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Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

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Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#61
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Meta and Google had to provide actual support of the kind you describe to non-paying users, they would not be able to run their operations at scale. When the number of your users runs into nine or ten figures, even tiny error rates in your automated algorithms mean large numbers of people are being erroneously banned, and that is simply unfixable because your being able to operate at scale requires almost all of y…

I get it. I'm not business illiterate. However, it's still human on the other end. They know they ban a ton of users erroneously. They should have an appeals process for this. For example, maybe allow banned users to pay $1.99 to get a human review. Or provide an actual appeals process or invest in better spam detection. In my case, it was obvious that it was a mistake. I used NordVPN, a very popular VPN, to browse I…

Don’t conflate the concepts of user and customer. “You are a product” as a user is not an exaggeration but ground truth. They run a business, not a charity or government-subsidized public service, and their paying customers are advertisers.

If you have a problem with Big Social banning your free account, you have a problem not with Meta but with this business model being legal. Offering free “service” to collect and retain ad viewer eyeballs distorts the way market is supposed to work, because it’s impossible to compete with free and customers are locked in.

The only way out of this ever-deepening quagmire is to forbid this business model; all users should be paying customers, so the company is accountable to them, they can vote with their wallet, and the market can do its job properly.

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#63

Could someone ELI5 this to me? The judge found: > The defendant provided two conflicting reasons for the deletion Isn't this lying under oath? How is it not perjury?

Not sure small claim uses all this machinery.

You're saying you can lie in small claims court?

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#64
post #51

Sounds like Meta. I once had to solve a Facebook business page issue (another erroneous automated decision) that went unanswered for a year, and the only way I got it moving was to send a legal threat to Meta on a lawyer’s letterhead. Ended up solving the problem within a couple weeks.

Sounds like a lot of online platforms.

Sounds like a lot of companies. I got hit by an SUV a few months ago while I was riding my bike and the driver's insurance company said that "they weren't sure he was insured". And then, the day after I filed the police report, all of a sudden they were in a hurry to settle.

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get it. I'm not business illiterate. However, it's still human on the other end. They know they ban a ton of users erroneously. They should have an appeals process for this. For example, maybe allow banned users to pay $1.99 to get a human review. Or provide an actual appeals process or invest in better spam detection. In my case, it was obvious that it was a mistake. I used NordVPN, a very popular VPN, to browse I…

Don’t conflate the concepts of user and customer . “You are a product” as a user is not an exaggeration but ground truth. They run a business, not a charity or government-subsidized public service, and their paying customers are advertisers. If you have a problem with Big Social banning your free account, you have a problem not with Meta but with this business model being legal . Offering free “service” to collect an…

I think by now, everyone knows how Meta's business model works. No need to explain it.

The point isn't that I'm a product or a customer. The point is that given the locked in data that can affect real human lives, Meta and Google ought to put more into the process of reversing erroneously banned accounts. I'm not a law expert. Regardless, it's this person who won the case has done a good thing for all Meta users.

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats crazy talk, what would such a role even be called?

If it were like a military thing. They'd likely be an officer, maybe even a chief of some kind.

I’m just imagining going up to somebody in the c-suite and telling them what team I work for and what I do. I guarantee they would have no idea we exist. I once sat next to the manager who is three levels above me at a lunch meeting. She had zero idea who my team was or what we did.

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were like a military thing. They'd likely be an officer, maybe even a chief of some kind.

I’m just imagining going up to somebody in the c-suite and telling them what team I work for and what I do. I guarantee they would have no idea we exist. I once sat next to the manager who is three levels above me at a lunch meeting. She had zero idea who my team was or what we did.

I'm sure it would be very similar for many generals.

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t conflate the concepts of user and customer . “You are a product” as a user is not an exaggeration but ground truth. They run a business, not a charity or government-subsidized public service, and their paying customers are advertisers. If you have a problem with Big Social banning your free account, you have a problem not with Meta but with this business model being legal . Offering free “service” to collect an…

I think by now, everyone knows how Meta's business model works. No need to explain it. The point isn't that I'm a product or a customer. The point is that given the locked in data that can affect real human lives, Meta and Google ought to put more into the process of reversing erroneously banned accounts. I'm not a law expert. Regardless, it's this person who won the case has done a good thing for all Meta users.

> The point is that given the locked in data that can affect real human lives, Meta and Google ought to put more into the process of reversing erroneously banned accounts.

There’s many things they could do to affect human lives better, but they have a fiscal responsibility to not spend money on that unless those humans are their paying customers.

Again, this is not a charity. This is a legal business, if you don’t like this you should fight for a change to the definition of “legal”.

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#69
I don’t get this. There was no actual punishment for Facebook — so what will make them change their behaviour? Secondly, how can the lawyers just LIE and say he deleted his account when the company itself must have records of that. If they didn’t have the logs to prove it then they couldn’t have known he deleted it. If they did have logs they could have proven it. So they were lying. Why shouldn’t that be punished with a 100m fine or something utterly crazy? This is just bizarre every way you look at it.

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#70

I don’t get this. There was no actual punishment for Facebook — so what will make them change their behaviour? Secondly, how can the lawyers just LIE and say he deleted his account when the company itself must have records of that. If they didn’t have the logs to prove it then they couldn’t have known he deleted it. If they did have logs they could have proven it. So they were lying. Why shouldn’t that be punished wi…

I'm not a lawyer or even from the US, but is it in the power of small claims to impose a 100m fine??
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