7 ms·

The dark side of account bans

127 points by ponco 1y ago

dangus 1y ago
This unfortunately is why anonymity is so important on the Internet. I would not want to be a part of many of these communities with an account that is connected to my real life accounts in any way. Different email, different username, no discernible connection to my real identity. But also, shame on Meta and most other gigantic companies for having no due process for anything like this. I have no idea how they just go along with it and decide in favor of the reporter with zero evidence. Sure, maybe bans need to be proactive but there should at least be an appeals process. There should probably be more laws that cover permanent bans for business platforms that have a marketshare above a certain size. You shouldn’t be able to be permanently banned from services like this that dominate their respective markets without a robust process. There should probably be cases where even the violation of certain aspects of ToS can’t get you banned permanently, where law overrides ToS. Imagine if you were banned from getting phone service from AT&T in the 1980s and how devastating that could be.
- jjav 1y ago
  While I sbsolutely agree there needs to be laws preventing account bans for any website larger than some threshold, this is also a reminder why it is so incredibly vital to support open standards that are not owned by anyone. Like email, IRC. Every walled garden with a single corporate owner will 100% guaranteed abuse that ownership power. The only way forward is open protocols that interoperate without anyone having a controlling interest.
- chrismorgan 1y ago
  > This unfortunately is why anonymity is so important on the Internet. I’m not convinced by your argument. I acknowledge that maintaining an isolated identity for the Discord/whatever accounts would have limited the scope of the damage, but it’s often not very practical for a variety of reasons, and perhaps more importantly, the anonymity is part of the problem too: the trouble-maker has anonymity, and uses it for bad. Under the Law of Moses, a discovered false witness in court was to receive the punishment he tried to cause, explicitly as an enduring deterrent to dishonesty. Deuteronomy 19:16–21: > If an unrighteous witness rises up against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who shall be in those days; and the judges shall make diligent inquisition; and behold, if the witness is a false witness, and has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he had thought to do to his brother. So you shall remove the evil from amongst you. Those who remain shall hear, and fear, and will never again commit any such evil amongst you. Your eyes shall not pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. I presume Meta knows who made the report. I wonder if they ever make diligent inquisition, and ban the troll. I doubt it, but suppose, just suppose they did apply a standard like this. Imagine if the account-reporting procedure stated a clear policy: “if we find your report vexatious, we will ban your account instead”; or “if we find your report vexatious, we will tell your target your account details so they can pursue legal action if they desire”. (This is, of course, overly simplified, and would probably deter legitimate reports too.) Such harassment and threats as these frequently break laws, but anonymity is one factor that makes it much harder to pursue in a legal system. (Though it’s hardly the only thing; jurisdiction problems are a rather big deal with online stuff, and legal systems are often not tuned for pettier squabbles.) Returning to the original case: if there were no anonymity at all, and the guy had to threaten via his real identity, I doubt it would have happened, and remedy might have been easier if it did. I’m not against anonymity, I just feel the total picture is more nuanced than you’re presenting it as. Anonymity has both advantages and disadvantages.
  - teddyh 1y ago
    I see that it’s time to link this again: <https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22R...>
    - chrismorgan 1y ago
      That doesn’t invalidate what I said. Anonymity protects both “good” and “bad” people. My argument was just that it doesn’t seem fair to use this case to justify anonymity, when removing anonymity would also probably have solved it. It’s not the conclusion I’m disagreeing with, just the logic. (Perhaps I undermined this aspect by indulging in the thought experiment where accountability was actually held. Do I think such a scheme would actually work well? Not at all. People are involved.)
      - dangus 1y ago
        I wasn't looking to thoroughly justify anonymity, more like a pragmatic reason that it's needed on the current Internet at the individual level.
    - dredmorbius 1y ago
      "Sorry! Fandom isn't allowing BreezeWiki to show pages right now." (intermittent) I've attempted to archive the link at both Internet Archive and Archive Today, though both fail to show content.
      - teddyh 1y ago
        Seems to work fine: Last succesful archive was made on march 16th: <https://web.archive.org/web/20250316060617/https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F https://web.archive.org/web/20250316060617/https://geekfemin...> And I just now added a new one: <https://web.archive.org/web/20250519201255/https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F https://web.archive.org/web/20250519201255/https://geekfemin...>
      - 1y ago
maxehmookau 1y ago
This author sticking around is far more than that community deserves. If I ever received that sort of message from a user of anything I'd built, I'd walk away forever.
- immibis 1y ago
  What if that was actually what the troll wanted?
  - maxehmookau 1y ago
    Not sure if I'd care. Depends on the context, but sometimes letting the bullies win is worth it for your own peace.
- fmajid 1y ago
  And she is aa woman, which means she probably gets 100x the abuse a man would from entitled gamergate incels.
antonvs 1y ago
> In Australia, a vast majority of people purely use Facebook Messenger as the way to keep in touch with people. My condolences.
- philistine 1y ago
  Canada's the same.
  - Marsymars 1y ago
    Kinda? Lots of people use FB Messenger, but outside of facebook marketplace I haven’t found anyone who wasn’t able/willing to use something else.
n4r9 1y ago
Sounds like an awful experience. It's easy to create fake FB or Insta accounts to get around the restaurant menus problem, but getting WhatsApp banned must be a nightmare. I didn't even know that could happen!
- cube00 1y ago
  Good luck getting past the sign up flow to even get an account if your fingerprinted device is on their ban list.
- reginald78 1y ago
  Is it easy? Last time I tried to create a throwaway account it demanded a video of my head. This was after automatically banning on creation my account.
antonvs 1y ago
I had a reddit account permanently banned for saying something to the effect that a certain out of control billionaire could be dealt with by launching him into space in an electric vehicle that one of his companies manufactures. Apparently "reddit legal" thought that was a credible threat. I find that strangely encouraging.
- immibis 1y ago
  Reddit's been way out of control on this and I'm surprised people still use it at this point. Though the vast majority of Reddit content is posted by bots to manipulate users - so maybe they don't. Reddit is a Dead Internet existing here and now in front of our eyes. In addition to platform-wide bans most popular subreddits also use subreddit bans to create false impressions of consensus. Last scandal I heard was they banned people who upvoted memes about Mario's green brother.
- lynx97 1y ago
  Reads like a good decision on the side of Reddit. If you can't see how this type of statement is not OK, even after the fact, shows banning you was the right decision.
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    Well... getting rid of too powerful people by means of executing them has been a staple of societies across all cultures for millennia. The fact that people openly cheer on re-introducing this, or on those following through with such plans (Luigi), is just showing how fed up wide masses of society are - and Reddit's admins have been hellbent on quenching even verbal forms of dissatisfaction. The problem is, all that does is keeping pressure bottling up and eventually, if the issues with inequality and absurd amounts of power grabbing aren't dealt with, the explosion will be much harder than if people had a relatively safe way of voicing their dissent.
    - lynx97 1y ago
      Extremism is bad, no matter if it left or right-sided. I have turned away from the left with a huge amount of disgust since I started to realize how hatred is rampant on both sides. Wanting someone dead, and saying so, it a warning sign. Are we supposed to go back to "an eye for an eye"? I for one are happy this "staple" is a thing from the past. Cheering for it coming back is horryfing behaviour.
dredds 1y ago
We're at the point that MAMAA/FAANG (might as well call them MAGA now) can dictate 0% tax in the UK instead of a measly 2% because those platforms were co-opted by foreign countries to promote Brexit, leading to economic servitude. Starlink is now being foisted upon economically susceptible countries leading to a potential monopoly of connectivity, giving ultimate power to broker even more concessions down the line, not to mention increasing political thought-control. Welcome to 2025's take on 1984.
- louthy 1y ago
  > can dictate 0% tax in the UK instead of a measly 2% This hasn't happened (yet, at least).
  - dredds 1y ago
    Thanks, i heard it's included, but services agreement may come separately. "Britain's digital services tax, imposed on U.S. companies like Amazon, Google and Meta, will not be changed under the terms of the trade deal agreed between the two countries on Thursday"
    - louthy 1y ago
      There is a "tech agreement" coming which will augment the agreement announced yesterday. Essentially, they announced an agreement before agreeing everything! Probably Trump needed it to get some positive news after his recent nonsense. Personally, I don't mind the tax being dropped as long as the UK gets something in return that's worth the equivalent or more. We (the UK) export more services to the US than we get in return, so it would seem preferable to make services trade as friction-less as possible.
nickdothutton 1y ago
Users reporting users is a terrible way to manage account misuse/bad behaviour. Your average user on your average platform is a low form of life incase you hadn’t noticed.
- grishka 1y ago
  It's an okay way as long as the ultimate decisions are made by real humans.
  - cosmicgadget 1y ago
    Real humans are really good at choosing the path of least resistance. E.g. Reddit's outsourced 'Anti Evil' team.
    - grishka 1y ago
      It depends a lot on how you train and incentivize them. Most big-corp social media seems to not care very much about false positives, but it doesn't have to be like that.
- Rastonbury 1y ago
  Worse is if your competitors report you and get you banned while having profitable ads, there goes a large marketing channel and likely a chunk of revenue, think shopify stores, restauranteurs. Reddit is full of these stories
j1elo 1y ago
> I couldn’t access their menus. They were only on Instagram, and it’d force a sign in before showing me the content. > so many restaurants and cafes here purely use Instagram (or sometimes Facebook) to host their menus. That's idiotic. Really, reaaaally idiotic. Like, "talk to the manager and tell them they are doing a very stupid thing" levels of idiotic. </Rant> This "we're too modern and digital to get out heads out of our asses" attitude towards adopting "cool technology" with complete disregard for an analog Plan B gets to my nerves. Here, since Covid, lots of places stopped offering physical menus, instead they put a QR code to some webpage or gigantic PDF file that contains the menu (and can be updated every day to push prices up if needed, heh). I hate that services assume you must have a hundreds-dollar device on your pocket at all times to even be able to access the basic service they provide. I just power off my phone and tell them "look I ran out of battery, what should we do?". They usually do have a physical menu, thankfully. But other things aren't so nice. My employer offers a restaurant card, and because now we live in a "digital era", they don't issue physical cards any more, only digital ones to be used with Google Wallet on Android. Turns out I'd like to install GrapheneOS on my Pixel, and you got it: Wallet doesn't work on GrapheneOS for payments! I'd want my physical restaurant card, please.
- deleted 1y ago
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- kranke155 1y ago
  This is literally the new normal in a lot of places in Europe. I have no idea where you are that you think you could complain about this, they would just eye roll at you.
  - j1elo 1y ago
    > Whoa, wait a minute, Doc. What are you talkin’ about? What happens to us in the future? What, do we become assholes or somethin’?
  - 1y ago
teddyh 1y ago
> This experience was eye opening; it shocked me at how fundamental online platforms owned by companies have actually become to modern life. Oh no! If only there was some way you could have known! <https://xkcd.com/743/ https://xkcd.com/743/>
yellow_lead 1y ago
I've reported a lot of prostitution ads on Instagram, but they always responded to the report with "we found nothing wrong". After reporting these ads, Meta decided I liked them and started showing me more and more, but I've given up on reporting them, since no action is taken. Meta seem to not actually check reports. My theory is that they just rely on some percentage of reports maybe relating to followers, reports, and time. If it exceeds a threshold, there's an action. Otherwise, no action.
- immibis 1y ago
  My Occam's razor is they do whatever makes them the most money. Are the prostitutes paying lots for ads? Leave them up. Are you complaining a bunch and not paying for ads? Ban you. Are people complaining about you a bunch (including 1000 identical complaints from sockpuppets) and you're not paying for ads? Ban you.
  - yellow_lead 1y ago
    Right, banning their customers will lose them money in this case.
- lynx97 1y ago
  I suspect not reacting to that kind of problem is intentional. Just like YouTube didn't do anything against the pirated music uploads in the 2010 years, simply because being able to play your favourite pop song via YouTube was attractive to early users. Same with audio books these days. Some pirated accounts are being used to upload complete Audible books. They dont even bother to remove the "This isAudible" intro, which apparently could easily be used to autodetect such uploads. As said, I am guessing porn ads do provide Meta some form of income, and thats why they don't do anything about it. Big tech is shady like f**.
- dsign 1y ago
  I believe that part of the problem is how trigger happy the platforms are to reports of CSAM and other "black issues". They don't do any research, they just ban and call it a day. Your government could go to them and say, "hey, you should do due research before banning a user,", and the platform will turn back and say "you passed a law last month where I would be banned from operating in the country if I allowed any photo of somebody under 18 wearing less than a full-body skimo wolly suit, but I'm not allowed to ask for an ID to know the user's age. What am I supposed to do? Deploy a trigger happy AI? I just did!" So, in a sense, we live in the best world possible. May I suggest that you just block and mute the prostitutes, if they offend your sensibilities? That's what I do. Because in the next iteration of censorship, we might lose the social networks altogether.
fweimer 1y ago
> I did end up speaking to a few engineers at Meta through connections, either directly or through others, many of which recommended suing Meta to unlock my accounts. This was extra complicated due to me living in Australia, so it’s not something I tried. Why is this complicated? Do the Meta ToS include a choice-of-venue clause for consumer accounts?
- decimalenough 1y ago
  Suing people across jurisdictions is a nightmare. As a trivial example, anybody can theoretically sue any Singaporean entity in Singapore's Small Claims Tribunal, but if you don't have Singaporean ID, you need to show up in person in Singapore to register for the CJTS Pass system. Then you need to send registered mail from Singapore to the person you're using, apply for a special exception to be able to appear over Zoom instead of in person, provide proof that your home jurisdiction permits you to testify over video in Singapore, etc etc. And this is just for small claims!
  - raverbashing 1y ago
    Or: hire a lawyer in Singapore (or a solicitor, I'm not sure how's their legal system) to navigate these small bureaucracies
  - fweimer 1y ago
    You wouldn't sue across jurisdictions, though? This would be an Australian suing under Australian law in an Australian court, potentially even an Australian entity.
db48x 1y ago
> She recommended a few cafes, and I went to look at their menus. To my surprise, I couldn’t access their menus. They were only on Instagram, and it’d force a sign in before showing me the content. Wow. There are over 30 restaurants within a mile of where I live, and not one of them uses Instagram to host anything as far as I know. They always have a real web page, even if it’s cobbled together on Wix or some other horrible thing, and the menu is invariably a PDF (because they had to send something to the printer, and they don’t know how to put something nicer on the web). Sometimes you have to allow third–party JS to get their webpage to render so that you can get the PDF though. Well, I guess the national chains don’t post a PDF these days. They give you a real menu and even offer online ordering and delivery. Most people probably don’t need to look at a McDonald’s menu to know what they sell though.
- AStonesThrow 1y ago
  What I've found very useful is Google Maps for ordering online. I typically use DoorDash, which can access and aggregate almost any restaurant I'd care to patronize, but if the restaurant isn't listed, Google Maps can accurately direct me not only to the restaurant's main website, but also to their menu, and a complete list of online ordering services. I've been able to reliably target a restaurant 20 minutes away by bus, select my order, pay for it online, and have it ready for pickup by the time I disembark. It's a pretty sweet arrangement. If your chosen restaurant directs you to some dumb QR code and Instagram, try just looking them up on Google Maps. You'd be surprised what resources are available there, including plenty of reviews and customer-submitted photos of the very dishes you're looking to order!
- OsrsNeedsf2P 1y ago
  I doubt they'll stay with custom websites for long, given 1. The new generation grew up with Social Media as a native service and 2. How much easier it is to run a Business account vs your own website
  - db48x 1y ago
    That’s why I mentioned services like Wix. They host your site and give you an online page builder, then you just point your domain at their servers. It’s basically just Geocities, but without the stigma. I believe Square runs one that is fairly popular, and there are others. No more technical skill is required to use these service than is required to use Instagram, but the difference is that Instagram takes away all control from their users while these services give their users control over everything (except of course that hosting millions of restaurant websites lets these services collect a lot of data about the visitors that they can sell behind the scenes for extra profit, of course).
Rebuff5007 1y ago
There is so much that is sad and infuriating about this. How can a stranger have so much hate towards someone who's content they want to consume? Why are meta engineers suggesting suing their own company instead of pointing to someone to walk through a basic appeals process? The obvious, why do so many things in the world not work without a smartphone and a google/facebook account with internet access? Why isn't anyone doing anything about any of this? PMs at facebook? Congressmen/women? The system is not working.
- nikanj 1y ago
  Accountability sinks are a huge issue with large corporations. The people you can reach are not allowed to act due to policies and processes, and the people setting the policies are not reachable to a regular customer - nor would they change the policies just to accommodate one out of their millions of users https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/accountability-sinks https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/accountability-sinks
chrisldgk 1y ago
I have a similar, though less horrible story. We recently launched an app where we wanted to have a Facebook sign-in button since our target audience would be people that use Facebook a lot. Being Gen Z and not having a Facebook account at all (anymore) I made one for Meta developers, set everything up for development and tested stuff for a few weeks. When we finally did want to go live, we went through the Meta for Business verification process, which succeeded, but a minute later my account got banned. I got to appeal (sending a video of your face looking multiple directions), but for some reason that wasn’t enough for them. I got fully banned with the only option to appeal going to court. So now apparently I have a Facebook developer account and a verified business, both of which I cannot access at all anymore. We do not currently have a Facebook sign-in button in our production app.
- hofrogs 1y ago
  You now have a banned account, and Meta has a video of your face looking multiple directions and data about your business and development activity. A fair and common trade from the big tech point of view.
- distalx 1y ago
  Yeah, I had a similar frustrating time. Not a personal ban, but trying to help a friend verify their business for the WhatsApp API. We followed the process twice, really carefully. Both times Facebook failed to verify the business. No clear reason why. We posted everything on their developer forum hoping for help, but got nothing back. Just silence!! Many people were facing the same issue like us. Ended up having to give up and tell my friend I couldn't help. Honestly, the fear of getting banned mysel if I kept pushing stopped me from trying it one more time. these platforms are difficult to deal with when things go wrong.
stevage 1y ago
I also lost my Facebook account a few years ago, because someone tried to hack it I think. Similarly there were no open avenues of appeal. By a big fluke I actually did some work for FB and in the process they unlocked it. But yeah, monopolies controlling access to public services with no oversight sucks.
- wil421 1y ago
  My buddy forgot his old Facebook but some scammer found his old password on one of those pwned websites. A year ago his old account started selling random things like a huge swing set in California. I always wondered what they were up to with his account of Facebook marketplace.
thrance 1y ago
I really wish Europe would consider a continent-wide ban on Meta and X. We gain nothing positive from these companies, they only serve to destabilize our democracies, disinfom citizens and ostracize people.
- reconnecting 1y ago
  I'm just curious how many votes your comment will get.
  - thrance 1y ago
    It's currently at 5, wich is 7 more than the last one I did suggesting a similar idea.
ribcage 1y ago
[dead]
ValdikSS 1y ago
I don't know about the country you live in, but the usual 100% bullet-proof method to make your message seen by the living human being is to send a paper snail mail. You won't necessary receive the answers for your questions, but you'll get back your account. If the simple message did not help, you file a pre-trial claim and send it to them.
- subscribed 1y ago
  The country she lives in is plastered all over the article you didn't read :)
  - dredmorbius 1y ago
    <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41833091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41833091>
dredmorbius 1y ago
Sue in small claims court. This exists in Australia: <https://www.fcfcoa.gov.au/gfl/fairwork-small-claims https://www.fcfcoa.gov.au/gfl/fairwork-small-claims> The law is what provides justice, the mechanism is the court system. There are many who try to dissuade you from this option because it is effective. Use it. Write your consumer protection entity. In much of the US that is your state attorney general's office. I believe you can start with the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission), here: <https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/problem-with-a-product-or-service-you-bought/where-to-go-for-consumer-help https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/problem-with-a-product-or-...> Write your government representatives. - City council members. - County supervisors / local councils. - State representatives / MRA. - Federal representatives / MPs. Call their office(s). Write their office(s). Email and postal mail. Follow up with them. If you don't get a sufficient response, let the office know. Australian governmental organisation: <https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/three-levels-of-government/three-levels-of-government-governing-australia https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-...> Contact NGOs advancing personal digital rights in your country. For Australia this seems to be Digital Rights Watch (<https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/ https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/>) and EFF Australia (<https://efa.org.au/ https://efa.org.au/>). These and similar organisations elsewhere should already be very familiar with account-lock-out and similar problems, and can likely direct you as to how to register your claim most effectively. Tweeting, blogging, and throwing up your hands is what Meta would most like you to do. Do more and cause them pain. Organise.
hnthrowaway4166 1y ago
LinkedIn is especially egregrious in the account restriction aspect, especially with how essential it is to many people's lives. Recently, I found that I couldn't log in to my LinkedIn account. They made the issue seem like an error, so I spent a lot of time trying to log in on different device/browser combinations. Eventually, I folded and tried to submit a support ticket, just to be met with a login page. After some searching around, I found direct links to the support forms, but none of them worked — they all displayed the same error when I tried to submit a ticket. The only other option was to contact them on Twitter. Tried to create an account just to be met with a generic "something went wrong" error, after wasting my time with what was easily the most awful CAPTCHA I've ever seen. Tried creating a new LinkedIn account — no good, they ask for phone verification and won't let me reuse my phone number. For some time, I thought my only option was going to be legal action, until a lightbulb lit up in my head. I went back to the support form, and instead of providing the email I used for my LinkedIn account, I used another email. The ticket was submitted successfully. At that point, it was clear that my account had some shadow ban in place. My only guess is that I tripped some psychotic automated system. How is it in any way acceptable that a company can essentially, and completely arbitrarily, blacklist someone from the job market like this? No notification or warning, nothing — they literally try to gaslight you with fake errors. I'm hoping that my support ticket will have some effect (not sure it will, given what I've experienced so far), or else I'll once again be left with legal action as my only recourse. So far, nothing.
- Marsymars 1y ago
  I also recently tripped something at LinkedIn and now it asks for me to scan a QR code with a mobile device in order to upload ID to prove the identity of my two decade-old account that has a secure password + 2FA. Given that I don’t seriously use LinkedIn (I just use it to scope out other people), I’ve just permanently stopped using it at all.

127 points by ponco 1y ago

This unfortunately is why anonymity is so important on the Internet. I would not want to be a part of many of these communities with an account that is connected to my real life accounts in any way. Different email, different username, no discernible connection to my real identity. But also, shame on Meta and most other gigantic companies for having no due process for anything like this. I have no idea how they just go along with it and decide in favor of the reporter with zero evidence. Sure, maybe bans need to be proactive but there should at least be an appeals process. There should probably be more laws that cover permanent bans for business platforms that have a marketshare above a certain size. You shouldn’t be able to be permanently banned from services like this that dominate their respective markets without a robust process. There should probably be cases where even the violation of certain aspects of ToS can’t get you banned permanently, where law overrides ToS. Imagine if you were banned from getting phone service from AT&T in the 1980s and how devastating that could be.

jjav 1y ago
While I sbsolutely agree there needs to be laws preventing account bans for any website larger than some threshold, this is also a reminder why it is so incredibly vital to support open standards that are not owned by anyone. Like email, IRC. Every walled garden with a single corporate owner will 100% guaranteed abuse that ownership power. The only way forward is open protocols that interoperate without anyone having a controlling interest.
chrismorgan 1y ago
> This unfortunately is why anonymity is so important on the Internet. I’m not convinced by your argument. I acknowledge that maintaining an isolated identity for the Discord/whatever accounts would have limited the scope of the damage, but it’s often not very practical for a variety of reasons, and perhaps more importantly, the anonymity is part of the problem too: the trouble-maker has anonymity, and uses it for bad. Under the Law of Moses, a discovered false witness in court was to receive the punishment he tried to cause, explicitly as an enduring deterrent to dishonesty. Deuteronomy 19:16–21: > If an unrighteous witness rises up against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who shall be in those days; and the judges shall make diligent inquisition; and behold, if the witness is a false witness, and has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he had thought to do to his brother. So you shall remove the evil from amongst you. Those who remain shall hear, and fear, and will never again commit any such evil amongst you. Your eyes shall not pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. I presume Meta knows who made the report. I wonder if they ever make diligent inquisition, and ban the troll. I doubt it, but suppose, just suppose they did apply a standard like this. Imagine if the account-reporting procedure stated a clear policy: “if we find your report vexatious, we will ban your account instead”; or “if we find your report vexatious, we will tell your target your account details so they can pursue legal action if they desire”. (This is, of course, overly simplified, and would probably deter legitimate reports too.) Such harassment and threats as these frequently break laws, but anonymity is one factor that makes it much harder to pursue in a legal system. (Though it’s hardly the only thing; jurisdiction problems are a rather big deal with online stuff, and legal systems are often not tuned for pettier squabbles.) Returning to the original case: if there were no anonymity at all, and the guy had to threaten via his real identity, I doubt it would have happened, and remedy might have been easier if it did. I’m not against anonymity, I just feel the total picture is more nuanced than you’re presenting it as. Anonymity has both advantages and disadvantages.
- teddyh 1y ago
  I see that it’s time to link this again: <https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22R...>
  - chrismorgan 1y ago
    That doesn’t invalidate what I said. Anonymity protects both “good” and “bad” people. My argument was just that it doesn’t seem fair to use this case to justify anonymity, when removing anonymity would also probably have solved it. It’s not the conclusion I’m disagreeing with, just the logic. (Perhaps I undermined this aspect by indulging in the thought experiment where accountability was actually held. Do I think such a scheme would actually work well? Not at all. People are involved.)
    - dangus 1y ago
      I wasn't looking to thoroughly justify anonymity, more like a pragmatic reason that it's needed on the current Internet at the individual level.
  - dredmorbius 1y ago
    "Sorry! Fandom isn't allowing BreezeWiki to show pages right now." (intermittent) I've attempted to archive the link at both Internet Archive and Archive Today, though both fail to show content.
    - teddyh 1y ago
      Seems to work fine: Last succesful archive was made on march 16th: <https://web.archive.org/web/20250316060617/https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F https://web.archive.org/web/20250316060617/https://geekfemin...> And I just now added a new one: <https://web.archive.org/web/20250519201255/https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F https://web.archive.org/web/20250519201255/https://geekfemin...>
    - 1y ago

maxehmookau 1y ago

This author sticking around is far more than that community deserves. If I ever received that sort of message from a user of anything I'd built, I'd walk away forever.

immibis 1y ago
What if that was actually what the troll wanted?
- maxehmookau 1y ago
  Not sure if I'd care. Depends on the context, but sometimes letting the bullies win is worth it for your own peace.
fmajid 1y ago
And she is aa woman, which means she probably gets 100x the abuse a man would from entitled gamergate incels.

antonvs 1y ago

> In Australia, a vast majority of people purely use Facebook Messenger as the way to keep in touch with people. My condolences.

philistine 1y ago
Canada's the same.
- Marsymars 1y ago
  Kinda? Lots of people use FB Messenger, but outside of facebook marketplace I haven’t found anyone who wasn’t able/willing to use something else.

n4r9 1y ago

Sounds like an awful experience. It's easy to create fake FB or Insta accounts to get around the restaurant menus problem, but getting WhatsApp banned must be a nightmare. I didn't even know that could happen!

cube00 1y ago
Good luck getting past the sign up flow to even get an account if your fingerprinted device is on their ban list.
reginald78 1y ago
Is it easy? Last time I tried to create a throwaway account it demanded a video of my head. This was after automatically banning on creation my account.

antonvs 1y ago

I had a reddit account permanently banned for saying something to the effect that a certain out of control billionaire could be dealt with by launching him into space in an electric vehicle that one of his companies manufactures. Apparently "reddit legal" thought that was a credible threat. I find that strangely encouraging.

immibis 1y ago
Reddit's been way out of control on this and I'm surprised people still use it at this point. Though the vast majority of Reddit content is posted by bots to manipulate users - so maybe they don't. Reddit is a Dead Internet existing here and now in front of our eyes. In addition to platform-wide bans most popular subreddits also use subreddit bans to create false impressions of consensus. Last scandal I heard was they banned people who upvoted memes about Mario's green brother.
lynx97 1y ago
Reads like a good decision on the side of Reddit. If you can't see how this type of statement is not OK, even after the fact, shows banning you was the right decision.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  Well... getting rid of too powerful people by means of executing them has been a staple of societies across all cultures for millennia. The fact that people openly cheer on re-introducing this, or on those following through with such plans (Luigi), is just showing how fed up wide masses of society are - and Reddit's admins have been hellbent on quenching even verbal forms of dissatisfaction. The problem is, all that does is keeping pressure bottling up and eventually, if the issues with inequality and absurd amounts of power grabbing aren't dealt with, the explosion will be much harder than if people had a relatively safe way of voicing their dissent.
  - lynx97 1y ago
    Extremism is bad, no matter if it left or right-sided. I have turned away from the left with a huge amount of disgust since I started to realize how hatred is rampant on both sides. Wanting someone dead, and saying so, it a warning sign. Are we supposed to go back to "an eye for an eye"? I for one are happy this "staple" is a thing from the past. Cheering for it coming back is horryfing behaviour.

dredds 1y ago

We're at the point that MAMAA/FAANG (might as well call them MAGA now) can dictate 0% tax in the UK instead of a measly 2% because those platforms were co-opted by foreign countries to promote Brexit, leading to economic servitude. Starlink is now being foisted upon economically susceptible countries leading to a potential monopoly of connectivity, giving ultimate power to broker even more concessions down the line, not to mention increasing political thought-control. Welcome to 2025's take on 1984.

louthy 1y ago
> can dictate 0% tax in the UK instead of a measly 2% This hasn't happened (yet, at least).
- dredds 1y ago
  Thanks, i heard it's included, but services agreement may come separately. "Britain's digital services tax, imposed on U.S. companies like Amazon, Google and Meta, will not be changed under the terms of the trade deal agreed between the two countries on Thursday"
  - louthy 1y ago
    There is a "tech agreement" coming which will augment the agreement announced yesterday. Essentially, they announced an agreement before agreeing everything! Probably Trump needed it to get some positive news after his recent nonsense. Personally, I don't mind the tax being dropped as long as the UK gets something in return that's worth the equivalent or more. We (the UK) export more services to the US than we get in return, so it would seem preferable to make services trade as friction-less as possible.

nickdothutton 1y ago

Users reporting users is a terrible way to manage account misuse/bad behaviour. Your average user on your average platform is a low form of life incase you hadn’t noticed.

grishka 1y ago
It's an okay way as long as the ultimate decisions are made by real humans.
- cosmicgadget 1y ago
  Real humans are really good at choosing the path of least resistance. E.g. Reddit's outsourced 'Anti Evil' team.
  - grishka 1y ago
    It depends a lot on how you train and incentivize them. Most big-corp social media seems to not care very much about false positives, but it doesn't have to be like that.
Rastonbury 1y ago
Worse is if your competitors report you and get you banned while having profitable ads, there goes a large marketing channel and likely a chunk of revenue, think shopify stores, restauranteurs. Reddit is full of these stories

j1elo 1y ago

> I couldn’t access their menus. They were only on Instagram, and it’d force a sign in before showing me the content. > so many restaurants and cafes here purely use Instagram (or sometimes Facebook) to host their menus. That's idiotic. Really, reaaaally idiotic. Like, "talk to the manager and tell them they are doing a very stupid thing" levels of idiotic. </Rant> This "we're too modern and digital to get out heads out of our asses" attitude towards adopting "cool technology" with complete disregard for an analog Plan B gets to my nerves. Here, since Covid, lots of places stopped offering physical menus, instead they put a QR code to some webpage or gigantic PDF file that contains the menu (and can be updated every day to push prices up if needed, heh). I hate that services assume you must have a hundreds-dollar device on your pocket at all times to even be able to access the basic service they provide. I just power off my phone and tell them "look I ran out of battery, what should we do?". They usually do have a physical menu, thankfully. But other things aren't so nice. My employer offers a restaurant card, and because now we live in a "digital era", they don't issue physical cards any more, only digital ones to be used with Google Wallet on Android. Turns out I'd like to install GrapheneOS on my Pixel, and you got it: Wallet doesn't work on GrapheneOS for payments! I'd want my physical restaurant card, please.

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kranke155 1y ago
This is literally the new normal in a lot of places in Europe. I have no idea where you are that you think you could complain about this, they would just eye roll at you.
- j1elo 1y ago
  > Whoa, wait a minute, Doc. What are you talkin’ about? What happens to us in the future? What, do we become assholes or somethin’?
- 1y ago

teddyh 1y ago

> This experience was eye opening; it shocked me at how fundamental online platforms owned by companies have actually become to modern life. Oh no! If only there was some way you could have known! <https://xkcd.com/743/ https://xkcd.com/743/>

yellow_lead 1y ago

I've reported a lot of prostitution ads on Instagram, but they always responded to the report with "we found nothing wrong". After reporting these ads, Meta decided I liked them and started showing me more and more, but I've given up on reporting them, since no action is taken. Meta seem to not actually check reports. My theory is that they just rely on some percentage of reports maybe relating to followers, reports, and time. If it exceeds a threshold, there's an action. Otherwise, no action.

immibis 1y ago
My Occam's razor is they do whatever makes them the most money. Are the prostitutes paying lots for ads? Leave them up. Are you complaining a bunch and not paying for ads? Ban you. Are people complaining about you a bunch (including 1000 identical complaints from sockpuppets) and you're not paying for ads? Ban you.
- yellow_lead 1y ago
  Right, banning their customers will lose them money in this case.
lynx97 1y ago
I suspect not reacting to that kind of problem is intentional. Just like YouTube didn't do anything against the pirated music uploads in the 2010 years, simply because being able to play your favourite pop song via YouTube was attractive to early users. Same with audio books these days. Some pirated accounts are being used to upload complete Audible books. They dont even bother to remove the "This isAudible" intro, which apparently could easily be used to autodetect such uploads. As said, I am guessing porn ads do provide Meta some form of income, and thats why they don't do anything about it. Big tech is shady like f**.
dsign 1y ago
I believe that part of the problem is how trigger happy the platforms are to reports of CSAM and other "black issues". They don't do any research, they just ban and call it a day. Your government could go to them and say, "hey, you should do due research before banning a user,", and the platform will turn back and say "you passed a law last month where I would be banned from operating in the country if I allowed any photo of somebody under 18 wearing less than a full-body skimo wolly suit, but I'm not allowed to ask for an ID to know the user's age. What am I supposed to do? Deploy a trigger happy AI? I just did!" So, in a sense, we live in the best world possible. May I suggest that you just block and mute the prostitutes, if they offend your sensibilities? That's what I do. Because in the next iteration of censorship, we might lose the social networks altogether.

fweimer 1y ago

> I did end up speaking to a few engineers at Meta through connections, either directly or through others, many of which recommended suing Meta to unlock my accounts. This was extra complicated due to me living in Australia, so it’s not something I tried. Why is this complicated? Do the Meta ToS include a choice-of-venue clause for consumer accounts?

decimalenough 1y ago
Suing people across jurisdictions is a nightmare. As a trivial example, anybody can theoretically sue any Singaporean entity in Singapore's Small Claims Tribunal, but if you don't have Singaporean ID, you need to show up in person in Singapore to register for the CJTS Pass system. Then you need to send registered mail from Singapore to the person you're using, apply for a special exception to be able to appear over Zoom instead of in person, provide proof that your home jurisdiction permits you to testify over video in Singapore, etc etc. And this is just for small claims!
- raverbashing 1y ago
  Or: hire a lawyer in Singapore (or a solicitor, I'm not sure how's their legal system) to navigate these small bureaucracies
- fweimer 1y ago
  You wouldn't sue across jurisdictions, though? This would be an Australian suing under Australian law in an Australian court, potentially even an Australian entity.

db48x 1y ago

> She recommended a few cafes, and I went to look at their menus. To my surprise, I couldn’t access their menus. They were only on Instagram, and it’d force a sign in before showing me the content. Wow. There are over 30 restaurants within a mile of where I live, and not one of them uses Instagram to host anything as far as I know. They always have a real web page, even if it’s cobbled together on Wix or some other horrible thing, and the menu is invariably a PDF (because they had to send something to the printer, and they don’t know how to put something nicer on the web). Sometimes you have to allow third–party JS to get their webpage to render so that you can get the PDF though. Well, I guess the national chains don’t post a PDF these days. They give you a real menu and even offer online ordering and delivery. Most people probably don’t need to look at a McDonald’s menu to know what they sell though.

AStonesThrow 1y ago
What I've found very useful is Google Maps for ordering online. I typically use DoorDash, which can access and aggregate almost any restaurant I'd care to patronize, but if the restaurant isn't listed, Google Maps can accurately direct me not only to the restaurant's main website, but also to their menu, and a complete list of online ordering services. I've been able to reliably target a restaurant 20 minutes away by bus, select my order, pay for it online, and have it ready for pickup by the time I disembark. It's a pretty sweet arrangement. If your chosen restaurant directs you to some dumb QR code and Instagram, try just looking them up on Google Maps. You'd be surprised what resources are available there, including plenty of reviews and customer-submitted photos of the very dishes you're looking to order!
OsrsNeedsf2P 1y ago
I doubt they'll stay with custom websites for long, given 1. The new generation grew up with Social Media as a native service and 2. How much easier it is to run a Business account vs your own website
- db48x 1y ago
  That’s why I mentioned services like Wix. They host your site and give you an online page builder, then you just point your domain at their servers. It’s basically just Geocities, but without the stigma. I believe Square runs one that is fairly popular, and there are others. No more technical skill is required to use these service than is required to use Instagram, but the difference is that Instagram takes away all control from their users while these services give their users control over everything (except of course that hosting millions of restaurant websites lets these services collect a lot of data about the visitors that they can sell behind the scenes for extra profit, of course).

Rebuff5007 1y ago

There is so much that is sad and infuriating about this. How can a stranger have so much hate towards someone who's content they want to consume? Why are meta engineers suggesting suing their own company instead of pointing to someone to walk through a basic appeals process? The obvious, why do so many things in the world not work without a smartphone and a google/facebook account with internet access? Why isn't anyone doing anything about any of this? PMs at facebook? Congressmen/women? The system is not working.

nikanj 1y ago
Accountability sinks are a huge issue with large corporations. The people you can reach are not allowed to act due to policies and processes, and the people setting the policies are not reachable to a regular customer - nor would they change the policies just to accommodate one out of their millions of users https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/accountability-sinks https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/accountability-sinks

chrisldgk 1y ago

I have a similar, though less horrible story. We recently launched an app where we wanted to have a Facebook sign-in button since our target audience would be people that use Facebook a lot. Being Gen Z and not having a Facebook account at all (anymore) I made one for Meta developers, set everything up for development and tested stuff for a few weeks. When we finally did want to go live, we went through the Meta for Business verification process, which succeeded, but a minute later my account got banned. I got to appeal (sending a video of your face looking multiple directions), but for some reason that wasn’t enough for them. I got fully banned with the only option to appeal going to court. So now apparently I have a Facebook developer account and a verified business, both of which I cannot access at all anymore. We do not currently have a Facebook sign-in button in our production app.

hofrogs 1y ago
You now have a banned account, and Meta has a video of your face looking multiple directions and data about your business and development activity. A fair and common trade from the big tech point of view.
distalx 1y ago
Yeah, I had a similar frustrating time. Not a personal ban, but trying to help a friend verify their business for the WhatsApp API. We followed the process twice, really carefully. Both times Facebook failed to verify the business. No clear reason why. We posted everything on their developer forum hoping for help, but got nothing back. Just silence!! Many people were facing the same issue like us. Ended up having to give up and tell my friend I couldn't help. Honestly, the fear of getting banned mysel if I kept pushing stopped me from trying it one more time. these platforms are difficult to deal with when things go wrong.

stevage 1y ago

I also lost my Facebook account a few years ago, because someone tried to hack it I think. Similarly there were no open avenues of appeal. By a big fluke I actually did some work for FB and in the process they unlocked it. But yeah, monopolies controlling access to public services with no oversight sucks.

wil421 1y ago
My buddy forgot his old Facebook but some scammer found his old password on one of those pwned websites. A year ago his old account started selling random things like a huge swing set in California. I always wondered what they were up to with his account of Facebook marketplace.

thrance 1y ago

I really wish Europe would consider a continent-wide ban on Meta and X. We gain nothing positive from these companies, they only serve to destabilize our democracies, disinfom citizens and ostracize people.

reconnecting 1y ago
I'm just curious how many votes your comment will get.
- thrance 1y ago
  It's currently at 5, wich is 7 more than the last one I did suggesting a similar idea.

ribcage 1y ago

[dead]

ValdikSS 1y ago

I don't know about the country you live in, but the usual 100% bullet-proof method to make your message seen by the living human being is to send a paper snail mail. You won't necessary receive the answers for your questions, but you'll get back your account. If the simple message did not help, you file a pre-trial claim and send it to them.

subscribed 1y ago
The country she lives in is plastered all over the article you didn't read :)
- dredmorbius 1y ago
  <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41833091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41833091>

dredmorbius 1y ago

Sue in small claims court. This exists in Australia: <https://www.fcfcoa.gov.au/gfl/fairwork-small-claims https://www.fcfcoa.gov.au/gfl/fairwork-small-claims> The law is what provides justice, the mechanism is the court system. There are many who try to dissuade you from this option because it is effective. Use it. Write your consumer protection entity. In much of the US that is your state attorney general's office. I believe you can start with the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission), here: <https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/problem-with-a-product-or-service-you-bought/where-to-go-for-consumer-help https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/problem-with-a-product-or-...> Write your government representatives. - City council members. - County supervisors / local councils. - State representatives / MRA. - Federal representatives / MPs. Call their office(s). Write their office(s). Email and postal mail. Follow up with them. If you don't get a sufficient response, let the office know. Australian governmental organisation: <https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/three-levels-of-government/three-levels-of-government-governing-australia https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-...> Contact NGOs advancing personal digital rights in your country. For Australia this seems to be Digital Rights Watch (<https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/ https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/>) and EFF Australia (<https://efa.org.au/ https://efa.org.au/>). These and similar organisations elsewhere should already be very familiar with account-lock-out and similar problems, and can likely direct you as to how to register your claim most effectively. Tweeting, blogging, and throwing up your hands is what Meta would most like you to do. Do more and cause them pain. Organise.

hnthrowaway4166 1y ago

LinkedIn is especially egregrious in the account restriction aspect, especially with how essential it is to many people's lives. Recently, I found that I couldn't log in to my LinkedIn account. They made the issue seem like an error, so I spent a lot of time trying to log in on different device/browser combinations. Eventually, I folded and tried to submit a support ticket, just to be met with a login page. After some searching around, I found direct links to the support forms, but none of them worked — they all displayed the same error when I tried to submit a ticket. The only other option was to contact them on Twitter. Tried to create an account just to be met with a generic "something went wrong" error, after wasting my time with what was easily the most awful CAPTCHA I've ever seen. Tried creating a new LinkedIn account — no good, they ask for phone verification and won't let me reuse my phone number. For some time, I thought my only option was going to be legal action, until a lightbulb lit up in my head. I went back to the support form, and instead of providing the email I used for my LinkedIn account, I used another email. The ticket was submitted successfully. At that point, it was clear that my account had some shadow ban in place. My only guess is that I tripped some psychotic automated system. How is it in any way acceptable that a company can essentially, and completely arbitrarily, blacklist someone from the job market like this? No notification or warning, nothing — they literally try to gaslight you with fake errors. I'm hoping that my support ticket will have some effect (not sure it will, given what I've experienced so far), or else I'll once again be left with legal action as my only recourse. So far, nothing.

Marsymars 1y ago
I also recently tripped something at LinkedIn and now it asks for me to scan a QR code with a mobile device in order to upload ID to prove the identity of my two decade-old account that has a secure password + 2FA. Given that I don’t seriously use LinkedIn (I just use it to scope out other people), I’ve just permanently stopped using it at all.