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Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

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Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#131

Post by throwaway1916 »

mhuffman wrote: post #71
jonathanlydall wrote: post #32

For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a "planned power outage", or as Eskom (our state owned power utility) refers to it, "load shedding". "Load shedding" is enacted whenever they have a power production capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so as to not let the power grid collapse. This…

This sounds like a nightmare! Eskom seems to have been around for a long time, but this problem seems to have kicked in a little over a decade ago. Did something recently happen to Eskom to make them incompetent?

Jacob Zuma happened.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#132

Post by vermilingua »

signal11 wrote: post #119
pistoriusp wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is far worse, but South Africa has an inept and corrupt government, I wonder what the excuse is for Texas?

I suspect the truth is, in the narrow domain of electric power distribution, Texas too has an inept government that’s beholden to certain vested interests in the garb of “free markets”. This is a state that has fetishized “light touch regulation” so much that it, for most of the state, has its own grid to avoid dealing with Federal authorities. And repeatedly failed to take action to get power companies to winterize…

So hang on, why is it that South Africa is “corrupt”, but Texas is “beholden to certain vested interests”?

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#133

Post by lerietaylor »

I think people forget that you don't need an app on the app on an app store to use it. The app is out there already, just give it to people. The app store simply gets rid of the "bad boy message".

Stop complaining and find a way around it.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#134

Post by tsdlts »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #51
simion314 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the giants banned that app after the incidents in 6 January in US, you see a lot of comment like "free markets" and build your own platform from scratch including banks, ISPs and hosting. P.S. I am not from US so I am not in a blue or red camp, I just don't like it when some big corporation can lock you out of your account, decide what books you can read, what apps you can install or brick your application/devic…

I'm fine with banning apps that permit organizing violent insurrection in response to independently certified elections. That isn't the case here however and I expect some resolution will come.

Very good, let's petition to ban signal. In fact, let's ban encryption altogether as such a technology can be used to coordinate terrorist attacks.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#135

Post by tremon »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #32

For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a "planned power outage", or as Eskom (our state owned power utility) refers to it, "load shedding". "Load shedding" is enacted whenever they have a power production capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so as to not let the power grid collapse. This…

Load shedding is the correct technical term for it. It's not just a South African thing either, industrial consumers in Europe have the same stipulation in their power contracts: in case of emergency, the power company (network operator) may choose to suspend power delivery to protect the grid.

However, in the EU this 1) isn't a regular occurrence, and 2) the grid has a tiered system for load shedding. I can't find a reference for the tier classifications right now, but if I remember correctly: tier 1 consumers (the ones who will be disconnected first) are heavy industries with huge power draw, tier 2 are other commercial uses, tier 3 is residential, and tier 4 is critical infrastructure (emergency services).

I don't think I've ever experienced a load shedding event that affected residential areas. There have been local blackouts but I don't recall any grid-wide emergency events.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#136

Post by bavell »

myko wrote: post #77
throwaways885 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn't the primary app involved banned then? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/opinion/facebook-far-righ...

Parler's stated goal was to allow that type of speech while Facebook at least put a cursory amount of effort in blocking it.

Hmm, so as long as the firehose of vomit continues to spew from the PR dept, it's all good? All you have to do is make it look like you're doing something?

Never used parler and not defending them but idk why facebook gets a free pass from you, they are far more to blame for the events that transpired IMO.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#137

Post by igitur »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #32

For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a "planned power outage", or as Eskom (our state owned power utility) refers to it, "load shedding". "Load shedding" is enacted whenever they have a power production capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so as to not let the power grid collapse. This…

This app is also known for its humorous take the quite serious subject matter. The WHAT’S NEW section in the Google Play Store is known for sarcastic titbits with the fictional Jeff working hard to keep us up to date with the imminent darkness. The app's name itself, Eskom se Push, is wordplay on an extremely vulgar South African insult and feeds into the popular dislike of Eskom.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#138

Post by bena »

CivBase wrote: post #124

> We don't allow apps whose primary purpose is featuring or hosting objectionable [User Generated Content]. [...] your app currently only includes feature to flag inappropriate users. [...] the app must provide a user-friendly, in-app system for reporting objectionable UCG. It's user generated content. How is reporting a user functionally different from reporting content? This makes me even more driven to switch to F…

The difference is the same between malice and ignorance.

A user may just be wrong about something or not quite understand something. They're not trying to deliberately cause disruption, there's no need to fault the user. Remove the content, inform the user, move on.

It's only a problem is a user continues to submit reported material.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#139

Post by derekp7 »

p49k wrote: post #84
wheresmycraisin wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, users, for the most part, don't want to install apps.

Maybe HN users, but an increasingly overwhelming percentage of the general population prefers to download an app to do something instead of using a mobile website.

Couldn't you create a web-first app, then have the "app" that appears in the app just install a launcher icon that launches a browser window pointing to your website? This method (PWA?) I believe also lets you launch the browser without the browser control bar at the top (so it appears as a local app).

The best part of this is even if your app gets banned from the app store, it is still accessible to anyone that wants to bookmark your URL, and I believe that users can also install the local PWA icon without having to go through an app store (I may be wrong about that, just starting to learn about PWAs and what is currently possible, and what is coming up).

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#140

Post by derekp7 »

nguyenkien wrote: post #46
arkitaip wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why stop there? Web apps can trivially be taken down if your domain registrar, hosting provider, datacenter partner or payment solution decides to kick you out.

There many hosting provider, datacenter, payment gatway to choose from. But just 2 appstore to use (technically android can have as many as you want, but how many pp use 3rd store right now?)

The problem I have with third party app stores is you have to open up permissions to install any third-party app -- you can't just say "Trust apps from the following app stores" (at least that I've found, although it has been a while since the last time I looked into it).
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