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An account was suspended

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Re: An account was suspended

#51
post #18

I suspect this kind of problem is unavoidable when a large fraction of the world uses a centralized many-to-many communication platform. Moderation is always going to be a cost center for such a platform and there's a big gap between good enough moderation to prevent a mass exodus and what most of us would likely call good . Using decentralized tools might improve the situation.

I think the problem is less that they temporarily banned his account, it's more that the language of the message was completely false. There was no "careful review", and it was not permanent.

Also, as others have pointed out, "suspension" implies that the interruption is temporary, so "permanently suspended" doesn't even make sense.

Re: An account was suspended

#52
post #24

Well, automated banning is going beyond absurd. OT but just yesterday I finally decided to join Discord fad for some open-source communities, but my freshly created account got instantly disabled after successful validation with email and phone, that without sending any message. Unfortunately I don't own a second phone number to register another one. I better stick with my veteran ways - IRC, mail-lists, forums. Matr…

I had a Discord account created in 2015 that I had always used with their Android app. Then one day I logged in with Firefox and boom, suddenly and permanently banned. I'm not sure what the lesson is here... maybe avoid uBlock and submit to the surveillance?

Re: An account was suspended

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that he goes into detail why he is so pissed: > It’s the “after careful review” line that has me riled up tbh. I can understand why an automated system suspended it. Don’t lie to me! -- https://nitter.kavin.rocks/benthompson/status/15830633139484...

Honest question: why would the account in question not be suspended after review by a human? It's a new account that posted 75 tweets in less than 20 minutes, all linking to the same website, and with high-profile names in the title of the tweets. This looks like spam to me, I would have banned it too.

> why would the account in question not be suspended after review by a human?

A human would have. He's just pointing out something to redirect the ire.

Specifically, that it says "careful", and yet a robot did the work, and presumably robots can't be full of care.

Re: An account was suspended

#54
Can't wait for the AI to replace middle management, like the other link from the front-page claimed will happen. I can finally get fired by some black box algorithm so no one has to take responsibility.

Re: An account was suspended

#55
post #41
post #26

The biggest takeaway is that his name is actually not Stratechery. Why on earth would you name your site something so extremely hard to parse?

It’s a portmanteau of the authors two favorite things: Stratego by MiltonBradley and Treachery. Something about cheating at board games. (And the domain was available)

I thought it was based on the Bush-ism "strategery" - https://stratechery.com/2013/strategery/

Or was that a later change?

Re: An account was suspended

#56
post #18

I suspect this kind of problem is unavoidable when a large fraction of the world uses a centralized many-to-many communication platform. Moderation is always going to be a cost center for such a platform and there's a big gap between good enough moderation to prevent a mass exodus and what most of us would likely call good . Using decentralized tools might improve the situation.

I think the problem is less that they temporarily banned his account, it's more that the language of the message was completely false. There was no "careful review", and it was not permanent. Also, as others have pointed out, "suspension" implies that the interruption is temporary, so "permanently suspended" doesn't even make sense.

It just reads like generic corporate speak to me. All corporate decisions are "careful" and adverse actions have names that sound milder than they are.

Re: An account was suspended

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was only so easy. If you're running a business, you most likely need to meet people where they are at. Sometimes, your target audience are mostly on Facebook, then you most likely need to be at Facebook in order to reach them. Sometimes they are on Twitter, then you need to be there. Other times, you're doing something completely different, like running a restaurant, then you need to be visible on Google Maps/T…

> Sometimes they are on Twitter, then you need to be there. Wow, that's a depressing thought. I think I'd prefer to find a different line of business, if it were me.

Absolutely, everyone has the freedom to start a business or not. And if you do, you have a choice about how to run it, what channels to use for talking/reaching users/customers. You could just have a phone number and not accept anything else as a support channel. The choice is entirely up to you :)

Most people who run businesses opt for meeting people where they already are though.

Re: An account was suspended

#58
post #7

Spam (and scam) detection in social networks is hard. Yet it is fascinating how "random" suspensions like these (sometimes without recourse if you aren't famous or know the right people) feel like they come straight out of a dystopian sci-fi script.

> Spam (and scam) detection in social networks is hard. Just a question. What's the true harm in letting even obvious spammers spam as much as they want on their social media profiles? Let them waste their time. Social media is a bit different than a message board where everybody is burdened by any spam that's posted because you have to follow somebody intentionally to see their idiocy on social media. If somebody wa…

> You really only have to worry about cleaning up the search results to ensure that the spam is hidden from standard searches.

I agree, profile spam only seems harmful to the search results.

Reply spam, on the other hand, is a big problem. But there was no reply spam in Ben's suspended account.

Re: An account was suspended

#59
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is the "Reddit Suicide Alert?"

You can report someone if you think they're suicidal and they get a pm from reddit that says "we care about you, here's a suicide prevention hotline etc". It's used for trolling for some reason.

Someone tried this on me, so I reported it, and a couple days later got a "yep, that was harassment, we're acting on it". Pleasant suprise.

Re: An account was suspended

#60
post #7

Spam (and scam) detection in social networks is hard. Yet it is fascinating how "random" suspensions like these (sometimes without recourse if you aren't famous or know the right people) feel like they come straight out of a dystopian sci-fi script.

It's only hard if your business model is "growth & engagement" and you need to maximize user and engagement numbers at all costs. If that's not your business model, abuse prevention is trivial. You can operate the network like a members' club where people gain privileges (such as posting links, media, etc - anything that can be used to spam or harm other users/the platform) over time as they prove themselves and acqu…

StackOverflow and "forums in the good old days" are 1- way smaller than any of Twitter/FB/etc and 2- are mostly centered on one subject: it’s quite easy to remove abuse on SO because it’s about coding and anything else should be removed. On the other hand, Twitter/FB/etc have hundreds of millions of users posting all sorts of things. Moderation is a hard problem because it doesn’t scale.

There are ~21M questions on StackOverflow, which is equivalent to the number of tweets posted every a single hour and the number of items shared on Facebook every 8 minutes.

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