"If you happen to have - or know someone who has - old VHS or Betamax tapes gathering dust like the ones pictured above, please get in touch."

http://www.curiousbritishtelly.co.uk/2026/04/help-save-britains-forgotten-tv.html

#nostalgia #UK #TV #video #appeal

RE: https://mastodon.social/@adamndsmith/116328215860941572

This is a perfect demonstration of two different issues that @lauren talks about.

First, the post itself:

A simple, everyday action that predictably occurs in the real world, because #people are messy and imperfect and make mistakes and bad decisions. A 14-year-old boy does something stupid related to hormones: boy, that's never happened before! Why would we expect that?

Google's #algorithms detect it as CSAM or similar - you can argue this is a false detection or not. Predictable and predicted.

#Google immediately locks not just the account that the kid was using, but every other account that uses the same device. Call it what you will - collateral damage. The whole family loses #access to everything - photos, business stuff, website, email, and more. Again, #predictable and #predicted.

The users find themselves trying to #appeal to recover their access, and Google's systems make it impossible. You can't contact a human. There is no #escalation from the machine's judgment. If you don't know someone inside Google and can't get your story on the front pages, you're just #boned. Lauren *rails* against this dereliction by Google, demonstrated time and time again.

Then, the thread of replies is chock-full of presumably-technophile people laughing at the #victims and saying "You had backups, right? Ahahaha" and "Why would you give all that info to Google, stupid?" and similar. Near- #sociopathic lack of #concern for others. Lauren's right here, too.

We must do better.