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1. blunte+xU[view] [source] 2021-02-08 15:07:06
>>benhur+(OP)
Google uses non-human automation to make some decisions, including banning accounts. As others have mentioned, this is not unreasonable as long as there is a reasonable (in terms of time and effort) path to disputing a ban - i.e., speaking to a human about the issue.

But Google (and Facebook, and probably some other companies) don't have reasonable processes for disputing or resolving these situations.

Some have said that we should consider Google's challenge: lots of users/activities that need to be monitored and policed. The assumption is that Google could not afford to do this "reasonably" with humans instead of automated systems because the volume is high.

But Google certainly could hire and train humans to follow a process for reviewing and assisting in resolving these cases. They don't. It is doubtful that they cannot afford to do this; I haven't checked their annual report lately, but I'm guessing they still have a healthy profit.

In the unlikely event that involving more humans would be too expensive, then Google should raise their prices (or stop giving so much away for free).

To summarize, there is no excuse for Google to operate this way. They do because they can, and because the damage still falls into the "acceptable losses" column.

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2. tgtwea+ba1[view] [source] 2021-02-08 16:14:14
>>blunte+xU
There is no excuse for the laziness/ambiguity surrounding bans like this. I have witnessed, in 1 degree of separation, 3 separate Facebook business account bans in the last 12 months alone - the only reason cited is "you violated our community policy" with a link to the entire community policy and 0 clarification before or after requesting review.

In 2 of those cases, they were high-6 & low-7 figure follower companies and were spending well into the 6 figures per year on facebook ads. They were both ultimately overturned after escalating via an "agency-only" facebook person who looked into it and found it to be automated violations (both the original and the appeal!). The excuse for why it wasn't overturned upon appeal was "Sorry we cannot disclose this since people would game the system if we did" yet a single person manually reviewed and overturned it in a matter of minutes.

I don't understand the (successful) business logic that gets Facebook into a scenario like this where you can't put 1 hour of human capital into reviewing a potentially million dollar contract.

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3. dillon+zl1[view] [source] 2021-02-08 17:02:48
>>tgtwea+ba1
FB is the worst when it comes to this.

I created instagram filters this cycle for a client which I thought would be really cool; I haven't seen any from campaigns beyond the Biden Aviators (I work in politics). I wanted to do a 'i just voted' type challenge; tried many ideas and combinations like swappable campaign buttons without text showing 'issues,' branding, different voting method 3d objects.

Facebook kept rejecting and pointing to policy that clearly did not apply to what I was uploading.

I wish they would have just said 'we don't want political filters.' Escalating to actual @fb employee emails did not work. We're not important enough.

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4. blunte+GF1[view] [source] 2021-02-08 18:44:39
>>dillon+zl1
I'm no fan of Facebook by any measure, but I think when it comes to current political content and ads they are in a very tricky position.

If they say something is not allowed, at least one group will claim they are suppressing free speech. But if they allow it, they end up having to allow some misleading or completely false disinformation.

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5. gowld+NR1[view] [source] 2021-02-08 19:41:14
>>blunte+GF1
But they are disallowing things so GP can claim they are suppressing free speech.
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6. dillon+2V4[view] [source] 2021-02-09 18:23:39
>>gowld+NR1
My original comment was that they seem to have rules that aren't public, and rejected content with explanations that don't make sense. Escalation to humans did nothing.

For what it's worth the ads do have more docs on what ads are accepted.

-- Going off the rails here but you brought it up (i am GP?), I'm actually pissed ads aren't back up!!!

It's hindering our business (enough to hurt), preventing fundraising, and really hurts smaller campaigns.

However from my (Dem) perspective I do think FB should act like TV stations and fact check.

One study in my city said 1 minute of fact check for every 160 minutes of ads (I think i remember that roughly correct).

I also especially had beef with the super weak 'projected winner' banner on posts with Biden/Trump post election. It compounded the lie. Projected gives a false sense of 'up in the air.'

They knew that Trump and MAGA media are using nonsense to lie to people. It ended up with insurrection at the capitol.

They should have called Biden the winner -> link to the facts. Most media went beyond projected after a few days.

They again should have also followed the rest of the media by adding another few words to combat the lies from MAGA once they continued and escalated: all lawsuits got thrown out with prejudice the election is not contested.

NyTimes et al use language like baseless, 'Mr. Trump's lie', unfounded. They now go further and use words like extreme, conspiracy, 'cult figure.'

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