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Comment by laumars | Hacker News Reader

Again, I didn’t say I agree with the apps removal, just that Google we’re at least being internally consistent.

With regards to the app removal, do we know it is a Google management decision and not the work of an overzealous app reviewer or an algorithm (the latter being the way Google usually operate)?

The reason I talk about internal consistency is because it is hard getting the right balance between removing stuff that should be vs stuff that shouldn’t and that problem is only magnified when when doing so at scale. So if this were a management then I totally understand the pitchforks but if it’s a false positive an in algorithm then hopefully Google will rectify and we can all go back to moaning about Electron or whatever the next meme is.

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I disagree that they are being consistent. An almost-equivalent move would be suspending the entire YouTube app, and making a new entry in the Play Store after they have removed all offending content. But at least YouTube has some ability to remove content, so that would actually make more sense than suspending Podcast Addict which plays third-party-hosted media.

They’re suspending accounts on YouTube and pulling videos, just like they’re doing with apps on their Play Store. They can’t moderate the podcasts posted but they can moderate the apps and videos posted. So of course it’s internally consistent.

The real question is whether it should be consistently upheld without exceptions and the answer to that is obviously “no” because some apps are hubs to user curated content like that podcast app is.

As for your comment about them suspending their entire YouTube app, you talk as if this was a management exec decision rather than rouge judgement that will inevitably get overturned.

Google isn’t a single entity. It’s a collection of people and algorithms all making their own judgements based on Google’s policies. Sometimes they miss stuff they should moderate and sometimes they get overzealous and remove content they shouldn’t. There is such a large grey area and scope for personal judgement that you have to expect some unpopular verdicts from time to time. It’s shit but no two situations are identical so it’s a problem that’s impossible to avoid. The real tell is whether Google reverse the decision once the complaint gets escalated.

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