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  • Arbitrary And Capricious Social Media Bans

    From Lawrence D'Oliveiro@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 10 01:45:41 2025
    XPost: nz.general

    This item <https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/08/09/quite-stressful-kiwis-stung-by-wrongful-facebook-and-instagram-bans/>
    from yesterday’s news reports on people who have had their accounts on Instagram or Facebook (both owned by parent company Meta) suspended or
    banned for unknown reasons.

    This sort of thing has been happening, right across social media
    platforms, since the beginning. Maybe it’s happening more now. The
    processes at these companies are highly automated, and appeals against
    such suspension/termination decisions rarely seem to be successful.
    They almost never give any details about which exactly of their terms
    and conditions have been violated, so you end up groping in the dark
    when trying to defend yourself.

    About the only thing that does work is appealing to the media. All too
    often, within 24-48 hours of undesirable publicity getting out,
    decisions which were previously delivered as “final” somehow manage to
    earn a retraction, or at least another review.

    One thing I find sardonically funny is one suffering user is quoted as
    saying “they need a better customer support system”. Remember, if you
    are not paying for the service, then you are not the customer: you are
    the product.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John McCue@21:1/5 to Lawrence D'Oliveiro on Sun Aug 10 15:52:24 2025
    XPost: nz.general

    Follow-ups trimmed to comp.misc

    In comp.misc Lawrence D'Oliveiro <[email protected]d> wrote:
    This item <https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/08/09/quite-stressful-kiwis-stung-by-wrongful-facebook-and-instagram-bans/>
    from yesterday’s news reports on people who have had their accounts on Instagram or Facebook (both owned by parent company Meta) suspended or
    banned for unknown reasons.
    <snip>

    Those lucky kiwis! If Facebook wants to ban my account,
    please do!

    I was "encouraged" to signup for Facebook by multiple people
    at work, so I made them happy.

    I left that company a few years ago so I tried deleting my ID
    without luck. I ended up posted something like "I will never
    use Facebook going forward".

    So Facebook, please ban me or tell me how I can get banned :)

    --
    [t]csh(1) - "An elegant shell, for a more... civilized age."
    - Paraphrasing Star Wars

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jason H@21:1/5 to Lawrence D'Oliveiro on Sun Aug 10 21:48:16 2025
    On 10/08/2025 02:45, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
    This item ><https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/08/09/quite-stressful-kiwis-stung-by-wrongful-facebook-and-instagram-bans/>
    from yesterday’s news reports on people who have had their accounts on >Instagram or Facebook (both owned by parent company Meta) suspended or
    banned for unknown reasons.

    This sort of thing has been happening, right across social media
    platforms, since the beginning. Maybe it’s happening more now. The >processes at these companies are highly automated, and appeals against
    such suspension/termination decisions rarely seem to be successful.
    They almost never give any details about which exactly of their terms
    and conditions have been violated, so you end up groping in the dark
    when trying to defend yourself.

    About the only thing that does work is appealing to the media. All too
    often, within 24-48 hours of undesirable publicity getting out,
    decisions which were previously delivered as “final” somehow manage to >earn a retraction, or at least another review.

    One thing I find sardonically funny is one suffering user is quoted as
    saying “they need a better customer support system”. Remember, if you
    are not paying for the service, then you are not the customer: you are
    the product.

    Not a Kiwi but that did happen to my Instagram account. No explanation. Zero
    accountability. Meta are scum. Nothing more; nothing less.

    --
    --
    A PICKER OF UNCONSIDERED TRIFLES

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Bob Eager@21:1/5 to Jason H on Mon Aug 11 10:14:05 2025
    On Sun, 10 Aug 2025 21:48:16 +0000, Jason H wrote:

    Not a Kiwi but that did happen to my Instagram account. No explanation.
    Zero
    accountability. Meta are scum. Nothing more; nothing less.

    I did get one reversed quite quickly. I was talking about hyperbolic
    cosines, and was accused of inciting violence.

    IYKYK.

    --
    Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

    Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
    http://www.mirrorservice.org

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOlivei@21:1/5 to All on Thu Aug 21 21:32:39 2025
    XPost: nz.general

    On Sun, 10 Aug 2025 01:45:41 -0000 (UTC), I wrote:

    This item ... reports on people who have had their accounts on
    Instagram or Facebook (both owned by parent company Meta) suspended
    or banned for unknown reasons.

    The saga continues, with more account blocks that seem just as
    arbitrary as those that have gone before <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/kiwi-users-face-facebook-instagram-bans-in-metas-ai-enforcement-crackdown/DSZB2Q7IB5AONCLKIUWYOIKUGM/>.

    One thing I find sardonically funny is one suffering user is quoted
    as saying “they need a better customer support system”. Remember, if
    you are not paying for the service, then you are not the customer:
    you are the product.

    I have to amend that. A couple of the users mentioned in the latest
    article were in fact paying money for their accounts. But it seems
    their service was no better than that meted out to non-paying users.

    However, it’s clear the social media sites are trying to offer a
    service that is as profitable for themselves as possible. That means
    keeping costs down to a minimum. Which means heavy use of automatic
    systems, with as little human involvement as possible. So not only are
    the bans automatic, but even the appeals lodged by users against those
    bans are also handled automatically for the most part.

    Human intervention is being reserved only for the most important
    cases. And the most important cases are the ones that are likely to
    cause the most PR damage to the company.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)