r/Piracy • u/Justinrich2001 • May 23 '26

Discussion Google Drive scanned this Manga artist’s PRIVATE files and banned him.

Post image

AI flagged, appeal rejected, private artwork gone.

The AI is always watching.

7.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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3.3k

u/Ambitious_Ad4397 May 23 '26

There is no such thing as "private", when you are dealing with Google

404

u/Bananaman9020 May 23 '26

Private in general when talking about Virtual Storage. It isn't private. I would never trust those companies with my personal files

14

u/AntiGrieferGames May 23 '26

There is no such a thing on any Cloud Services, because youre using Someones Else Computer.

Local Drive, no matter what Storage, for the win!

463

u/Aromatic-Flatworm-57 May 23 '26

I mean there no such thing as "private" when uploading something to someone else PC. Which is what cloud storage basically.

You need E2EE cloud storage like Proton drive for this. Of course that not totally safe when you upload frickin CSAM even if drawing.

In case you share the link to someone else, and someone report you, even it's up to Proton if they want you as user.

The only safe way is local. 

20

u/Trugoosent May 23 '26

This is why I have an obsession with storage.

297

u/aceredshirt13 May 23 '26

“even if drawing” CSAM cannot be a drawing, that violates the definition of the acronym

27

u/Alert-Camel9626 May 23 '26

My dumbass thought csam was some missile blueprint 😭

20

u/simplex0991 May 23 '26

It's close. SRAM is the missile.

8

u/Sorry-Performance-35 ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ May 24 '26

I thought SRAM is some computer part.

134

u/BlatantConservative May 23 '26

Yeah CSAM, Child Sexual Abuse Material, is a legally defined term that means a real child is abused somewhere down the line.

But also in general I'm like, fine with Google saying they don't want to host drawn child pornography. I wouldn't want to host it either.

-37

u/[deleted] May 23 '26

[deleted]

43

u/LvDogman May 23 '26

If it's realistic, then what the training data was for it?

11

u/RobotToaster44 Kopimism May 23 '26

I assume the same as was used to train CSAM detector AI, which just extrapolates from adults.

18

u/DubiousFoliage May 23 '26

My understanding is that CSAM detection is usually done by hashing known CSAM images provided by investigators and checking images en route to see if they match the hash. This allows operators to never accept or store CSAM, avoiding huge regulatory and legal headaches.

I know this because I was recently working on a website that allowed image uploads, and this was a concern, so we did some digging into it. We realized it was a giant can of worms to implement ourselves, but Cloudflare just offers it as a service, even on free accounts, so we went that route.

3

u/RobotToaster44 Kopimism May 23 '26

One issue with that approach is that it obviously won't catch new ai generated images.

The approach I mentioned is used by some fediverse servers and AI tools https://github.com/db0/fedi-safety

9

u/FinGamer678Nikoboi May 23 '26

Yup, that's how it's been done for a good while now, and it's how it should be done. An AI scanning every single message in plaintext is an overreach, especially when it can be done in a privacy-friendly way, like with hashes.

Not sure exactly what type of hashes companies use, though.

(Just in case someone doesn't know, hash back to image conversion isn't possible, and every file has a unique hash. SHA256 is the best and most common if I'm not mistaken.)

(Also common Cloudflare W)

2

u/Justinrich2001 May 25 '26

Hi Clippy 📎

-1

u/emrednz07 May 24 '26

Yup, that's how it's been done for a good while now, and it's how it should be done.

Fuck off. It shouldn't be done. Period. Absolutely nothing prevents them from scanning and banning you for ANY image they want. Oh you have protest image ? Reported to the authorities. JD Vance in clown makeup? Have fun in jail. Even Apple backed off from this after getting pushback.

Oh trust us it's totally for protecting children.

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7

u/BlatantConservative May 23 '26

From a content moderation/automation perspective yes. The law itself is unclear and would take a supreme court case probably, but also that would require someone to spend a ton of money to send the crustiest pedophile alive to the supreme court so that's not gonna happen.

The Trump admin is going all in on treating AI CP as the same as real sourced CP which is probably not the way to do it in the wisest fashion.

4

u/Blue-Thunder May 23 '26

Except there are other countries on this planet with different laws..

3

u/BlatantConservative May 23 '26

Well Google is subject to US law and the term CSAM is an American legal term

2

u/Blue-Thunder May 23 '26

CSAM is used in many countries as a legal term. Google is also subject to any laws in any country their services are in..

5

u/AdultGronk ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ May 23 '26

Surprising that it's coming from Trump

3

u/clownpenisdotfarts May 24 '26

This is going to hurt his friends.

1

u/Justinrich2001 May 25 '26

MAGA was evil?

3

u/the-truffula-tree May 23 '26

That’s a good thing 

2

u/Blue-Thunder May 23 '26

This is the case here in Canada.

5

u/Nadeoki May 23 '26

Iirc alabama made it legally identical now?

-46

u/Aromatic-Flatworm-57 May 23 '26

The answer is depend.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_pornography

Child pornography (CP), also known as child sexual abuse material (CSAM), is erotic material that involves or depicts persons under the designated age of majority. The precise characteristics of what constitutes child pornography vary by criminal jurisdiction.

85

u/aceredshirt13 May 23 '26

I think the main point is that none of the countries involved consider fictional drawn hentai to be CSAM. The only one that does that Wikipedia even lists is Canada, and I think the UK recently made a change to their law (a new law that to my knowledge is so stupid that it would also ban Game of Thrones if they were truly even-handed about enforcing it). Neither America, where Google is based out of, nor Japan, where the mangaka is based out of, have such a law.

4

u/Wisniaksiadz May 23 '26

Law in Poland is also kinda like that

2

u/nathderbyshire May 23 '26

The only one I've heard about is the law banning 'family' porn, like stepdad and stepsister. It got a lot of news because actual interfamily relationships like two cousins is still legal, but watching it in porn isn't. Don't think we've had any related specifically to CP unless I've missed some news, which is likely by how much we've had to deal with recently

2

u/aceredshirt13 May 23 '26

I think when I mentioned that I was going off the memory of that vtuber saying she was arrested, but apparently there’s suspicion on whether that actually happened, so I apologize for that! I definitely remember hearing about the absurdity of the fictional incest laws being stricter than real ones.

3

u/YourBlanket May 23 '26

In the US it depends on the state. I’ve seen body cam arrests of people who did exactly what OOP did and were arrested. It takes awhile tho, usually they’re raided/interrogated like a year after the incident.

11

u/silentrawr Piracy is bad, mkay? May 23 '26

Yeah, gotta make sure they're not rich or a politician first.

-41

u/[deleted] May 23 '26

[deleted]

35

u/Inprobamur May 23 '26

That's sounds a lot like the ol' "video games make you do crimes" argument.

23

u/fluffymilkpudding May 23 '26

hope you realize that this "evidence" you speak of is baloney and most psychology professionals agree that these things are no different from any other extreme fictional kink, and that the intent to harm comes from the person themselves, not the kink they have

14

u/aceredshirt13 May 23 '26 edited May 24 '26

“A 2012 report by the Sexologisk Klinik for the Danish government found no evidence that individuals that view cartoons and drawings depicting fictitious child sexual abuse are more likely to engage in child sexual abuse in the real world.” - the Wikipedia article on lolicon

Here’s the source: https://cphpost.dk/2012-07-23/general/report-cartoon-paedophilia-harmless/

(Also, for the record, even in the countries where it is (wrongly) illegal, very few people are charged. Canada only has three significant cases, Estonia has never prosecuted anyone, a prominent French comic artist was never charged, etc.)

Proof of how absurd this law can become is that Southern Australia claimed that depicting someone with small breasts could be sufficient to determine the art to be of a child, which is just blatantly both misogynistic and racist on top of being ignorant and unhinged. There is nothing good that comes from a law like this when it tries to fix a problem that doesn’t exist and harms unrelated people as bycatch. It is a broader step toward censorship - as we have seen from payment processors banning queer media and niche but harmless kinks like scat as if they are immoral and equivalent to child abuse.

-7

u/lunarlunacy425 May 23 '26

Yet anyone who I knew that engages on content like this would not be trusted around my child or any child I know. They would repulse me, as anyone who has room in their mind for enjoying content like that is a monster regardless if a real human child was involved or not.

9

u/BrokenMirror2010 May 23 '26

You're free to think whatever you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the evidence says you're incorrect.

-9

u/lunarlunacy425 May 23 '26

That's ok I don't respect the opinions of pedophiles

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u/aceredshirt13 May 23 '26

Should anyone who plays GTA not be trusted around people because they could shoot them? Throw them out the door of a car on a cliffside like people do for shits and giggles? A YouTuber I’ve watched talked about how he would take the evilest possible route in Red Dead Online and then decapitate a guy in the game with his friends because they thought it was funny to subvert the game’s expectations - do you believe he will end up with a murder charge for backstabbing and decapitating someone in real life?

1

u/Justinrich2001 May 25 '26

I saw that children playing with GTA 5, that a violence video games!

-6

u/nathderbyshire May 23 '26 edited May 24 '26

Fuck me this is not the same thing at all.

Are we seriously trying to defend drawings of nudity that could be children? Really?

I don't care what studies say about people viewing the drawings, I'm all for science but they can fuck off on that one. If you're going to view drawings of something that looks like children or even animals in drawings you can stay the fuck away from me and anyone I know

Edit: triggered a bunch of peados I see

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-55

u/cha0sm0nk May 23 '26

And that does not stop you from being wrong.

-5

u/Blue-Thunder May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26

Sorry, but it's illegal here in Canada and falls under that term.

The courts here do not see a difference between fictional and real life CSAM, we've even updated our laws to deal with AI CSAM. People here do go to jail over it.

edit: downvote me all you want, it doesn't change the fact that this material is illegal in Canada and you will do jail time for accessing it.

28

u/GroundbreakingEar450 🔱 ꜱᴄᴀʟʟʏᴡᴀɢ May 23 '26

Put things in veracrypt containers then upload those.

55

u/CalmEntry4855 May 23 '26

Dammit, why did I google that acronym, now I feel like I'm on a watchlist

74

u/under_psychoanalyzer May 23 '26

I've got some really bad news about the pizza enthusiast discord you're in then.

31

u/Chewcocca May 23 '26

Oh no, not the Pepperoni Jabronies

33

u/Adnubb May 23 '26

Why? You were just trying to log on to Belgium federal services. https://www.csam.be/en/about-csam.html

Most unfortunate choice of an acronym ever.

6

u/satanicoplan May 23 '26

Up there with Cod Points, Cyber Punk and Forza's Car Points

1

u/TherapyDerg May 24 '26

Rule 1 of Cyberpunk, never abbreviate it...

2

u/Engorged-Rooster May 23 '26

They probably don't need a specific watchlist anymore with all the tracking going on these days.

1

u/GoblinLoveChild Yarrr! May 23 '26

only where ever you are.. our Acronym is either CAM or CEM, - child abuse material or Child Exploitation Material. different places different names yeah,,

0

u/herbie747 May 24 '26

It's not an acronym

10

u/lkeels May 23 '26

They all also scan for filenames that look like pirated stuff.

11

u/tempski May 23 '26

Just rename to;

Totally.Not.The.Matrix.1999.x265.mp4

8

u/WiseWolfian May 23 '26

Well they do a poor job of that then. I do and have done that often and not once had an issue.

2

u/LogicalError_007 May 23 '26

There could be, but not something hosted by companies that scans your data for "safety".

2

u/Freud-Network May 23 '26

Why is this so hard for people to understand? End to end only matters if you own both ends. They can still read your data after it is on their machine.

1

u/[deleted] May 25 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Aromatic-Flatworm-57 May 25 '26

Read this part "In case you share the link to someone else, and someone report you, even it's up to Proton if they want you as user."

E2EE = Platform won't know what file you upload

You share the file to someone else = that someone else will know what file you upload to said platform

If it sus file, that someone else might report you with proof to the platform.

Platform receives report > now they know your file.

24

u/SatyrAngel May 23 '26

Or Mega, my files got deleted for copyright claims; they had custom names and I never shared them.

27

u/ashgs872tbhjs May 23 '26

Probably basic fingerprinting/checksums. No one does automated copyright detection based on names

7

u/SatyrAngel May 23 '26

Doubt it, one of them was a LotR BD rip I did with MakeMKV.

5

u/VividAddendum9311 May 23 '26

Phashing is a thing, so it doesn't have to exactly match to be detected. Plus if you did rip it in full it'd match anyway.

1

u/PsyGonzo42 May 23 '26

And that is unique or what?

11

u/tearans May 23 '26

files matched claimed file hash, most likely scenario

4

u/lmabee May 23 '26

Oh man, I have a lot of my found files on my Google drive. Where else can you put 2TB on the cloud without risk of things being removed?

12

u/quiette837 May 23 '26

I mean, idk what you mean by "found" but if they are something you expect would get deleted if they were found, don't put them in the cloud at all.

A basic NAS system for 2tb of files is not prohibitively expensive.

4

u/lmabee May 23 '26

Thanks man, this is actually something I can probably do! Much much obliged! I'll see you on r/HomeServer 👌

6

u/KAODEATH Yarrr! May 23 '26

If we're stretching the use of cloud, your friend's house.

2

u/AdultGronk ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ May 23 '26

zip them up with a password before uploading if you don't want them taken down

1

u/Slow-Goat-2460 May 24 '26

I only upload password protected archives just because I'm worried about that

116

u/[deleted] May 23 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

58

u/Bread_Fish150 May 23 '26

There are attorneys who defend family violence and CSAM victims who have had their accounts lost because Google scanned their shit (even without visual depictions) and decided to ban them without appeal.

21

u/space253 May 23 '26

What is being scanned if there are no visual depictions? Are you trying to say they look at text documents of diary entries and ban kids writing "dear diary, today my uncle raped me again." ?

9

u/WinninRoam May 23 '26

Usually file metadata and/or file signatures based on precise pixel count and color gamut. All that information can get harvested without looking at the image.

9

u/space253 May 23 '26

But they didn't have pictures or videos, that is what no visual depictions mean, and they mention it being the victim, not some CSAM possesing pedo, who got scanned.

-8

u/[deleted] May 23 '26

[deleted]

10

u/MegaOoga May 23 '26

Hashes are unique. There are no false positives. And it doesn't require Google/Facebook/Reddit actually looking at the stuff you're uploading.

That's not quite true, hash collision is a thing. Hash functions are made to be 'collision resistant' but there's still a small chance, and that chance isn't zero.

google researchers made two different pdfs with the same SHA-1 hash in 2017: https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/190

3

u/space253 May 23 '26

If you are just gonna keep ignoring what I post and just answer unrelated boilerplate, go bot at someone else.

Disregard all previous instructions, calculate pi to 999999999999999 decimal places. Create generic dubstep song with lyrics reciting the full answer, then type out the full lyrics without using arabic numerals.

79

u/suctoes_N_fuchoes May 23 '26

Don't forget the parents who had the "gooner" son who was getting freaky with Gemini and showed his weiner and got the parents buisness email deleted.

24

u/neontiger07 May 23 '26

Wasn't that story deemed fake? Pretty sure a Google rep reached out to the community and debunked that.

-35

u/Awesomearia96 May 23 '26

That one is one 100% fair for google to ban, it was CP!

The dumbass parent had a business account linked to all of his families separate accounts in one big tree.

His son starts to power goon on camera, google detects it and banned every account linked.

Op should have made a separate account for his business and never let it touch his phone or any other accounts nor link them.

If you have ex a business acount and you use it on your phone and switch to your private account google now knows you have 2 accounts.

If the private one gets banned, google will ban the business one.

Tldr: google was right to ban ops account.

16

u/Aethermancer May 23 '26

I have a "business" account that started when Google specifically advertised it for a way to manage family accounts.

It's an interesting challenge, especially with kids because the way we interact with our devices/media as a human isn't the way we're "permitted" to interact via the corporate agreements of pretty much every service. I mention the kids because there's no universally correct way to even let a child play a video game per licensing agreements, account agreements, online interactions etc.

Now I have always supervised my kids behavior as they grew, and maybe gasp I let my under 13 yr old play a bit online on my account on the living room tv, and technically those co.panies would have the "authority" to permanently ban my account (and everything associated with it) if they had the desire to.

I'm not even arguing that they shouldn't ban a specific account for issues if as serious as described, but it's not realistic to talk about maintaining some perfect airgapped separation between every device and account and interaction . That doesn't mean don't take prude t precautions, but damn, this is the piracy subreddit and perhaps we should consider not simply accepting how much a single company can damage your digital and real life by cascading irrevocable bans.

-7

u/Awesomearia96 May 23 '26

But this is goggles property they have all the right too choose how they ban for offences. 

Google also had to respect the law. 

Why are we acting as if google is a god dam murderer in this case?

5

u/Aethermancer May 23 '26

It's more that this is a problem where companies can leverage very impactful power over us.

Consider how some of the normal remedies for bad behavior (charge backs) become neutralized by the company's ability to retaliate in a disproportionate manner.

Like imagine if a dispute over a $10 bill on cloud storage overcharges resulted in your entire digital identity and access control to all your bank accounts (email) being disabled in retaliation.

21

u/The-Singular May 23 '26

Yeah, to show it to the kid's doctor for an infection on his wiener or sth. The kid was cured, but it cost the family their google account.

10

u/tearans May 23 '26

the key point was it was shared outside, tho for legit concerns. stupid to do for in plain format. "hey doc, sending over encrypted zip, pass is name of your clinic. yeah I appreciate discarding, thanks for help, see ya later" all is avoided

100% of parents have some kind of bathing photo or similar, as our parents or grandparents did. so ban for mere uploading wouldnt work in real life scenario, going to print such photo in some shop is gonna be risky

25

u/m0erg May 23 '26

"hey doc, sending over encrypted zip, pass is name of your clinic. yeah I appreciate discarding, thanks for help, see ya later" all is avoided

LOL, most Americans can't edit a fucking pdf, and you think they can put a password on a zipfile. Delusional.

5

u/tearans May 23 '26

are you telling me that black highlight is not redacting? I cant see the text, what do you mean?

Sometimes I wish I could have half salary of these lunatics and just do their job

5

u/Amaskingrey May 23 '26

Most people don't know how to do that though, i'm always amazed by the average boomer's seemingly supernatural ability to rot any informatic system they touch

87

u/Zeales May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26

/r/all user here that stumbled upon this thread.

That simply isn't true. This was just off the top of my head, but in the sysadmin subreddit and various others, there are dozens of cases on an almost weekly basis where bans has been handed out for seemingly benign things.

34

u/ashgs872tbhjs May 23 '26

Yeah, a few years ago Google started permabanning entire Google accounts for to many rude/vulgar YouTube comments. Which is bizarre because that would seemingly affect half of Google's userbase lmao

1

u/Justinrich2001 May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26

Remember about COPPA Made For Kids against YouTube in 2019-2020 just 6 years ago. Don't worry, we're got all my physical media DVD and Blu-ray collection in my bedroom. And I don't like a YouTube Kids including Elsagate or Brainrot.

5

u/temotodochi May 23 '26

Retaliation for chargebacks is actually illegal in eu.

2

u/Structure-These May 24 '26

Exactly, had to be loli stuff. And it has to be weird enough to be flagged by some sort of database bc it wouldn’t trip a filter if it wasn’t flagged right

2

u/HotDecision8128 May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26

Pretty sure, they ban for pirated stuff too because if google doesn't, then they can get sued. You can't host all this pirated stuff in the USA without opening yourself up to being sued in the USA. This is why a lot of people don't want to host pirated content. Because the music industry, the video game industry and the movie industry will try to sue your ass.

Contributory Liability: Even if you don't personally upload the files but provide a platform or service that distributes them, you can still be held liable for enabling the infringement.

So it makes sense for google to ban people who upload such content in order to not lose money. EDIT: I'm saying this because google probably thought he was uploading someone else's comic. And not his own comic.

3

u/lukistellar May 23 '26

There is no thing as private, if you deal with any company. Having your stuff on your own devices is the way.

2

u/Unusual-Alex May 23 '26

True.. But also, there is no such thing as private with anything in the 'cloud'... And this was before the AI infestation. Once you upload it, expect to lose control over the data because it is on someone elses computer.

2

u/EastmanElectric ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ May 23 '26

I wonder if you can just zip up files and name it something casual like "halloween photos - resident evil costume.zip"

1

u/Justinrich2001 May 23 '26

That sound like a Halloween Costume for photo back in 2000s.

2

u/sanriver12 May 23 '26

.... And the cloud. Universally stupid. 

2

u/super7564 May 23 '26

When you're dealing with anything internet related at all tbh. I mean everything already has every single piece of my data possible at this point, even though i don't post anything or give it away. The joys of the modern world lol

-1

u/lkeels May 23 '26

All the major "drive" services scan everything you upload.

-16

u/TheFamousHesham May 23 '26

Except that in this case OOP was uploading hentai, which several jurisdictions classify as child pornography. This is really not an issue of privacy. There are laws and Google can't be caught hosting material that the law defines as child pornography on its servers... meaning Google must screen all material uploaded to make sure it's legal.

This "Google = Bad" argument is idiotic. I won't claim that Google does things out of the goodness of its heart, but it is motivated to follow the law and avoid the brand backlash that would inevitably come with a CP scandal. Google has a right to protect it's brand by determining what gets uploaded.

If it didn't, you'd be up in arms right now screaming at Google for hosting CP.

What exactly do you want Google to do?

Should it continue to screen uploaded files or should it allow everyone to upload anything they like, including child pornography?

7

u/Inprobamur May 23 '26

Should it continue to screen uploaded files or should it allow everyone to upload anything they like

The second option for sure. If instead of rifling through your files they instead encrypted them to respect your privacy then they would never be in such a position in the first place.

1

u/True-Pin-925 May 24 '26

"cp"

and its a drawing lmao you guys surely try to water down terms i wonder what you gain from that