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Comment by mikece | Hacker News Reader

Google says you can request a review if you believe something should not have been flagged as a ToS violation but no mention is given to any rights you have. To me this reads as "You can request whatever you want but it might not mean anything in reality.": https://support.google.com/docs/answer/2463328

Conversely, the information for how to report what you perceive as a ToS violation is far more complete: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/2463296

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Considering their history with falsely-flagged videos on YouTube, I assume this to be "you can ask for a review but we're not gonna do anything about it lol".

Not just YouTube, even play store developers who get their apps removed arbitrarily are left with talking to a robot instead of a human unless they can create enough social media storm to get some media attention and then google might finally review it.

The "but you can request a review!" handwaving all these massive tech platforms use to assuage concerns about heavy-handed (and coldly automated) policy application is really long overdue for serious consumer protection regulation.

I like to imagine the AI spits out a line like this:

> Should we ban this user? YES

Then you request a review, and the support person double-checks that the output really does say "YES" and not "NO". Then they tell you they reviewed their decision.

GDPR art 22 might protect against this (https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/).

I wonder if someone has already tried to invoke it against a Google/FB/.. ban hammer.

I used to work at a big co on system like this. The appeal button sent your job for another review. Obviously it doesn’t cost anything to click a button so almost everyone did it. Appeal jobs were split into tiers based on customer size and higher tiers were worked first. Big enough customers got the white glove treatment from their account manager. Small customers could linger for months in the queue, but could usually get the decision reversed if they tried hard enough

Still waiting for my request about my adsense ban for violating not a single ToS to be processed. 15 years. And I'd like my money back, plus interest as well.

"The AI has determined it has done nothing wrong and as punishment has deleted 50% of your files. Do not make that mistake again."

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3D8TEJtQRhw

I'm starting to change the way I'm sharing YouTube links to avoid continuing to feed that beast. I replace with the Invidious yewtu.be link. So for example, the above is: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=3D8TEJtQRhw. De-Google Detox.

Request a review from Google? Real human intervention? That's cute... but we know how this actually goes with them.

Google doesn't exactly have a great reputation for customer support.

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