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Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

paulefou.com

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Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#381

Post by klyrs »

Curious what OP may have done "wrong", I read a bit of the Tinder TOS and found this juicy nugget:

> YOU UNDERSTAND THAT TINDER DOES NOT CONDUCT CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECKS ON ITS MEMBERS OR OTHERWISE INQUIRE INTO THE BACKGROUND OF ITS MEMBERS. TINDER MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE CONDUCT OR COMPATIBILITY OF MEMBERS. TINDER RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CONDUCT – AND YOU AUTHORIZE TINDER TO CONDUCT – ANY CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECK OR OTHER SCREENINGS (SUCH AS SEX OFFENDER REGISTER SEARCHES) AT ANY TIME USING AVAILABLE PUBLIC RECORDS OBTAINED BY IT OR WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF A CONSUMER REPORTING AGENCY, AND YOU AGREE THAT ANY INFORMATION YOU PROVIDE MAY BE USED FOR THAT PURPOSE.

1. You understand that Tinder does not perform background checks.

2. Everything you provide to Tinder and everything Tinder can find out about you may be used to perform a background check at Tinder's whim.

Classic.

But, my guess is that he was ruled to be "spamming" because he sent evidence of liking a (probably fake) user more than once in an attempt to test if the app was working.

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#382

Post by rytill »

jaredklewis wrote: post #366
siliconc0w wrote: post #323

IMO, if your market share is bigger than ${some number}, you shouldn't be able to deny service without a documented reason, it should have some sort of time-to-live (i.e 1 year), and there should be an appeals process. In a functioning marketplace, companies would be naturally incentivized to care about customers but that stops working in uncompetitive industries (which currently describes most of the economy).

Who decides which “markets” a company is in and measures their market share in those markets? How is market share measured? Is Tinder a dating service or social media company? If Facebook starts offering a dating feature in app and becomes the biggest player in the dating space, which market is facebook in? Both? If both, does all of facebook's market cap/DAU/whatever metric we settle on to measure market share get f…

This comment is downvoted, but he raises a valid point aside from the scare quotes.

How exactly will it work?

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#383

Post by antiterra »

siliconc0w wrote: post #323

IMO, if your market share is bigger than ${some number}, you shouldn't be able to deny service without a documented reason, it should have some sort of time-to-live (i.e 1 year), and there should be an appeals process. In a functioning marketplace, companies would be naturally incentivized to care about customers but that stops working in uncompetitive industries (which currently describes most of the economy).

Unfortunately there are scenarios where providing a documented reason or appeal is a vulnerability, illegal or both.

A too-clear disclosure gives bad actors information on how to circumvent controls around safety, abuse, and fraud.

If the reason an account is deleted includes some sort of KYC/Money Laundering issue, OFAC style sanction or child porn, then there can be legal obligation, with severe penalty, to both report and not tip off the user.

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#384

Post by pdpi »

fourseventy wrote: post #365
siliconc0w wrote: post #323

IMO, if your market share is bigger than ${some number}, you shouldn't be able to deny service without a documented reason, it should have some sort of time-to-live (i.e 1 year), and there should be an appeals process. In a functioning marketplace, companies would be naturally incentivized to care about customers but that stops working in uncompetitive industries (which currently describes most of the economy).

I disagree, I think the free market will take care of this on its own.

At what timescale?

How many more years of recurring "got randomly blocked from the App Store/Play Store/Facebook Ads/whatever other mission-critical service" posts on Hacker News do we need before the market corrects itself?

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#385

Post by jaredklewis »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #373
jaredklewis wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who decides which “markets” a company is in and measures their market share in those markets? How is market share measured? Is Tinder a dating service or social media company? If Facebook starts offering a dating feature in app and becomes the biggest player in the dating space, which market is facebook in? Both? If both, does all of facebook's market cap/DAU/whatever metric we settle on to measure market share get f…

Humans

Well yes, lawyers are humans, but that doesn't help us.

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#386

Post by shadowgovt »

samhw wrote: post #356
shadowgovt wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This rule would functionally kill small Internet service provision and build the biggest moat around the incumbent providers that has ever been handed to them. ... which may, indeed, be the right solution.

Do you mean because those 'small Internet service providers' would be included in his 'larger than $MARKET_SHARE' group, or because it would mean no one was kicked out of the incumbent services and therefore there would be fewer new customers available?

I mean because a company tends to explode from "smaller than $MARKET_SHARE" to "larger than $MARKET_SHARE" in a discontinuous fashion. So since a company can't really predict when it will happen, every company providing service would need to prep from the ground up to provide the described level of relatively non-automated high-touch support this proposal describes. It'd raise the cost to build a startup.

... not to imply it's a bad idea; there's no golden rule that says an ecosystem of millions of competing companies is always a superior alternative to a few well-regulated players. It's just important to note the hidden costs.

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#387

Post by dbingham »

jaredklewis wrote: post #366
siliconc0w wrote: post #323

IMO, if your market share is bigger than ${some number}, you shouldn't be able to deny service without a documented reason, it should have some sort of time-to-live (i.e 1 year), and there should be an appeals process. In a functioning marketplace, companies would be naturally incentivized to care about customers but that stops working in uncompetitive industries (which currently describes most of the economy).

Who decides which “markets” a company is in and measures their market share in those markets? How is market share measured? Is Tinder a dating service or social media company? If Facebook starts offering a dating feature in app and becomes the biggest player in the dating space, which market is facebook in? Both? If both, does all of facebook's market cap/DAU/whatever metric we settle on to measure market share get f…

A democratically elected government.

Look, there is no such thing as a "natural market" that can keep the power of the actors in it in check. The internet was the closest thing to a perfect market that has ever existed and all it has produced is overpowered monopoly after overpowered monopoly.

If we want a free society, we don't get that by handing power over to the markets. We get that by building the most responsive democracy we can, and then using that to keep power (in all its forms, including business) in check.

So who decides which businesses are too powerful? People, elected and held accountable by citizenry at large.

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#388

Post by netizen-936824 »

999900000999 wrote: post #106

By far the best part is they didn't automatically cancel his subscription. What a horrible company, if you've banned my account that's fine but cancel the subscription and refund my money. If y'all haven't looked at it yet, read up on the FCC's filing against Match. They knowingly prompt up tons of fake profiles, to get you engaged. Horrifically this has lead to romance scams being the number one source of fraud in t…

>if you're staring at your phone constantly waiting for box to message you

I may be unfamiliar with the terminology, but can you please explain what this means? What is "box" in this context?

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#389

Post by munk-a »

samhw wrote: post #363
munk-a wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it'd be reasonable to conclude that services weren't rendered - even if I'm totally certain they've got some BS in their TOS somewhere that specifically called out that it would be within the bounds of the service offering to take your money and give you only the fake experience of being a tinder user.

To be fair, shadow banning has a legit use besides just taking people's money. It prevents genuine malicious actors from simply creating new accounts whenever they get banned. However, it becomes way more ethically complex when the service in question is a paid service.

Shadow banning is a legitimate tool when you assume that it is necessary for you to offer your services with the absolute lowest barrier to entry. There are plenty of other very reasonable approaches to prevent malicious actors from simply creating new accounts - the easiest of these is to attach a modest cost to account creation which is a solution that marketers absolutely loathe band thus has been casually discounted. However, it is an exceptionally good solution.

Do you think twitter would be dealing with 10 million twitter bots if they had a five dollar account creation fee? Do you think smurf accounts for harassment would be nearly as widespread if every ban cost the troll $5 of their real money?

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#390

Post by t-writescode »

arbitrage wrote: post #355
kodah wrote: post #254

Tinder and Bumble are the same form of awful and from the same founder. These apps are designed to exploit men. There are a fewer number of women on them and plenty of men, as a result they design features like boost, super likes, and premium subscriptions that you must pay for every month. There are studies and data that show that even normally attractive men with good profiles will go unswiped while women will get…

I'll let you in on a secret ... women's experiences on Tinder aren't that great, either.

This.

Men see a ghost town of responses and think no one of value is here.

Women see a town full of roaches and think no one of value is here.

Same result: no one of value found (some exceptions apply)

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