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

lerner.co.il

131–140 of 514 posts

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

#131
post #97

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.

That's deliberately deciding so spend less on fighting fraud (i.e. no humans in the process) at the cost of collateral victims.

This shouldn't be legal.

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

#133
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…

In 1984 they don't have laws, only crimes, so whatever you do, you have to guess if it is illegal and will be punished or not. It is on purpose to keep the population in constant fear

Don't need for book references, that is how it is today in many countries, and it has been always in less democratic societies.

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

#134

>That’s right: I teach courses in Python and Pandas. Never mind that the first is a programming language and the second is a library for data analysis in Python. Meta’s AI system noticed that I was talking about Python and Pandas, assumed that I was talking about the animals (not the technology), and banned me. If this is true, that is insanely embarrassing for a company that purports to be a sophisticated programmat…

Sounds like speculation to me. Anything to back that up?

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

#135
post #44

AIs and other opaque processes making decisions are incredibly frustrating. I'm still wondering why my tea-of-the-month business [0] got turned down by Stripe when I incorporated an LLC (technically a Godo Kaisha, as it is incorporated in Japan). It came as a surprise as it was perfectly fine by them for as long as it was a sole proprietorship. Which is why I strongly suspect the rejection came from an AI. At the tim…

The so called AI is very infuriating indeed. I was once banned by such dumb script because I was trying to call my cell operator via a regular telephone number and there were some technical issues either at my phone or at the base station, and calls were dropping. After about 5 tries I got a robot answer that I'm now banned from ever using support line for "abuse". And to appeal the ban, I would have to use a support line. Ok, I thought, I'll try robochat at the website. No luck - banned there too. So I have resorted to searching the Facebook page and hoping that a human moderates it. Thankfully I got to a human support and they revoked this ban.

I've stopped posting anything on the Facebook a few years ago and keep the account alive just to have a backup contact option with dumb corpos.

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

#136
There's a lot of debate about whether the first amendment (freedom of speech) should apply to private platforms like Facebook, but maybe such discussion should also include the sixth amendment (right to a fair judicial process), if we take the position that these rights are inherent things that society should guarantee, not just restrictions on what the government can do.

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

#137
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Isn't it already under GDPR where entity using AI to make decisions need to provide an explanation how it arrived at it?

Not just AI, it applies to any form of automated decision making (https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/):

The data subject shall have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her.

But there's the usual "explicit consent" caveat, which Meta will argue they have because the user (as in: habitual consumer of harmful substances) has agreed to it in their TOS.

But then there is also a transparency requirement on automated decision making (https://gdpr-info.eu/art-15-gdpr/):

[data subject has access to] the existence of automated decision-making [and] meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of such processing for the data subject.

This explicitly says that the user has the right to know what logic is employed by automated decision making systems.

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

#138
post #95
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!

Another sad anecdote: A bank in Finland suspended an account for a text in free-form message field of a bank transfer. The message was for a vet visit of a dog named Ira. When you say "Ira's payment" in Finnish, you add suffix -n, so the text field said Iran, which of course must indicate money transfer to a sanctioned country. It is comforting to know that the bank system catches all the illegal activity that the sanction-busting criminals helpfully announce.

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

#139

Ha! I’m at Pycon MEA and yesterday a speaker from Namibia was talking about how one of the hurdles in evangelizing Python in Africa was that people thought of dangerous snakes and didn’t like it.

I'm so jealous! I was supposed to be there (and give two talks), but had to cancel at the last moment. Sigh. I hope to attend next year.
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