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Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta
171–180 of 180 posts
Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doing business as a software developer through the Apple store is a different beast. Putting in tickets to see why your software failed can be a nightmare if it isn't a glaring mistake. They may treat their customers well, but they don't always treat their devs with the same respect. EDIT: I will note, it has been a few years since I've submitted to the app store, so I hope things have changed.
Apple is a scummy, back-stabbing business "partner." Everyone from small-time developers to publicly-traded companies gets screwed by Apple burying their apps (or simply not showing them at all) in searches that spell the publisher's name exactly right. They lie about app discovery to developers, lie about it to judges, and lie to the users doing the searches. However, the public hysteria over "big tech" should not b…
People praise AppleTV for not having ads, but the app search there has the same promoted ad protection racket stuff.
Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Why would you risk everything to start a company only to be forced to give up most of it to other people? Why would others invest (i.e. buy stock) in your company only to give up control to non-owners?
My hypothetical company can always not go for a billion dollars of revenue, which makes those issues irrelevant even if we assume the worst possible handling.
Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
We removed "Sign in with Facebook" from our public learning management system (we provide content to the public) instead of continuing to jump through their insane requests and demands.
OAuth in general feels like an increasingly bad idea. Log into everything with Google? Oops, one arbitrary account lock from Google and you're beyond fucked.
This is why you have to have a backup plan for your data and your business when you depend on cloud services. One day there is a very high probability some automated bot of theirs is going to flag you and take you down mercilessly, despite your best efforts. You have to be ready.
Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. And besides that I also think it's an incredibly bad idea to train users, who are technically not very firm, to enter their credentials on some random page that asks for it. I'm a pro and even I can't tell how this is supposed to be safe. How would you explain the security aspects to someone who can't distinguish between google-search and the browsers address-bar?!
It's bad enough that loads upon loads of sites require people to use their E-mail address as a user ID. What a stupid policy, one that embarrasses many companies that should know better (YES, THIS MEANS APPLE). When you force people to log in with their E-mail address, what percentage of the public also thinks they need to use their E-mail password? I'm going to guess at least half. Now, if that site is compromised b…
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Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
One quite perplexing common theme is "thing gets flagged -> thing gets resolved by a human as a false positive or whatever -> two weeks later, thing gets flagged again with no change, presumably by an automated system". If the flagging is done by a human, is there really no "case file" that records the previous flags and why they were false positives? If it is done by an automated system, why is it allowed to flag th…
Not a FB story, but I once had an innocuous profile image on a Google side-account get flagged and automatically restricted from public view. I requested human review and it was manually approved. The next week it got flagged again; same process, reapproved. This kept happening every week until 5 times total; I kept going just to see how long would it take them to stop, as I didn't really care about the image or even…
Hard? No.
Beyond their interest in doing, or their (low, low) budget to do at scale? Yes.
Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
We removed "Sign in with Facebook" from our public learning management system (we provide content to the public) instead of continuing to jump through their insane requests and demands.
OAuth in general feels like an increasingly bad idea. Log into everything with Google? Oops, one arbitrary account lock from Google and you're beyond fucked.
I agree with the fact that storing your identity on a service like Google isn't necessarily the best idea, but as a developer I DON'T want to be dealing with passwords and account lock outs. OAuth is great in that regard.
Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Has all the incentive to make people use it. So, it becomes oppressive and horrible and the government decides, hey, let's make everyone use this thing for essential services like payments and democracy! Any examples of this? The USPS doesn't seem to have much power and other shipping companiea do alright.
> The USPS doesn't seem to have much power and other shipping companiea do alright. Last I looked UPS and Fedex are legally barred from competing for letter postage and can only ship parcels (so the hack is the overnight envelope which packages your letter in a parcel. Bonus: The postal service can arrest you and prosecute you. Last I looked, UPS and FedEx cannot.
Last I checked, UPS and FedEx literally (ab)use USPS as cheap last-mile delivery service which it is obligated to fulfill (at a loss). And they _certainly_ can and do deliver letters. They just don't often (and not to mailboxes, which are reserved for USPS), because people aren't willing to pay for it under normal circumstances. Despite these things... UPS and FedEx seem to do pretty good business, don't they? Remind me of the problem?
And uh... I can count on 0 hands the number of times I've heard of the USPS arresting anyone. Bet you can too.
The USPS is a bit of an anomaly in that its responsibilities are carved out in the constitution! Still interested to hear of other real world examples.
Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
> While I'm not totally behind "nationalize all the things", do you really think the government is less accountable than Meta? (or Alphabet etc?) Yes. Absolutely, and without any qualification whatsoever and in every jurisdiction at every level. Government enjoys sovereign immunity, qualified immunity, direct statutory immunity (laws that prevent suing the government) and operates the forum where they are held to acc…
Your last sentence is not true for facebook and other companies that operate at such scale. Good luck mounting a successful lawsuit against their legal team. Good luck getting their sheep users to jump ship given they haven't already after countless events that harmed their reputation. Good luck passing pro consumer regulation when industry is allowed to lobby, fund political advertisements, and donate money to campa…
> Your last sentence is not true for facebook and other companies that operate at such scale.
You are doing a good job of calling them out here. Last I looked, Meta's stock has taken a beating this year, to the point that their largest shareholder has lost roughly half of his wealth. Facebook's loss of users is having a huge effect.
> Good luck passing pro consumer regulation when industry is allowed to lobby, fund political advertisements, and donate money to campaigns.
Yes, getting the government to do anything is very hard, especially when they own a company or a service. You'd have to do all of the same things you have to do to regulate a private business, but with limited rights for redress. Government can incarcerate, take your property or kill you if they want to silence you. Meta can only shut off your account.
Re: Our domain and 700 non-profit sites got blocked by Meta
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
OAuth in general feels like an increasingly bad idea. Log into everything with Google? Oops, one arbitrary account lock from Google and you're beyond fucked.
I agree with the fact that storing your identity on a service like Google isn't necessarily the best idea, but as a developer I DON'T want to be dealing with passwords and account lock outs. OAuth is great in that regard.
So very much this. The reason we're using OAuth in the first place is that we're leaving authentication to the big companies that know how to do it well.
The sheer amount of support work that resetting passwords and fixing access issues (and dealing with hostile actions) generates for a small team is staggering.