on my phone so sorry if it looks bad, trying my best here.

I’m from the US and the person who had their property deleted by Google is also from the US. I saw someone else in the reblogs who also stated they had their content removed without their permission, but I technically can’t verify for them because I did not know them before this occurred and I wasn’t there when it was discovered.

While trying to find similar experiences I found multiple complaints over the past few years of people getting their permission to their content revoked even though it’s not sexually explicit and posting to their help forums, but that’s also hard to use as a concrete source since we don’t know those people’s full stories. Google’s official policy on explicit content is as follows:

I know the friend whose content was removed would share their document for writing feedback, as that is the reason many people choose docs over word (as well as that it can be opened and edited easily on an iphone). It may be that “distribute” is the key word here for getting your items removed.

Someone was kind enough to link this story of it happening to an adult romance author last year who had this story sent to multiple news articles. I’m still looking for if this had more incidents, there are some claimed in the article but they don’t have names attached the way Renee is.

Once again, these people had their work removed because they would send it to betas, which Google flaggged as spamming people with explicit content. And to anyone thinking it’s not possible because they don’t have permission to access our work-they do. You give them permission by putting your stuff on their servers at all. It’s just that their current ToS doesn’t let them remove it until you share it with someone, in which case it’s “distribution”. Also I’m going to address this is another post with more info and stuff because I want to give more basis: I see people framing it as impossible to do in “so short a time”, but this was built up for years. This personal information stockpiling has been around for a while. I’ll put more out there when I can, right now I have to get back to my job

EDIT: talked about this in another ask here for more links

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I can't read the article because it's locked behind a paywall Do you have ANY other sources?

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Original Poster

sorry I’ve been running everything through removepaywalls.com and forgot to fix the link to include that! It should be fixed now

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@bravehyde This is so real I need to start using that. Following bc all this has been suuuuper helpful and I HATE GOOGLE!!

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where do you recommend taking everything to? I write school work there as well as poetry and I cannot lose any of that, also is it worldwide?

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I've seen people talk about Ellipsus.com, and I am myself trying it out at the moment. In the meantime you can download everything on docs to a local source, such as your computer or phone.

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@arthritiselly thank you!

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libreoffice is wow very much cool and its free :>

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All the “explicit materials” seem to be in regards to images/visuals, and even then it allows it for “artistic purposes”… imma keep searching through the policies to see if I can find something legally backing this up tho

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I hate monopolies but ngl it looks like Google goes above and beyond in making their policies accessible and transparent

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thank you so much for the kind reply !! I'll be checking out the alternative you and others recommended and keep an eye on the stuff I share ! Im checking the other ask reply for more info as well, thank you for sharing

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You need to move off of Google Docs!

I know some people have seen the news recently and may be doubtful of it. To the uninformed, Google Docs has started using AI to find "inappropriate" and "problematic" content, scraping your documents and deleting it. I know some people are unsure if this is real or think this is not going to affect them.

I regret to inform you that this is real.

As I was on a call with some writers and we were moving our documents as a precautionary measure, one person discovered entire pages missing that they did not delete themselves. This is happening to us, it's not a hoax or a rumor, it's happening right now. You need to move everything if you want to preserve it.

If you're a writer with writer mutuals, please reblog this so they know. I rarely write on Google Docs anymore, but I started my fanfics on there, and I would be devastated if I lost works more than ten years old because people decided marketing appeal is more important than creative freedom.

Asher Sorrengail was probably a dilf

I just randomly remembered that it's canon that Dain is an extremely touchy person(always hugging, touching, giving forehead kisses etc) and Violet mentioned that he has very nice hands. do whatever you want with this info

I keep seeing the take that authors on AO3 need to stop deleting their fics and instead to orphan them without any explanation of the consequences of orphaning a fic and as an author I really need to say something to this.

Stop telling people to just orphan their fics.

Orphaning a fic means giving up any and all ownership over it. No way to claim it back, edit it or delete it. Yes it's an archive but an author should still have the right to delete their work if they feel like they don't want it to be up anymore.

Readers always scream for authors to orphan their fics instead of deleting because they feel like they have a right to the fanworks that is shared with them for free. If it's so important to you to not lose a fic, download it. Also comment and encourage the authors, instead of telling them to give up all ownership to their work.

To authors, if you think about deleting your fics, there are other options you should employ first. If you don't want it connected to your name, put it into an anonymous collection. As long as it's in there, noone can see you wrote it, you still can edit ot or delete it and moderate comments on it. You can even move it to anther account, just create another one, add it as co author and then take your main account off. Then you can still edit it from your second account but it's no longer connected to your account.

If you don't want it to show anymore put it in a unrevealed collection, that way, the fic won't show up but it's still there, you can still see it, read comments and make it public again.

on my initial read, i never realised how much violet interrupts tairn just as he's about to reveal information. LIKE GIRL TAIRN IS THE DESCENDANT OF WHO? LET HIM SPEAK (said with love)

Nothing ruins Fourth Wing more than realising every single character has flight goggle tan lines😭

Reginald: Agent, what are you doing in the middle of the nig—Is that a family tree? Agent Phoenix: If it is true that I am a clone of Dr. Zor, what is my degree of consanguinity with them? Or does it not apply since we legally do not have blood ties? Reginald: ... Go to bed, Agent. Agent Phoenix: I have to know!

Ridoc : I only ever said " I love you" to three people in my life : my mom, my dad and a dying Aotrom and one of those I regret

Violet : which one?

Ridoc : Aotrom. He made it out alive and now I look like an idiot.

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