Innocent websites and pages being disappeared from Google
This is a battle that has been going on for decades. But now AI is ramping up the battle with velocity. Piracy of content on the Internet is a big problem, especially for people who make a living from posting content on the Internet. An example of this is adult content, but that is certainly not the only content that fits this description.
The process for getting your content removed from Google and other search engines is for someone – anyone – to fill out a form saying that your content is violating their copyright. In theory, you are supposed to only fill out one of these forms “in good faith”, but more on that later.
One of the groups that is leading this content war is adult content creators. Adult content, AKA porn, has been pirated since the beginning of the Internet – actually before then. Since they, and others, create a lot of content, they hire firms to police that content and issue these “good faith” takedown requests.
Lets dissect this a bit. Calling this a request is a misnomer. Google, for example, faces no liability at all for taking down content that doesn’t violate anything. More importantly, neither does the firm that sent the take down notice. As a result, that whole process is, to be kind, very loose. On the other hand, if they DO NOT take the content down they can be sued for contributing to copyright theft and the fines for that are very hefty. Content creators like the movie studios are big political donors and they have made sure the fines are massive. Potentially up to $250,000 per violation. So, if Google or others get a takedown notice, they first delist your website or page, depending. This is automatic with no review. After all, the AI sent the notice in good faith, right? Then they send you an email, maybe (if they have one for you), telling you that you can dispute the take down. If you have the money to take Google to court, you can dispute it. Maybe in a year or two you get your date in court. maybe you win. But pretty much, by that time, it is a lost cause anyway. Otherwise, pretty much, the content is gone. After you have gotten 3-6 take down notices they will delete your account from the Googleverse, again, assuming you have one.
When 404 Media talked to several of these firms that send out these take down notices as a service, you get different answers. Some say they just use AI and spew these notices out. Since they get paid by the client whether the take down is valid or not, and their is no penalty for falsely issuing take down requests, well, the more the merrier, I guess.
Other companies say, without evidence, that they review the requests.
Still others say that sometimes, the customer gives them a list and they just send out the notice. After all, if there is no consequence to sending out false notices and the customer wants them to send one out, well, then, why not.
404 Media, the source for this post, received a take down notice and the content had nothing to do with the person who the take down company was representing. In fact, the page only had some AI generated photos of people who looked like therapists. and, yes, they were wearing clothes. They were not porn therapists.
I see these references in Google searches all the time and now I understand why. Since there is no penalty for inaccurate work, why worry about being accurate. AI, which is what most of these companies use, is pretty close and, if 5 percent or 10 percen or some other percentage hurt other people who are trying to make a living on the Internet, well, that is just collateral damage.
So, when you see those Digital Millennium Copyright takedown links on a future Google search, you can just think “AI at work”. AI is here to help.
We don’t have any statistics about how much content is wrongfully taken down because, well, no one is required to keep any statistics. And, there are no consequences for doing wrong. Interesting. Credit: 404 Media
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