Live data from Hacker News

When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

eff.org

51–60 of 174 posts

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#51
There's a post on HN about someone being banned from Facebook because they violated (supposedly; who knows what violated even means) Whatsapp TOS from 3 years prior (possibly even before FB acquisition)

Someone needs to tell Zuckerberg about this thing called "antitrust" and not being a dick and that you can't run your company(ies????) like this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692122

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#52
post #23

Google, especially Google Corp, is very much that way too. One of my users is currently getting a fair bit of spam because a spammer figured out that if they send a message with envelope sender @google.com, rcpt @gmail.com, google.com MX will accept it, then bounce it with NoSuchUser and gmail will accept it. I spent an hour yesterday looking for a way to contact Google about it, but couldn't find anything. Made hard…

I saw these spam mails start showing up a few months ago, and I was like WOW how is google infra just letting nefarious actors use their own domain to bounce spam/fishing emails?

Amusingly Firebase auth (a Google product) has such a bad reputation with GMail that standard procedure is to bring your own mail service. Or your password-reset emails are binned.

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#53

Google, especially Google Corp, is very much that way too. One of my users is currently getting a fair bit of spam because a spammer figured out that if they send a message with envelope sender @google.com, rcpt @gmail.com, google.com MX will accept it, then bounce it with NoSuchUser and gmail will accept it. I spent an hour yesterday looking for a way to contact Google about it, but couldn't find anything. Made hard…

I've been getting multiple of those a day too. It's pretty annoying. I'd love to treat them the way other junk mail gets treated but I don't want to inadvertently end up auto-binning legit mails from GMail or Google in the process.

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#54
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking of people who bought an Occulus Rift, which Meta then purchased and then forced people to associate a facebook account with it which they could then ban causing you to lose access to the hardware (and any games you purchased). A strong incentive to use the facebook account as little as possible since making a throwaway facebook account is now such a PITA. Infuriating since it was a bait and switch on an…

The Facebook acquisition of Oculus was in March 2014. The hardware that Oculus sold before that was a developer prototype. There was no bait and switch because there was no consumer product. There’s a lot to dislike about Meta, but this complaint doesn’t make sense. If anything, Meta has put millions more of VR devices into consumers’ hands by selling the Quest at a loss. Nobody has to buy it.

When I bought my Quest, I was allowed (initially) to only use an Oculus account. The FB requirement came later.

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#55
post #8

It's important to have your own website, so you can post updates there. Use Meta to let people know that there is an update on the site.

Having your own site on someone else's corporate service is no less of a risk of being shut out of your account. Free speech is only as free as the service you are using thinks it is.

If cloudflare goes out of business, for example, their collapse would not count as an action against speech.

Conflating free speech with Terms of Services is to mix up MANY issues. There is a distinction that must be kept upheld, between private networks, and government power.

This does’t mean that the modern issue of free speech on privately owned platforms is magically solved, just that we need a more precise set of nouns, adjectives and verbs to frame the harms and limits that arise. Otherwise we simply get caught up in the simple between actual free speech and private rights.

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#56

I lost my facebook account about five years ago--total outright account ban. No recourse at all. It happened to a group of about 10 people that had been administrators of a local non-profit's facebook page and who had managed groups for the organization in the past. Our non-profit was non-denominational and helped local teens with after school type programs. We never knew why our personal accounts were banned. Best w…

I registered an instagram account to share my art, and was banned entirely, immediately, before I could even upload an avatar, with zero explanation. I emailed several times, did the license scan thing, and even messaged support from my personal account, and I still have never gotten any sort of explanation. shrug This and that other thread today about Slack just seems to be what happens when you're determined to rem…

Try Pixelfed or even Bluesky. Pixelfed is the fediverse alternative to Instagram, and there are some independent app devs working on Bluesky apps to be similar in look to it.

You won't find the reach, but you'll find a little community of other artists that can be a lot more personal & fulfilling than you would find on mainstream social media.

https://pixelfed.org/

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#57
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh you sweet summer child, Google gives the cold shoulder to everyone , including paying customers.

See, I've been wondering about this. I would have thought paying gives you a better chance of contacting, unlike Meta Verified which is useless. Is that not the case?

I've been an App Engine user for 15 years. Last year I needed some help and I had to pay some small amount for support and get an engineer to actually look at my account and tell me how to do something.

I don't remember how much it was, not much. I subscribed to the support for one month, then canceled. I've paid them hundreds a month for years, so it feels kind of cheap of them, but I did manage to get the help I needed.

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#58
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh you sweet summer child, Google gives the cold shoulder to everyone , including paying customers.

See, I've been wondering about this. I would have thought paying gives you a better chance of contacting, unlike Meta Verified which is useless. Is that not the case?

It really depends. Sales people will bend over backwards and will escalate things internally, but once they realize you “need” them (eg: for ads or due to lockin) they stop caring.

Used to work in marketing-adjacent teams and know this too well.

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#59

Google, especially Google Corp, is very much that way too. One of my users is currently getting a fair bit of spam because a spammer figured out that if they send a message with envelope sender @google.com, rcpt @gmail.com, google.com MX will accept it, then bounce it with NoSuchUser and gmail will accept it. I spent an hour yesterday looking for a way to contact Google about it, but couldn't find anything. Made hard…

I've been receiving this also. Rather annoying!! I wonder if abuse@ or postmaster@ would be able to help... /s

I did send my details to both of those locations, just in case. No response so far. I also posted on the artist formerly known as twitter, and I know I have some friends there in Google infra, I was hoping they'd pick up on it without calling them out specifically, but I might target them more specifically. Thought it sounds like it might be a deliberate, unfortunate, choice. I just can't understand why they'd want that.

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#60

Google, especially Google Corp, is very much that way too. One of my users is currently getting a fair bit of spam because a spammer figured out that if they send a message with envelope sender @google.com, rcpt @gmail.com, google.com MX will accept it, then bounce it with NoSuchUser and gmail will accept it. I spent an hour yesterday looking for a way to contact Google about it, but couldn't find anything. Made hard…

I've been slowly migrating logins off of a @gmail.com email and onto an email at a domain that I own/control for this reason. It's tedious and feels a little like an overreaction (presumably the odds of this happening to individual users are pretty low). On the other hand, the thought of some faceless fraud algorithm deciding that I should no longer have access to the credentials I use to log in to my bank, investmen…

> I didn't want to actually host my own mail stack

Is there a way to only host the receive portion?

I'm happy to pay someone to handle all the idiocy around sending email and getting it through Google and Microsoft, but I'd really like to hold my emails myself.

Post reply on HN