Live data from Hacker News

Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta

simonbackx.com

61–70 of 180 posts

Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta

#61
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let's look at this situation. It's a shop page, shop.{clientdomain}.tld. Now you need SSL for this, using AWS you need a TXT record from their ACM. You also need a CNAME to your domain (ideally) or to a Cloudfront instance. For your customer you now need them to make 2 DNS entries. This is from my experience having non-profit like entities setup DNS. - Well the person who set that up stopped responding, isn't ther…

No, you automate all this on behalf of your clients. The customer is not registering the domain and managing DNS, you are. The best reason not to do full domains is the risk of bad actors re-registering domains you release, as schroeding points out in another reply.

Now the customer has two domains and we have been training users to look for signs of phishing attempts using look alike domains AND ask them to put in their CC to buy things. Hard pass.

Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta

#62

This is why massive companies like Meta and Alphabet needs to be nationalised. They simply have too much power over lives of billions. This article is just another reminder of this. At scale that Meta operates, this algorithmically decided domain blockings mean nothing to them, but everything to hundred's of non-profits. There need to be legally mandated protections so things like this never happen again.

> This is why massive companies like Meta and Alphabet needs to be nationalised. No. Giving this additional power to the government will not have the outcome you want. When something becomes too powerful, the solution is not to further concentrate that power into less accountable hands.

> into less accountable hands.

While I'm not totally behind "nationalize all the things", do you really think the government is less accountable than Meta? (or Alphabet etc?)

I guess that raises the question "accountable to whom", but in general, for all it's problems with accountability (and there are many), and acknolwedging that different US governments can stack up differently (say local vs federal) -- I'd still say that the government is in general definitely more accountable to "society", or the population at large, than giant corporations are.

If I were king of the world, maybe I'd try having 1/3rd of board members appointed by government, 1/3rd elected by users, 1/3rd elected by employees. Oh, right, there's stockholders too I guess... ok, 1/4th all around. I know this is only my utopian fantasy.

Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta

#63
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the service itself will be crap once run by governments. But at least things are covered by law. things like fair hearings and proper customer support. Now you can be banned from those ecosystems just like they do in dictorial states.

I'm especially entertained by this notion that making a company government-owned will magically ensure "proper customer support". That might be the funniest thing I've read in weeks, actually.

Have you ever dealt with business support from Google? If you can get support at all, it's basically bots and auto replies. Even the worst state in the US has better support than Google or any other big software company out there.

Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta

#65
post #13

I don't have a specific solution for you, but I also run a domain with some thousands of subdomains and is always a fight to not be banned from Google, Meta, internet operators etc. Sometimes is enough one bad actor under one of your subdomains to have a full ban on the whole domain. What I suggest is for your and your clients to contact Meta through the Business Center support. Their support for paying clients is mu…

> Their support for paying clients is much better. It would really be a shame if something was to happen to your domain in our ecosystem because you're not a paying partner. They're mobsters.

You think you should get everything for free or something?

Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta

#66
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their support for paying clients is much better. It would really be a shame if something was to happen to your domain in our ecosystem because you're not a paying partner. They're mobsters.

You think you should get everything for free or something?

You think Facebook isn't getting something out of allowing users to sign into other sites through them?

Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta

#67
post #13

I don't have a specific solution for you, but I also run a domain with some thousands of subdomains and is always a fight to not be banned from Google, Meta, internet operators etc. Sometimes is enough one bad actor under one of your subdomains to have a full ban on the whole domain. What I suggest is for your and your clients to contact Meta through the Business Center support. Their support for paying clients is mu…

> Their support for paying clients is much better. Perhaps worth it in this situation, but isn't that basically paying protection money? "Nice domain you've got there. Shame if anything happened to it."

If you are using their services for something important you should pay for it. I use fastmail not gmail for this reason: email is too important for me to risk on an account I don't pay for. I don't pay for youtube, because I don't care if they go out of business. I probably would pay for facebook if possible (but only if they make it FACEbook - not political memes, offensive jokes, and cat pictures) as it is a good way to keep in touch with distant friends.

Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta

#68
This is the problem. They are not giving any reasons other than a 'TOS' violation and won't tell you why or ignore you if you try appealing it. The same happened to someone on Twitter and the very same thing happened to those on PayPal.

Before any big tech appeasers and bootlickers reply and attempt to defend this rubbish with 'private platform' nonsense or 'you knew you violated the TOS', in each of these cases do you know specifically why they got blocked as well? [0] [1] [2]

[0] https://twitter.com/llsceptics/status/1567658400573448192

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/21/paypal-shuts-acc...

[2] https://twitter.com/flipper_zero/status/1567194641610465281

Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta

#69
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm especially entertained by this notion that making a company government-owned will magically ensure "proper customer support". That might be the funniest thing I've read in weeks, actually.

Have you ever dealt with business support from Google? If you can get support at all, it's basically bots and auto replies. Even the worst state in the US has better support than Google or any other big software company out there.

I certainly was not claiming that Google has good support. I'm aware of basic reality. ;) But your response does not address my point at all.

Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta

#70
post #41

Why not use full domains for a service like this? Instead of client.your domain.tld, register client-your domain.tld. This would prevent one bad actor from nuking your whole business. Yes it has a cost, but it’s like $10 a year for a new domain, which I bet pales in comparison to other direct costs of running a SaaS.

They provide webshops for 60€/year and a .be or .nl domain costs 15€/year, so 25% of that. That's a lot.

Here is our 60/year plan with a sub domain. We can't control the fact Facebook/Google/whatever might ban you because of a bad acting neighbor

Or here is our 75/year plan which includes a domain to ensure you don't run into problems with social media

Post reply on HN