A striking number of Google+ accounts have been deleted in the last 24 hours as the new social network struggles with its community standards policy around real names - alienating and frightening the people it aims to serve.
- Read also: Google Plus: Fast, Cheap and Out Of Control
- Updates: Disaster Worsens: Fix Google Plus
Removed but restored through influence is Limor Fried - AKA Lady Ada / Adafruit Industries: She was recently featured on the cover of WIRED Magazine.
Google suspended Limor Fried “Ladyada” Google+ profile, no show-and-tell tonight… http://adafru.it/b16793
Her account has just now been mysteriously restored, though only after a groundswell of complaints. Suffice it to say, the rest of the deleted accounts will not have such well-placed advantages.
Many have now been purged and not restored.
The message I received this morning from the source in my previous Google+ article summarized it,
Google+ suspended my acct “After reviewing your profile, we determined the name you provided violates our Community Standards.”
After the next few messages repeating the same thing, it was clear that the dam had burst and Google+ is on an account suspension rampage.
Just Like Facebook’s Real Name Hypocrisy
Ex-Google employee Kirrily “Skud” Robert. Irony? The former Google employee that originally applauded Google Plus’ statements about real names had their account suspended. Kirrily “Skud” Robert writes in I’ve Been Suspended From Google+:
So today, I got off a plane this afternoon to find a pile of tweets, emails, and blog comments asking whether it was true that my Google+ account had been suspended. When I managed to get some wifi and check, it turned out that it had been.
They are asking the ex-employee for ID verification. Kirrily “Skud” Robert continues,
It then asks me for my name (uh, don’t you know that already?), email (ditto), link to my profile (ditto), and asks me to provide documentation. I can either give them a scan of my photo ID (obscuring “personal information”, whatever that means), or links to places on the web that demonstrate that this is my name.
They suggest using Facebook (the site that allows Google founder Sergey Brin to go under a pseudonym, and whose own founder has a page for his dog) as evidence. I have something better, though, because I expected this to happen and I had already collated my evidence. I linked to that page and submitted the form.
It raised a chilling spectre in the background about what happens, exactly, when Google suspends your account.
Page 2: [All Google services suspended for some; Coca-Cola's Google+ account "for sale"] »
