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Comment by S_A_P | Hacker News Reader

Maybe this tactic will help me get my youtube account back. Any Googlers interested in a 45 year old graying software developer with a dad bod?

But seriously, I wrote a post about my youtube account getting banned and without telling me what caused it just shut down my request for review. Sounds like in all of these companies you can either have a false positive AI flag you, someone decide they dont like you online and report you for something that isnt necessarily true/the case, and then you have some tech workers who either dont care enough to really fix problems or enjoying their fiefdoms and the power they wield at strangers.

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They need to be taken to court, and this practice has to be made illegal. A service should have a valid reason for banning someone, otherwise we will end up with a group of people that are perpetually discriminated and punished by AI for no reason.

Blocking your Facebook account can lead to losing access to support groups and local marketplaces that may be important to people in need, and it is absolutely disgusting that they are allowed to kick people out for no reason.

> They need to be taken to court, and this practice has to be made illegal.

Don't you have that backwards?

I see you have your priorities sorted out. It has to be made illegal in the sense that its illegality should be recognized by a court, because it is plain discrimination.

> It has to be made illegal in the sense that its illegality should be recognized by a court, because it is plain discrimination.

In the US, at least, “plain discrimination” by private parties is generally legal, but for regulated utilities (which Facebook is not) and fairly narrow sets of specifically prohibited bases of discrimination by public accommodations.

If you want a general rule applying something like the rational basis test used as the minimum standard applicable to public discrimination to private commercial discrimination, that's a fairly radical change to the law.

But Facebook is a de facto utility.

> But Facebook is a de facto utility.

There's no such thing as a “de facto utility“.

If you mean “Facebook is the kind of thing that the government should regulate as a utility”, well, that's fine, but that's something that requires at least regulatory, if not legislative, action to make happen and set the regulatory rules (including any applicable anti-discrimination rules) for.

So, again, the applicable rules need to be created elsewhere in government before Facebook is taken to court for allegedly violating them.

> before Facebook is taken to court for allegedly violating them.

Where did I say they are to be taken to court?

That sounds like an opinion, and I disagree.

Electricity, water, natural gas, internet, and district heating are utilities. Facebook isn’t. There are no transmission lines or pipes running to each Facebook user directly from Facebook, there’s no physical reason that other social networks can’t exist.

It’s not a utility just because several billion people use it.

> internet

> no transmission lines

> no physical reason that other [social networks] can’t exist

Sorry for nitpicking, but you can get internet without transmission lines too (just as phone service) - and it's still an utility :V

But I am just nitpicking, sorry :V

It certainly doesn't operate as a utility, but rather, a publisher that relies heavily on editing. And you know what? That's probably fine. BUT...they shouldn't get section 230 protections, which are for common carriers. They can have their cake, XOR they can eat it.

> BUT...they shouldn't get section 230 protections, which are for common carriers.

No, they are expressly for what would be, under the law without Section 230, publishers.

The entire purpose of Section 230 is to allow platforms (and users!) to freely moderate content on based on their own views of what is appropriate without incurring liability as a publisher as would otherwise accrue to those exercise such control of distribution.

(Section 230 protections wouldn't be needed for common carriers, who would, as such, be forbidden from exercising the kind of editorial control which would, without a safe harbor, produce the kind of liability from which Section 230 provides a safe harbor.)

> It’s not a utility just because several billion people use it.

Yeah but you can also make the same argument for education: education is not a utility because several billion people like to be educated.

Facebook connects people and businesses, groups. It’s basically the same as if someone decided to ban you from using SMS or snail mail or libraries at this point.

What is actually the utility of Facebook?

Forum for local communities. Be it a local shop owner keeping in touch with their customers or a group of people from the same multi apartment building just having a place to be organised.

That being said I log into Facebook once every 6 months approximately. It was replaced by WhatsApp and Instagram for me, however my point still stands as much for those platforms as it is for Facebook.

In the absence of existing laws, the courts can decree if something is illegal.

Or people should stop using their product until they fix this.

There isn't always a good alternative for a service that arbitrarily denied you access. Facebook Marketplace has replaced classifieds in many places, and being denied access to the service can negatively impact people's lives.

Craigslist is still thriving and is a very viable alternative.

Is Craigslist a universal service available around the world? I'm welcomed by this message when visiting the site:

> Your request has been blocked.

> If you have questions, please contact us.

Though I think that private companies can choose who they do business with, I also think that these companies are an exception.

They are so huge they should probably be classified as a public utility of sorts. This is a tough pill to swallow for this site since it could possibly derail the tech gravy train.

Rather than regulate the company it feels like the more common solution is to force companies to split up any vertical integrations in order to reduce the barrier to compete with them.

Private companies SHOULD be able to choose who they do business with. They should also be subject to the rules everyone else is. As soon as they start getting preferential treatment through regulation, they should absolutely expect restrictions upon those rights as the cost of that preferential treatment. And of course, Section 230 provisions are absolutely preferential treatment.

their services are subsidized by other parts of the business / venture capital in a way that make normal market economics of "go to the competitor" not possible.

This is a problem with most of mega tech right now. Nobody can spin up a fair competitor to Youtube because Google can throw money from other parts of the business to keep it dominant. How are you supposed to compete fairly with Amazon when they can reinforce with AWS money?

I believe this should be the case for most web moderation, it should be mildly regulated and things like shadow banning banned (or at least stated that it's a feature somewhere). I'm not a regulation guy I prefer freedom, but if you regulate me I regulate you, for obvious reasons.

No, those are private web properties, they are free to provide or not provide you services as they wish (with the only exception that they cannot target protected categories).

I might not like it, but they are in their right. I can always create my own web property.

By that unjust actions they actually show the value in de-centralizing WWW back to good old days.

You do realize that people's lives are being impacted, right? Running services of this size comes with responsibilities, and not just to your shareholders, but to society. You can't drive competitors out of business, then restrict access to services that have become essential.

You shouldn't argue that a farmer who was kicked out from Facebook for absolutely no reason should no longer have the right to access a wider variety of local offers for farm equipment on Facebook Marketplace, or have a better chance to sell their produce.

And you shouldn't argue that people are destined for this fate for the rest of their lives because of a primitive algorithm put in place by people who have no morals.

They are not in their right. They are abusing their position, and they are harming people.

Over 5 million people can’t vote in the US because of a felony conviction. How many of them are innocent, or should have been convicted of a lesser crime, or just have done their time and should be equal again under the law? But they don’t get to vote. We shouldn’t apply a higher standard to Facebook regarding shopping than we do to our government when it comes to the vote.

The discrimination of one group of people does not lessen the need to be just with a different group, and it doesn't absolve Facebook.

I’m saying that keeping things in perspective is important. Being banned from IG/Facebook is sad. Not being allowed to vote is serious.

> Any Googlers interested in a 45 year old graying software developer with a dad bod?

Given what I’ve seen on dating apps, you’re prime material.

Yes, but is he > 6'?

basically their policies are so rediculously subjective, that the mood of the reviewer is enough to shut down an entire "business" venture. I think that's the big problem here.

Typically with a store, if you're causing harm, the community can petition for you to lose your license. And all that comes with legal protections for due process.

On youtube or instagram, your entire business which you invested time/money/body into, is entirely hanging by the thread of some employee having a decent day or finding you attractive.

> basically their policies are so rediculously subjective, that the mood of the reviewer is enough to shut down an entire "business" venture. I think that's the big problem here.

There's a near-infinite pool of people willing to sink absurd amounts of time and money and other resources into these social networks.

Pretty much everywhere is aware of the risks.

It seems to be a risk many are more than willing to take.

> It seems to be a risk many are more than willing to take.

It’s a risk they take because there’s no other choice.

No one is forcing people to start Social Media businesses.

They sell the dream, and the dream is you can be an influencer. Their mind is reinforced with it, and they are encouraged to try at every single step. So nobody is forcing, but they certainly are luring.

Same thing happened to me on my last HN comment (you probably can't see it, it's "dead"). As far as I can tell, I didn't break any rules or say anything controversial. Who do I have to sleep with to get this sorted out?

Edit: It's fixed now.

Who'd you sleep with? /s

I've also had a ban which I can find no way to appeal, I've given up hope at this point. I got banned after submitting a claim for content of mine hosted on a channel I can't access anymore, automated system banned me. Maybe one day I'll meet a googler who has some free time.

I remember reading on hn that even googlers have trouble recovering their own old accounts…

YouTube loses more money paying someone to review your case than what they stand to make if you come back. Their insurance policy for this is the guarantee that any actually large creator getting banned will generate enough PR buzz for a fully-fledged Googler to be notified and raise an internal issue about it.

Oh yeah, I remember Jordan Peterson got banned, then suddenly Joe Rogan was making a fuss on Twitter about it. Next day, boom everything back to normal.

I would pay to have a human review my case and actually do something about it. When my wife lost access to her Instagram through a 2FA cockup, I paid over $100 and about $500 of my time to get the original phone number back through a friend. It was all for naught in the end. I used to defend Google around here back in the day when they were just ambiguously evil. Now I really hate Google and Meta. They both do these kinds of things with accounts, with apps, with "fact" policing, etc. I hope the government fucks them up.

Maybe we can organize some group activities.

Where's your blog post?

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