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Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

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Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#71

Post by mhuffman »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #32

For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a "planned power outage", or as Eskom (our state owned power utility) refers to it, "load shedding". "Load shedding" is enacted whenever they have a power production capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so as to not let the power grid collapse. This…

This sounds like a nightmare!

Eskom seems to have been around for a long time, but this problem seems to have kicked in a little over a decade ago.

Did something recently happen to Eskom to make them incompetent?

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#72

Post by p_l »

adamcstephens wrote: post #68
Joeri wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do have a recourse, same as with any other business: you can always take them to court.

Unless they force binding arbitration in their terms. This is quite common and precludes you from going to court.

Which is why such terms should be illegal.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#73

Post by throwaway210222 »

mhuffman wrote: post #71
jonathanlydall wrote: post #32

For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a "planned power outage", or as Eskom (our state owned power utility) refers to it, "load shedding". "Load shedding" is enacted whenever they have a power production capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so as to not let the power grid collapse. This…

This sounds like a nightmare! Eskom seems to have been around for a long time, but this problem seems to have kicked in a little over a decade ago. Did something recently happen to Eskom to make them incompetent?

> Did something recently happen to Eskom to make them incompetent?

The African National Congress.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#74

Post by Shish2k »

avereveard wrote: post #27
tommilukkarinen wrote: post #16

This is the other side of the Play-store problem. The other side is the tax. Play store employee can ban your app = destroy your business at any time. The reason can be 'new policy', 'misunderstanding' or something more problematic, such as influence from your competitor to the employee. A 'power to destroy business', should not be a click away from some random employee.

"they should have built their own phone with their own app store" - the hn community, when it suited their political agenda

“Why are we punishing the guilty and letting the innocent go free? It’s hypocritical to treat different situations differently!” /s

Or to try and raise the level of discussion: “The HN community” is thousands of people who rarely agree 100% on anything. Pointing out that you can find examples on both sides of an issue isn’t a huge revelation.

(Personally I’m a fan of building an alternative to the google / apple duopoly, regardless of political affiliation :) )

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#75

Post by unityByFreedom »

throwaways885 wrote: post #55
unityByFreedom wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fine with banning apps that permit organizing violent insurrection in response to independently certified elections. That isn't the case here however and I expect some resolution will come.

Why didn't the primary app involved banned then? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/opinion/facebook-far-righ...

Not sure Facebook was primary but.. Did people really post about storming the capitol using their real names?

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#76

Post by p49k »

wheresmycraisin wrote: post #29
bawolff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's unrealistic if your target is android phones. You can wax poetic about the idea of an independent app store all you want, it doesn't change the facts on the ground in the current moment.

Or you can just make a web app. Unless you are doing games or anything requiring lower-level hardware access, like a bluetooth scanner or something.

Users, for the most part, don't want web apps and won't use them. It's an unrealistic stance.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#77

Post by myko »

throwaways885 wrote: post #55
unityByFreedom wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fine with banning apps that permit organizing violent insurrection in response to independently certified elections. That isn't the case here however and I expect some resolution will come.

Why didn't the primary app involved banned then? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/opinion/facebook-far-righ...

Parler's stated goal was to allow that type of speech while Facebook at least put a cursory amount of effort in blocking it.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#78

Post by ketzu »

mschuster91 wrote: post #40
swebs wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already F-Droid and the Amazon App store.

f-droid doesn't have payments, Amazon is yet another faceless mega-corp that has had its fair share of sellers accusing them of various shady things. Creating a Play Store alternative is hard for many reasons: 1) finance: the more countries you operate in, the messier it becomes. International taxes are one hard mess, KYC/AML regulations differ between countries, and to top it off there is the whole "international sa…

The hardest part is getting any traction with it.

Developers have no incentive to go the extra mile to publish on your store, because there are no users and it is extra work.

Users have no incentive to install your store, because there is barely anything on it.

OEMs have no incentive to preinstall your store, because you don't have any content (which devalues their product) and they don't gain anything from it. If they are willing to roll their own store, they at least rake in all the profit from it.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#79

Post by astrange »

anoncow wrote: post #33
wheresmycraisin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once tried to advertise on facebook. I was editing my ad, and when I was trying upload an image or something, it went into some sort of infinite loop of trying to reload the page. Then, seconds later, it was banned, taking down my business page and my personal account as well. Still down after two years and going through their "appeals" process, which involves trying to log in with my old password, saying it was a…

There is no appeals process unfortunately. For the past 2 years I have been asking for an update regularly and the only response I get is an automated response saying that they have checked my ad account and there is nothing they can do about it. My website is still blocked by Facebook's sharing debugger and my ad accounts with balance in them have been blocked without a reason given.

You could sue them in small claims court.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#80

Post by wheresmycraisin »

p49k wrote: post #76
wheresmycraisin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you can just make a web app. Unless you are doing games or anything requiring lower-level hardware access, like a bluetooth scanner or something.

Users, for the most part, don't want web apps and won't use them. It's an unrealistic stance.

Actually, users, for the most part, don't want to install apps.
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