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Meta is banning people from advertising after running ads for Python and Pandas

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Re: Meta is banning people from advertising after running ads for Python and Pandas

#91

Post by zmmmmm »

What I find most frustrating about this is that they straight up lie to you. They don't actually review your account and the ban isn't permanent. The minute people in this situation get through to a human (one with any autonomy, anyway) the ban gets reversed. So it's all about the cost and efficiency and convenience for Facebook/Meta.

I definitely think there need to be laws made about this. Because it's really clear that the market has no power to correct this behaviour - yet it can be utterly devastating to individuals when they have life long bans put in place on what are (whether you like it or not) pretty much essential online services.

Re: Meta is banning people from advertising after running ads for Python and Pandas

#92

Post by djaychela »

mvdtnz wrote: post #18

Did I miss something in the article? His only evidence that he was banned because of python (supposedly a ban on dealing in live animals) is that some other guy on Linked In who also advertised for Python courses was also banned and he claimed, without evidence, that it was because of the live animal constraint? This is not very convincing evidence. It definitely sounds like something has gone wrong, but OP is jumpin…

> but OP is jumping to conclusions on pretty thin evidence.

But that's all he has, given the brick wall nature of the way Meta (and Google) work in this respect. You broke the rules, we'll point to a vague document about it but not give you any details.

I had a similar thing (with far less consequences) recently, getting a new Mobile Phone contract in the UK. Failed the credit check three times. No reason for it - I've got a good credit history, own my own home, and have a reasonable bank balance (certainly enough to pay for the contract 20x over on hand, plus other savings). And the response was "You have failed the credit check. We can't tell you why because of sensitive business operations. If you attempt too many times, this may alter your credit score".

Phoned them, got an account without issue in about 5 minutes.

Re: Meta is banning people from advertising after running ads for Python and Pandas

#93

Post by Lio »

m4rtink wrote: post #83
lbriner wrote: post #47

The whole issue around not telling you what rule you broke "because then you might work around it" is total BS. It's like a company I complained to the other day because they didn't label one of the inputs on their password reset form because "it would help a hacker know what to type in it" (it was the password reset password they expected but you wouldn't know). How much quicker would this be resolved if the first A…

Not telling you whats wrong should be highly ilegal, given how important these systems can be for modern society.

I'd prefer it if we legislated that organisations can't exclusively rely on closed systems like Facebook/Meta to run their services.

I saw a sign last year for forestry service work happening locally to me. Apparently they're only going to provide safety announcements on Facebook.

Shit like that grinds my gears.

Meta's users aren't citizens, they're serfs. :(

Re: Meta is banning people from advertising after running ads for Python and Pandas

#94

Post by djaychela »

reuven wrote: post #3
neontomo wrote: post #2

I'll take two pandas please. I'm convinced you'll be better off advertising elsewhere anyway, Facebook is a big advertising platform for sure, but are your coding students there? Maybe. I think they're here and on YouTube. :-)

I'm going to be redoing my site and offerings in the coming months, and I was thinking of doing some advertising along the way. There are definitely other platforms, and YouTube is one I'll be trying, but I figured it was worth a shot. Not any more, I guess!

If I may, your training is much better than your current YouTube views would indicate. I think it you spent some time on it [1] then it should pay off as your explanations are clear and concise, and it's clear from them that you're a good trainer. Your newsletter is also good, and I've had quite a few "oh, that's why that's like that" moments from reading it.

[1] - When I say this, I don't mean thumbnails with you looking shocked in them and the title being "You won't believe how many Python people don't know this!" or similar.... I know it's a fine line to walk, but you're also better than that!!!

Re: Meta is banning people from advertising after running ads for Python and Pandas

#95

Post by 0xpgm »

lbriner wrote: post #47

The whole issue around not telling you what rule you broke "because then you might work around it" is total BS. It's like a company I complained to the other day because they didn't label one of the inputs on their password reset form because "it would help a hacker know what to type in it" (it was the password reset password they expected but you wouldn't know). How much quicker would this be resolved if the first A…

And some of these companies pride themselves as AI technology pioneers. Yet it seems their automated systems in this case are simply doing keyword matching.

Mind-boggling!

Re: Meta is banning people from advertising after running ads for Python and Pandas

#96

Post by Semaphor »

rightbyte wrote: post #77
Izmaki wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My immediate thought when speed reading the blog post was "just create an advertisement company, have yourself as a client and call it a day". Sometimes we gotta fight stupid with stupid, you know?

There are plenty of ad networks. It is just that they pay like 1/10th of what Google does to the site showing ads.

We have the opposite experience. They pay more, it’s just that the average ad-quality is also lower. We actually had to raise the minimum price even higher for the network to not show tons of borderline scam ads (now they are delivering fewer ads, but they are more relevant and higher quality)

Re: Meta is banning people from advertising after running ads for Python and Pandas

#97

Post by sharts »

This isn't just bad AI or ML.

It's just straight up bad product management and development. Some small group of people decided to make this the behavior and implement it.

Don't attribute to machines that which was clearly malice, ignorance, or apathy (or all of the above) by the builders.

Re: Meta is banning people from advertising after running ads for Python and Pandas

#99

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

mordae wrote: post #51

If there's enough people who were wrongfully banned for any reason on Facebook because their review process is broken, maybe it's time for a class action suit? Also, banning somebody and not keeping the relevant evidence, not showing the evidence to the client so that they can archive the case themselves to appeal in court? You don't have any anti-discrimination laws to prevent sellers choose their customers on subje…

>You don't have any anti-discrimination laws to prevent sellers choose their customers on subjective basis?

US businesses can choose to not do business with whomever they want as long as they aren't a protected class. Besides that point, what damages could you sue over?

Re: Meta is banning people from advertising after running ads for Python and Pandas

#100

Post by helpfulmandrill »

I had the same thing with Ebay. Tried to sell an old linguistics textbook. First thing I ever tried to sell, new account. Instantly banned. Refused to tell me why.

Total lack of accountability.

Guess I'm never buying anything from Ebay.

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