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The dark side of account bans

madelinemiller.dev

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Re: The dark side of account bans

#11

Post by immibis »

antonvs wrote: post #7

I had a reddit account permanently banned for saying something to the effect that a certain out of control billionaire could be dealt with by launching him into space in an electric vehicle that one of his companies manufactures. Apparently "reddit legal" thought that was a credible threat. I find that strangely encouraging.

Reddit's been way out of control on this and I'm surprised people still use it at this point. Though the vast majority of Reddit content is posted by bots to manipulate users - so maybe they don't. Reddit is a Dead Internet existing here and now in front of our eyes.

In addition to platform-wide bans most popular subreddits also use subreddit bans to create false impressions of consensus.

Last scandal I heard was they banned people who upvoted memes about Mario's green brother.

Re: The dark side of account bans

#12

Post by louthy »

dredds wrote: post #8

We're at the point that MAMAA/FAANG (might as well call them MAGA now) can dictate 0% tax in the UK instead of a measly 2% because those platforms were co-opted by foreign countries to promote Brexit, leading to economic servitude. Starlink is now being foisted upon economically susceptible countries leading to a potential monopoly of connectivity, giving ultimate power to broker even more concessions down the line,…

> can dictate 0% tax in the UK instead of a measly 2%

This hasn't happened (yet, at least).

Re: The dark side of account bans

#15

Post by j1elo »

> I couldn’t access their menus. They were only on Instagram, and it’d force a sign in before showing me the content. > so many restaurants and cafes here purely use Instagram (or sometimes Facebook) to host their menus.

That's idiotic. Really, reaaaally idiotic. Like, "talk to the manager and tell them they are doing a very stupid thing" levels of idiotic.

This "we're too modern and digital to get out heads out of our asses" attitude towards adopting "cool technology" with complete disregard for an analog Plan B gets to my nerves.

Here, since Covid, lots of places stopped offering physical menus, instead they put a QR code to some webpage or gigantic PDF file that contains the menu (and can be updated every day to push prices up if needed, heh).

I hate that services assume you must have a hundreds-dollar device on your pocket at all times to even be able to access the basic service they provide. I just power off my phone and tell them "look I ran out of battery, what should we do?". They usually do have a physical menu, thankfully.

But other things aren't so nice. My employer offers a restaurant card, and because now we live in a "digital era", they don't issue physical cards any more, only digital ones to be used with Google Wallet on Android. Turns out I'd like to install GrapheneOS on my Pixel, and you got it: Wallet doesn't work on GrapheneOS for payments! I'd want my physical restaurant card, please.

Re: The dark side of account bans

#16

Post by teddyh »

> This experience was eye opening; it shocked me at how fundamental online platforms owned by companies have actually become to modern life.

Oh no! If only there was some way you could have known!

https://xkcd.com/743/>

Re: The dark side of account bans

#17

Post by dredds »

louthy wrote: post #12
dredds wrote: post #8

We're at the point that MAMAA/FAANG (might as well call them MAGA now) can dictate 0% tax in the UK instead of a measly 2% because those platforms were co-opted by foreign countries to promote Brexit, leading to economic servitude. Starlink is now being foisted upon economically susceptible countries leading to a potential monopoly of connectivity, giving ultimate power to broker even more concessions down the line,…

> can dictate 0% tax in the UK instead of a measly 2% This hasn't happened (yet, at least).

Thanks, i heard it's included, but services agreement may come separately.

"Britain's digital services tax, imposed on U.S. companies like Amazon, Google and Meta, will not be changed under the terms of the trade deal agreed between the two countries on Thursday"

Re: The dark side of account bans

#18

Post by yellow_lead »

I've reported a lot of prostitution ads on Instagram, but they always responded to the report with "we found nothing wrong". After reporting these ads, Meta decided I liked them and started showing me more and more, but I've given up on reporting them, since no action is taken.

Meta seem to not actually check reports. My theory is that they just rely on some percentage of reports maybe relating to followers, reports, and time. If it exceeds a threshold, there's an action. Otherwise, no action.

Re: The dark side of account bans

#19

Post by immibis »

yellow_lead wrote: post #18

I've reported a lot of prostitution ads on Instagram, but they always responded to the report with "we found nothing wrong". After reporting these ads, Meta decided I liked them and started showing me more and more, but I've given up on reporting them, since no action is taken. Meta seem to not actually check reports. My theory is that they just rely on some percentage of reports maybe relating to followers, reports,…

My Occam's razor is they do whatever makes them the most money. Are the prostitutes paying lots for ads? Leave them up. Are you complaining a bunch and not paying for ads? Ban you. Are people complaining about you a bunch (including 1000 identical complaints from sockpuppets) and you're not paying for ads? Ban you.

Re: The dark side of account bans

#20

Post by louthy »

dredds wrote: post #17
louthy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can dictate 0% tax in the UK instead of a measly 2% This hasn't happened (yet, at least).

Thanks, i heard it's included, but services agreement may come separately. "Britain's digital services tax, imposed on U.S. companies like Amazon, Google and Meta, will not be changed under the terms of the trade deal agreed between the two countries on Thursday"

There is a "tech agreement" coming which will augment the agreement announced yesterday. Essentially, they announced an agreement before agreeing everything! Probably Trump needed it to get some positive news after his recent nonsense.

Personally, I don't mind the tax being dropped as long as the UK gets something in return that's worth the equivalent or more. We (the UK) export more services to the US than we get in return, so it would seem preferable to make services trade as friction-less as possible.

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