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Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

oonwoye.com

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Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#91

Post by barrkel »

quanticle wrote: post #90
barrkel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unjust, particularly because "being a Nigerian in Nigeria" is not a condition that most people in that condition can simply elect to remove themselves from. Consider the situation from a Rawlsian veil of ignorance perspective.

Try explaining that perspective to your spouse after you lose money in a 419 scam. "But honey, I didn't know that this Nigerian was a con-artist. I had to give him a chance!"

You know, this is exactly the same reasoning (prejudice on the basis of generalizing a correlation between a behaviour and a shared attribute) as exhibited by racists. In the same way as it is not fair to discriminate against black people on the basis of a higher relative proportion of criminal convictions, it is similarly not fair to discriminate on the basis of someone being a Nigerian in Nigeria on the basis of 419 scam incidence.

That's not to say it may not be effective, on average, in limiting losses. But effectiveness is something distinct from fairness.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#92

Post by [deleted] »

araneae wrote: post #26
mycroftiv wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I interpret the sentiment, the author is indicating that he is writing simply to express his frustration at being an innocent victim of collective punishment. He is stating that he is aware of the causes of the situation, and that there may be ways to engage in productive change, but neither of those things changes the basic personal injustice he is directly experiencing. In other words, he is not attempting to ma…

But instead of saying that, he said "fuck you" which is more open to interpretation, I think.

[deleted]

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#93

Post by j_baker »

barrkel wrote: post #29
yummyfajitas wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paypal, Google adwords, and many other services, do use statistical predictors to determine what is likely to be fraud. Many innocent people get flagged by them. This is a known and accepted risk of using such services. The fact is, if Paypal were not permitted to statistically discriminate, they wouldn't exist. Is it really a moral travesty that they are using nation of origin as one of the predictors?

It's unjust, particularly because "being a Nigerian in Nigeria" is not a condition that most people in that condition can simply elect to remove themselves from. Consider the situation from a Rawlsian veil of ignorance perspective.

Would it be just to subject the users of paypal to the millions of scams coming out of Nigeria for the benefit of the handful of legitimate users?

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#94

Post by [deleted] »

tylerarnold wrote: post #40
rsheridan6 wrote: post #3

"I cannot ignore two very fair arguments. The amount of fraud from this end has necessitated these measures. Hey! That’s a gap in the market, why don’t you guys in Africa do something about it?0 Fuck off." That's really not a very convincing counterargument.

I'm having the exact same issue while traveling in Romania. Romania is a part of the European Union as well. It's incredibly frustrating just to sit there and get "unable to process." What a crappy error message too. How about "this is a suspicious transaction. Please call GoDaddy or join a LiveChat session to continue." It really feels second class. Fuck indeed!

[deleted]

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#95

Post by barrkel »

j_baker wrote: post #93
barrkel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unjust, particularly because "being a Nigerian in Nigeria" is not a condition that most people in that condition can simply elect to remove themselves from. Consider the situation from a Rawlsian veil of ignorance perspective.

Would it be just to subject the users of paypal to the millions of scams coming out of Nigeria for the benefit of the handful of legitimate users?

If PayPal is as good at keeping your money safe as they profess, it shouldn't make a difference, right?

You're making a utilitarian argument, but it seems predicated on some kind of zero sum, that the only way of protecting the world from Nigerian scams is to prevent consumers in Nigeria from being able to buy things from elsewhere. I question that assumption.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#96

Post by preek »

MichaelGG wrote: post #21

Yes, browsing via a proxy or VPN while not in the US is just common practice for plenty of folks. Apart from fraud flagging, the sites that geo-IP for language settings is very annoying. (Seriously, the IETF actually gets Accept-Language right, it's actually implemented, and then ignored?? Sigh.) Google Chrome takes the cake here though. They use your IP to determine the install language. Even if you download the US…

I'm from Switzerland. My OS X is English though. So is Chrome. Did I do something "wrong" by accident to make that happen?

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#97

Post by krakensden »

adolph wrote: post #89
markessien wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nigerian issued credit/debit cards (mastercard/visa) don't work internationally, so can't be used to pay for online items.

Why is that?

Fraud prevention. All the payment processors are in the same boat.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#98

Post by MichaelGG »

BoppreH wrote: post #72
MichaelGG wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're incorrect on both accounts. First, if my OS and browser preferences are stating English (or any language for that matter), why should the IP come into play? "Normal" people will already be using a localized OS and hence will send an Accept-Language with their preferred language (and perhaps country). Second, while you can go try to navigate the "Under the Hood" section in another language to switch languages,…

Sure, using the OS settings would be the most sane way, but I still see it working well 9 out of 10 times. Could be a lot better, but I don't think it deserves "taking the cake" of the localization-challenged software. And ok, it was my fault for not testing the language option before mentioning it.

Can you clarify when you think it's a good idea to override the user's OS and browser language settings based on IP registration information? (Chrome's wording in the languages settings tab is: "Add the languages you use to read websites, listing in order of preference.")

Also, it's not "localization-challenged". I would be more sympathetic to sites in general if there was no Accept-Language header, and if geo-IP lookup was some automatic service baked into every web app library.

But no, sites doing this go out of their way to do this. It's as if there's some secret coalition of idiot PMs that think adding IP-based language settings is going to get them a bonus or something.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#99

Post by DJN »

jacquesm wrote: post #55
kehers wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all the charges coming from Nigeria over a substantial period of time there was not a single one that was actually legitimate How can dis even be possible? You mean not even one out of the possible millions in a day is legitimate? Haba!

No, it means that Nigeria already has a very low number of people that are going to be paying customers for online services and that those people are completely drowned out by the number of Nigerians that attempt to commit fraud. It's sad, but it's really true. The possible millions make use of free services they're not possible millions of e-commerce consumers. You wish. If Nigeria had millions of legit e-commerce c…

There's a contradiction in terms in what you've just written.

There will never be "millions of legit e-commerce consumers" from Nigeria if the main e-commerce gateways such as PayPal continue to block the entire country.

They've already been excluded before they've started.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#100

Post by jacquesm »

DJN wrote: post #99
jacquesm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it means that Nigeria already has a very low number of people that are going to be paying customers for online services and that those people are completely drowned out by the number of Nigerians that attempt to commit fraud. It's sad, but it's really true. The possible millions make use of free services they're not possible millions of e-commerce consumers. You wish. If Nigeria had millions of legit e-commerce c…

There's a contradiction in terms in what you've just written. There will never be "millions of legit e-commerce consumers" from Nigeria if the main e-commerce gateways such as PayPal continue to block the entire country. They've already been excluded before they've started.

It's not a contradiction, it's a deadlock.
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