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Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

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Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#581
post #477

Google uses non-human automation to make some decisions, including banning accounts. As others have mentioned, this is not unreasonable as long as there is a reasonable (in terms of time and effort) path to disputing a ban - i.e., speaking to a human about the issue. But Google (and Facebook, and probably some other companies) don't have reasonable processes for disputing or resolving these situations. Some have said…

There is no excuse for the laziness/ambiguity surrounding bans like this. I have witnessed, in 1 degree of separation, 3 separate Facebook business account bans in the last 12 months alone - the only reason cited is "you violated our community policy" with a link to the entire community policy and 0 clarification before or after requesting review. In 2 of those cases, they were high-6 & low-7 figure follower companie…

FB is the worst when it comes to this.

I created instagram filters this cycle for a client which I thought would be really cool; I haven't seen any from campaigns beyond the Biden Aviators (I work in politics). I wanted to do a 'i just voted' type challenge; tried many ideas and combinations like swappable campaign buttons without text showing 'issues,' branding, different voting method 3d objects.

Facebook kept rejecting and pointing to policy that clearly did not apply to what I was uploading.

I wish they would have just said 'we don't want political filters.' Escalating to actual @fb employee emails did not work. We're not important enough.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#582
post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I'd be more than willing to pay a monthly for Google services if it meant I knew I'd get prompt support if something went wrong. I've looked into getting a GSuite account but from my reading like there are some incompatibilities with services that I use on the free tier. I already use Google's paid-tier for their storage and I use their domain registrar. I get that I'm using a free product so that means…

Checkout Google one: https://one.google.com/about which is more of a personal plan but come with support.

There are many features that Google blocks if you have a GSuite accounts. You cannot use Stadia, post reviews in the google play store, use any of there family subscriptions as the paying account or as a family member and note application integration with google assistance. Those are just the few I can think of off the top of my head.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#583
post #477

Google uses non-human automation to make some decisions, including banning accounts. As others have mentioned, this is not unreasonable as long as there is a reasonable (in terms of time and effort) path to disputing a ban - i.e., speaking to a human about the issue. But Google (and Facebook, and probably some other companies) don't have reasonable processes for disputing or resolving these situations. Some have said…

I'd bet Amazon has more retail customers trying to get disputes resolved, than Google has business customers attempting to do the same, yet Amazon manages to get a human on the other end of the line. And I'd bet that Amazon's disputes have far less monetary value per incident. Maybe apples to oranges, but it's impressive from a customer service perspective.

Yeah I have been pleasantly surprised with how good Amazon's customer support is. In contrast I've had a Google wifi and home device stop working on me, and it was nearly impossible to get in touch with a customer support rep from Google. At this point, I refuse to purchase Google device because I don't know what to do if I have a problem with it.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#584
post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in practice you always have to rely on someone. Even before the internet you'd have to rely on the USPS to carry your letters. Unless you are physically speaking to someone in person, then there is always a middleman.

Well you can always just create your own courier. If you want true free speech these days you need to build your own stack from the ground up anyway.

This is well outside of the practical capabilities of anyone but a nation state or large commercial entity. Even then, it's hard. It's more practical for a physical letter than for digital stuff. For a digital service, you'd have to go down to cabling infrastructure or take something like the SpaceX route and launch satellites. If you need something between a few nearby buildings, it's more practical to come up with a solution, but anything further out ... you're kind of stuck.

(Your ISP classifies as a middle man as well...)

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#585
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My suspicion is that this is mostly happening because platforms that big like google or twitter rely very heavily on machine learning and other AI related technology to ban people Most likely yes. And the annoying thing is that they don't take into account different languages. The AI can recognize words, but not meaning. A while ago some Dutch person tweeted: "Die Bernie Sanders toch." Die = that, in Dutch. But the A…

These are exactly the cases that worry me. ML / AI is not ready to be used like that. IDK if it ever will be, but they are already using it in production anyways.

regex != ML

They've applied ML to discern status updates from emails. They've applied ML to recognize speech fairly accurately... This kind of behavior seems far too unsophisticated for that. In the Twitter thread some people are suggesting it's something to do with politics. If that's so, then it likely means hands-on-keyboard-finger-on-scales thing a human would cause.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#586
EU regulation 2019/1150 would seem to be the first real attempt I'm aware of at addressing this issue.

Article 4 covers suspension and termination, with intermediary platforms (i.e. Google, Facebook et al) "the opportunity to clarify the facts and circumstances in the framework of the internal complaint-handling process referred to in Article 11".

It also introduces a requirement to provide "a reference to the specific facts or circumstances, including contents of third party notifications, that led to the decision of the provider of online intermediation services, as well as a reference to the applicable grounds for that decision".

It seems these automated processes fall foul of several hurdles in Article 4.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#587
post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you can always just create your own courier. If you want true free speech these days you need to build your own stack from the ground up anyway.

Oh? Is the government interfering in your ability to say what you would like to say in an online space?

I really detest this kind of attitude. Yes, the government is NOT restricting what you can say in an online space. But at the same time, there is no government platform I can speak from. They're not stopping me from saying what I want but they're also not giving me a platform.

Why are we giving corporate entities a pass on tyranny? It's not like restricting people's liberties is only something the government can do.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#588

Here's the thing people need to realize: your email address, phone number, and any other digital identifier can be stripped and taken from you by whoever owns the service at any time. It doesn't matter if you host your own domain/mailer daemon, the host and/or registrar can choose to suspend your account as well. So really, there is no solution. Other than the realization that our communications channels are not ours…

> Here's the thing people need to realize: your email address, phone number, and any other digital identifier can be stripped and taken from you by whoever owns the service at any time.

Not only can they, for many companies disabling accounts is the only tool in the shed. There's no digital governance platform, no user rights, no process, no punishment at all besides this final cruelest kill: only this bit flip, from enabled, to disabled, alive to not alive.

it's unbelievable tha not a single big platform seems to have any system of justice or remediation in place. it's all vast uncaring corporate monoliths as far as the eye can see, no contact I do, no follow up possible.

these entities are monsters. they treat us like trash.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#589
post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in practice you always have to rely on someone. Even before the internet you'd have to rely on the USPS to carry your letters. Unless you are physically speaking to someone in person, then there is always a middleman.

Well you can always just create your own courier. If you want true free speech these days you need to build your own stack from the ground up anyway.

> you can always create your own courier

It is illegal to compete with USPS to deliver letters.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checkout Google one: https://one.google.com/about which is more of a personal plan but come with support.

There are many features that Google blocks if you have a GSuite accounts. You cannot use Stadia, post reviews in the google play store, use any of there family subscriptions as the paying account or as a family member and note application integration with google assistance. Those are just the few I can think of off the top of my head.

Ohhhhhhhhhh. That's why I can't find the 'write review' button in the Play store.

I didn't know about Stadia. I had been thinking of getting it, partly out of curiosity. Now I won't bother.

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