Summary: "Google considers that the territory that DPR considers theirs is indeed theirs," a source has told us. "The guy from Mariupol says that because his city is in Donetsk oblast' Google Clown blocked him considering him as a resident of DPR." Those sanctions are, as usual, punishing many of the victims; they punish the wrong people and help the occupier/invader/oppressor. "In this case they definitely punished the wrong person," the source has added. "Being a Ukrainian in Ukraine and a refugee, but also being punished by Google in the name of Ukraine is several levels of ironic." And another person has noted that "this is why i don't believe in the "clown" [...] if you're in the wrong country at the wrong time, there goes your data..."
Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0). Original here.
Fact #1: over time slop gets worse (training set is like some blurry JPEG). Fact #2: People's "smell" for slop improves over time, as they 'train' on slop and can detect it based on prior encounters. Put 1 and 2 together.
Richard Stallman's seminal manifesto and foundational (practical) work on GNU gave us a very solid system that facilitates productive work without concerns over spyware
