Recently, users around the world complained that they were prevented from accessing their own documents in Google Docs with the error message: “Sorry. You can not access this item because it is violating our Terms of Service.”
Beware! Google Locking People Out Of Their Google Docs
You’re working on a harmless document in Google Docs when all of a sudden the file is locked for violating the terms of service. It could be a (scary) case of real-time analysis of everything written on the platform, but it’s just a Google bug itself.
Users around the world complained late Tuesday 31st that they were prevented from accessing their own documents in Google Docs with the error message: “Sorry. You can not access this item because it is violating our Terms of Service.”
Most of the reports come from journalists, and the subjects are as diverse as possible: one of them was writing a story about forest crimes; another worked on an article on post-socialist political parties in Western Europe.
One of the well-known journalists stated that “a two-page text on product marketing – the document was shared with a co-worker. Suddenly, the file disappeared from the colleague’s folder and Google flagged the document as “abuse.” It is still possible to access text, but not possible to share it”.
The tech giant Google tells The Verge that it “investigates reports of a problem with Google Docs.”
However, later, the tech giant Google reported that “we implemented code that incorrectly marked a small percentage of documents in Google Docs as abusive, causing them to be automatically blocked. We’ve released a fix, and all users must have full access to their documents”.
“Protecting users from viruses, malware, and other abusive content is critical to user safety. We apologize for the interruption; we will implement processes to prevent this from happening again”.
So, what do you think about this? Simply share your views and thoughts in the comment section below.
