by reuven on 10/19/23, 6:32 AM with 493 comments
by Xixi on 10/19/23, 8:07 AM
It came as a surprise as it was perfectly fine by them for as long as it was a sole proprietorship. Which is why I strongly suspect the rejection came from an AI. At the time of rejection we were still using the Stripe account of the sole proprietorship, and surely a human would have noticed and blocked that account if it was actually running against Stripe ToS!?!
It doesn't make any sense to me. In any case, I know that financial regulations are stringent and payment providers are often required to leave us in the dark. But is it frustrating...
Now I'm stuck with PayPal for the time being. Unless they, too, decide that selling green tea is against their ToS.
By the way, does anyone know if it's ok to re-attempt to open an account with Stripe? Our offering has been evolving, so we might very well be within their ToS now?
EDIT: wording
by zmmmmm on 10/19/23, 9:05 AM
I definitely think there need to be laws made about this. Because it's really clear that the market has no power to correct this behaviour - yet it can be utterly devastating to individuals when they have life long bans put in place on what are (whether you like it or not) pretty much essential online services.
by miki123211 on 10/19/23, 2:15 PM
* The Scunthorpe problem, AOL didn't let users set their hometown to Scunthorpe because of the "cunt" substring. This is a classic.
* Amazon banning sales of Guns N' Roses merch (because guns).
* People named Miranda having issues with bank transfers (because of the substring "Iran").
* Some games displaying the nickname "Nasser" as "N*er", suggesting that it is the n word.
Alexa not being able to say "pussycat" properly, which is an issue to this day.
* Parental control software that filtered on "anal" in URLs, which also affected "analysis".
* Another parental control software that removed any file with "sex" in the name. This also included "sysext". I know of a school whose entire computer room got bricked because of that bug, the IT person decided it would be a good idea to update all the computers to Windows 10 at once, without checking for software incompatibilities first.
* The British politician Dominic Cummings not being able to set up a Twitter account.
by Fischgericht on 10/19/23, 8:39 AM
And the rest went the same as with you: Appeal process is done by a bot who only knows one answer: "We are right, you violated our ToS, your account is blocked, this decision is final".
Oh how I miss the times when an organization for which you potentially are making a lot of money was still willing to hire a human for customer support...
And of course in these days, where your whole business may depend on being able to advertise or sell on the small number of platforms, a bot may decide to kill my business and company at any time. It's scary.
by fauigerzigerk on 10/19/23, 8:40 AM
I used to have a Facebook account ~13 years ago before their real name policy came into force, but I closed it because I found it awkward to refuse or accept so many contact requests by people from my distant past.
Now unfortunately I can't access the Facebook group that is the only source of information for important things going on in the building I live in. My wife does have access though, so it's not a big deal.
It seems the only way for me to get around Facebook's real name policy is to use a fake name. But I guess that wouldn't allow me to advertise on Facebook or use any of their developer related stuff.
by deredede on 10/19/23, 7:43 AM
That is a convoluted way to say you'll do business with companies that accept your business. Google is known for fully automated bans on your full account, not just the advertising part.
by jonathanstrange on 10/19/23, 8:16 AM
One solution to this problem would be a law that 1. mandates to give users the information when they are dealing with an algorithm only, and 2. forces companies to make it possible to contact humans within a specific time frame. I very much hope at least the EU will enact such a law soon.
Apart from monumental wastes of time with AI interactions for which no one is compensated, the thing that worries me most is that either AI "customer support" cannot do anything of substance anyway or the AI is given the power to make substantial changes to user settings, billing, etc. The first option means the company is bullshitting their customers, the second option can have very undesirable consequences.
by nologic01 on 10/19/23, 11:26 AM
There is nothing wrong with using technology to empower humans (in this case Meta employees) to be more efficient in processing information. But removing the human from the loop in matters that affect other humans (whether in small or major ways) is a disastrous direction.
Coincidentally on the frontpage of the Financial Times today: "Meta’s Yann LeCun argues against premature AI regulation".
by andyjohnson0 on 10/19/23, 8:07 AM
by gertrunde on 10/19/23, 12:54 PM
Can you imagine a big tech employee having to say to a judicial person, "The system automatically blocked the user, then automatically denied their appeal, and we have no way to know why, because there is no evidence or other supporting data because we deleted it all."
Surely any form of arbitration or legal scrutiny would turn that into an instant default judgement against the tech giant?
And while I would generally support the right of any business to choose who to do business with, there comes a point when a business becomes somewhat monopolistic, and a gatekeeper of access to the market, at which point these kinds of decisions need to have a reasonable route of appeal.
It remains to be seen if the behaviour of these companies will change in response to legislation, for example the EU Digital Markets Act has some obligations relating to "Allowing business users to access end users" that may be relevant.
by sharts on 10/19/23, 9:12 AM
It's just straight up bad product management and development. Some small group of people decided to make this the behavior and implement it.
Don't attribute to machines that which was clearly malice, ignorance, or apathy (or all of the above) by the builders.
by ota85 on 10/19/23, 7:56 AM
I've noticed that Meta offers much better support than Google. They have excellent tech support, at least for higher ad spend tiers. I feel like talking to a human, who seems to care. I think they assign us based on ad spend to more knowledgeable teams. From Google I've never heard a peep from a competent person.
by kioleanu on 10/19/23, 7:35 AM
by elorant on 10/19/23, 7:20 AM
by TheOtherHobbes on 10/19/23, 8:38 AM
It would be even more ironic if it was Python code that made the decision.
by anonzzzies on 10/19/23, 7:41 AM
by shiroiuma on 10/19/23, 7:20 AM
Is it just me, or does it seem like Facebook/Meta has always been much dumber about how to actually run a business than other big tech companies? I think they just got where they are because they filled a void with Facebook and took advantage of network effects. Nothing they've ever done has really seemed all that "good" to me overall, except little bits and pieces.
Most recently, I got forced onto their "Messenger" app, because they basically disabled the "Messenger Lite" app. This new app is MUCH larger and more bloated, has a bunch of features I don't care about, and now won't even let me log in because "waiting for network". A little searching online seems to show this is a common problem and everyone hates this app, and many more are pissed that they've been forced off the Lite app.
by dhfbshfbu4u3 on 10/19/23, 12:26 PM
by silent_cal on 10/19/23, 1:50 PM
I ended up finding a random Facebook corporate email address online and I just kept spamming it in hopes that a human would actually read it and do something about it. To my surprise, it actually worked.
by qwerty456127 on 10/19/23, 9:33 AM
by mordae on 10/19/23, 8:12 AM
Also, banning somebody and not keeping the relevant evidence, not showing the evidence to the client so that they can archive the case themselves to appeal in court? You don't have any anti-discrimination laws to prevent sellers choose their customers on subjective basis?
Because at this point Facebook cannot prove that the people violated the ToS and thus Facebook is restricting the services it offers to then.
by hakanderyal on 10/19/23, 8:13 AM
Usual methods for getting around this is creating business accounts via relatives, giving yourself admin rights and using that. Some have success with fake profiles.
That doesn't guarantee against banning of the new accounts, you just move on to new ones.
Because ROI is so damn good on these platforms, people put up with all kinds of BS to use them.
by neontomo on 10/19/23, 6:40 AM
I'm convinced you'll be better off advertising elsewhere anyway, Facebook is a big advertising platform for sure, but are your coding students there? Maybe. I think they're here and on YouTube. :-)
by dizzydes on 10/19/23, 8:51 AM
I don't think we can blame this on all AI customer management/support, either. Google Ads assigned us an account manager for the first 90 days, we've upped our spend because they gave us good guidance and we saw conversions.
The irony that Meta remains a cesspit for fake news.
by sydneycatalyst on 10/19/23, 10:28 AM
Facebook/Meta don’t accept messages from people banned for life. The NSW small business ombudsman won’t touch the case because they only will resolve cases with companies that have Australian contact details.
My history on Facebook is pretty boring. Family photos and news about my advocacy for blind and low vision people and the occasional work post. Pretty mundane stuff.
This article is useful because I thought I was the only one.
I’m not sure about my next steps. I am probably required to notify the uni but I also don’t want to create trouble for them.
by hoofhearted on 10/19/23, 1:48 PM
My Facebook account was the admin on a page for a business that we had for 10 years.
At some point in the last year, FB apparently flagged my advertising account and seeked request. I didn't respond in time, and that account is now permenantly banned from advertising with no way to request a review lol..
Whatever! I figured the universe was telling me that the good old days of advertising to real people on FB were gone.
I did however want to start gathering insights on potential audiences with the Meta pixel; so I just simply created a new Facebook account, and then a new page with 0 advetising history.
That seemed to work, and haven't had any issues.. Old account is still flagged; and I just have to flip between my accounts when I actually use FB.
by quietbritishjim on 10/19/23, 8:33 AM
by raverbashing on 10/19/23, 8:04 AM
> That’s right: I teach courses in Python and Pandas
Hah I suspected that was going to be the punchline, but waited for confirmation
It is believable. What is not so much is that they did a review with real people
by easyThrowaway on 10/19/23, 8:36 AM
One of the most hilarious cases came up with southern-italian style braised fennels, whose internal machine-translation naming by meta was not exactly LGBTQ friendly.
As I said in a previous post, most of these cases were usually resolved trough the legal department of the agency, It was considered basically a requirement of being in the ad business.
by helpfulmandrill on 10/19/23, 9:14 AM
Total lack of accountability.
Guess I'm never buying anything from Ebay.
by cowsandmilk on 10/19/23, 11:14 AM
by traveler01 on 10/19/23, 7:48 AM
They are probably banning most smaller advertisers and sticking with the largest ones.
by rexreed on 10/19/23, 10:10 AM
by josephcsible on 10/19/23, 2:13 PM
by sol8 on 10/19/23, 2:15 PM
by geek_at on 10/19/23, 10:05 AM
First they wouldn't let us add credit cards or normal accounts, just Paypal.. okay
Then (after many support calls and cases always by different agents of course) they activated our credit card. One payment got through then no more. Meanwhile on Meta side the "unpaid balance" is rising because they won't charge the card (support didn't help, mixed us up twice and invited us to a video call that was booked by someone else already)
Total madness. They just won't let us pay them
by herbst on 10/19/23, 9:28 AM
After a week or so Facebook suddenly banned all my ads about cotton masks my grandmum has sewn. I tried to publish one ad again and since then have been banned forever.
No way to contact, no way to ask why. No warning and no rule changes at this point.
by ezoe on 10/19/23, 10:50 AM
These software giants never take a responsibility of wrongful automated result for decades but we keep using it.
Meta doesn't have an incentive to fix this case. It costs them manual labor of many manhours that outweigh the ad revenue from this person.
It probably keep this way.
by halukakin on 10/19/23, 8:28 AM
by Neil44 on 10/19/23, 9:24 AM
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...
by kayxspre on 10/19/23, 4:03 PM
Another annoying things is the use of affiliate links to online marketplace (Lazada is a notable example; sometimes it can lead to a more sinister destination, such as malware-dropping site) masquerading as a link to news site, which was often spammed in a comment below the news post. They even typed in my language even though the account appears to be based in Indonesia or the Philippines. I have heard numerous people reporting this, but so far the situation isn't improving at all (and can even get worse)
by Oras on 10/19/23, 10:42 AM
I'm not defending Meta and I agree that AI shouldn't used to review appeals, but the title is clearly a clickbait. Based on the article, they banned you because AI thought you're trading live animals not because you're teaching Python.
So I'm curious to see the original title and ad image.
by JacobSeated on 10/19/23, 9:44 AM
Same lack of proper review prevents people from restoring hacked accounts, even in cases where it is completely obvious that the accounts were hacked. E.g. The name and/or e-mail was changed by a user in a different country than the account owner.
If Facebook has access to such sophisticated AI, then it is quite amazing that they cannot deduce (even without AI) that an account was hacked. A set of if statements in their code should be enough to check for typical suspicious circumstances. E.g. The user is suddenly in a different country, and happen to change their name (highly unusual and very suspicious circumstances)!!
by graphitout on 10/19/23, 12:11 PM
These big companies don't care much about small users and can be quite nasty in their language. They have no interest to make the process fair because they have all the power.
by dghughes on 10/19/23, 11:49 AM
You have to take a picture of yourself yes a selfie (yuck) and send it to Instagram. The funny thing is I have no selfies on Instagram so what are they using or comparing my selfie to? I was unblocked and that was that no idea what happened.
by EchoReflection on 10/25/23, 12:10 AM
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sex-murder-and-the-m...
by dalbasal on 10/19/23, 9:45 AM
The incentives are just stacked towards not having policies.
First once you have a policy, that policy can be criticised. Nothing withstands criticism these days. Politics also lost its explicit policy statements for the same reason.
If one politician has a policy plan, his opponent's "policy" will be a critique of his plan and that gives the opponent an edge.
Second, once e have a policy, you need to implement it. FB is better resourced than all the others, but none of these "policies" are even designed to be implemented broadly.
Vagueness just serves, and if you aren't vague you will regret it.
If you are clear, there will be a ton of criticism of your clear policy. Then there will be criticism of your imperfect implementation.
If you're vague and concommital, you can half implement a half baked plan plan and change or drop it when you want.
by dbg31415 on 10/19/23, 3:40 PM
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/facebooks-name-policy-...
by browningstreet on 10/19/23, 3:21 PM
by michaelbuckbee on 10/19/23, 9:17 AM
by Rebuff5007 on 10/19/23, 3:12 PM
This is a product failure, an engineering failure, a research failure, etc. etc. I don't mean to pick on just this one exampl as there are instances in all of big tech [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...
by awinter-py on 10/19/23, 1:06 PM
if you're an agency or if you're large enough to have an account manager, things go smoothly
if you have facebook / insta cred and try to build a following on top, you're probably also okay
but if you get on there to build a business from scratch, and don't have the budget or creative team, it doesn't work for you. I tried last year, learned some tricks, but ultimately came away with 'this isn't what my business needs right now'
by wodenokoto on 10/19/23, 9:50 AM
by queuebert on 10/19/23, 1:09 PM
With many smaller companies in a competitive environment, some would be forced to provide a good customer experience to differentiate their service. Theoretically, at least.
(Note the advertisers are the customers, not the users.)
by kunley on 10/19/23, 10:55 AM
In other words, the problem is that suddenly a machine is not only making laws but also executing them. But we as a society did not agree to hand our laws to the machine. Luckily, the area where these laws apply, is very narrow atm - it is only the fb space. But the tendency seems alarming.
by RecycledEle on 10/19/23, 10:27 AM
Everyone who has ever had feelings with me should be able to leave feedback on me, and I should be able to leave feedback on everyone I ever dealt with.
It should be illegal to share a calculated score for money. Instead, a scripting interface similar to Excel formulas should allow us all to write out own metrics for who is a good guy and who is a bad guy.
by realusername on 10/19/23, 12:52 PM
They do still send me ToS updates by email though like it somehow matters and that I'm somehow bound to it.
by logicchains on 10/19/23, 9:52 AM
by tim333 on 10/19/23, 11:26 AM
by selcuka on 10/20/23, 1:53 AM
I noticed this when an email that was routed through smtp123.essex.hp.com or something similar never arrived to my mailbox.
by varispeed on 10/19/23, 9:18 AM
I'll never touch advertising again. It seems to be designed for start ups with VC money to burn and not small business.
by intended on 10/19/23, 10:45 AM
The review loop should at least have gone to a person. It’s hard to assume both review loops missed something like that.
I have never put ads on FB - I would assume that there is at least a tagging, or topic orientation for ads (Education, Coding, CS, IT, for example).
The fact that the full ban came so quickly after the appeal is also very strange.
by bagels on 10/19/23, 8:38 AM
You need someone there to submit an oops for you.
by punnerud on 10/19/23, 8:47 PM
If you check the sender they just created the account, and the link looks like Facebook.
I get this within a couple of hours after my first advertisement on a new page. This is probably phishing, and I guess it was not Facebook contacting you in the first place.
by peteridah on 10/19/23, 11:11 AM
by throwme_123 on 10/19/23, 9:35 AM
But the good news is you'll never advertise again on Meta and you can inspire others to do the same. These giants have too much power and since the justice system that should break them up is corrupt or not willing to do the job, it is up the users to do it.
by Rastonbury on 10/19/23, 2:50 PM
by cvccvroomvroom on 10/19/23, 4:12 PM
When I started there, the mere act of visiting the 2FA page caused an irreversible hellban... not once, not twice, but 3x. Each page on Facebook is really a Hack controller with many layers of abstraction and various byzantine messes behind them.
by FedorinoGore on 10/19/23, 10:51 AM
by decafbad on 10/19/23, 12:07 PM
by ht85 on 10/19/23, 11:43 AM
by welder on 10/19/23, 7:35 AM
by estebarb on 10/19/23, 10:45 AM
by efitz on 10/19/23, 5:54 PM
by iefbr14 on 10/19/23, 8:46 AM
by nojvek on 10/19/23, 12:58 PM
No one has cracked proper reasoning AI based like human commonsense. Human commonsense is legit really hard.
by bryanrasmussen on 10/20/23, 7:37 AM
by __mharrison__ on 10/19/23, 3:23 PM
Does Python run into this as well?
Do Facebook ads for technical content work. If you have successfully done this, I would love to chat.
by yayr on 10/19/23, 10:46 AM
by btbuildem on 10/19/23, 1:24 PM
by __mharrison__ on 10/19/23, 3:20 PM
(We're friends who both happen to be Python and Pandas trainers.)
by anthomtb on 10/19/23, 3:16 PM
Meta, whatever this "technology" may be, you did not use it correctly.
by foreigner on 10/19/23, 10:26 AM
by xigency on 10/19/23, 7:40 AM
by nabla9 on 10/19/23, 10:13 AM
Meta staff have been hijacking Facebook, Insta accounts (and few dozen have been fired for doing so). It would be not surprising if some working for Meta, or their spouse or friend, is doing what you are doing and they are cutting your legs.
by felipemesquita on 10/19/23, 11:25 AM
by gigatexal on 10/19/23, 9:16 AM
by deagle50 on 10/19/23, 11:10 AM
by jfoster on 10/19/23, 10:27 AM
Seems they are busy creating filters & banning accounts, just not the right ones.
by lakomen on 10/19/23, 2:50 PM
What do people do who don't have friends at Meta?
by toasted-subs on 10/19/23, 9:01 AM
A lot of these services seem so Integrated into living stopping people from using them seems like taking a rights away from people.
Especially with digital laws being added in CA wouldn't be surprised if we as citizens get to control the digital oligarchs within the next 20 years.
by jbverschoor on 10/19/23, 10:22 AM
by deagle50 on 10/19/23, 11:11 AM
by pastyboy on 10/19/23, 7:18 AM
by lbriner on 10/19/23, 8:09 AM
How much quicker would this be resolved if the first AI said, "your account has been blocked because we detected an advert related to live animals" to which you could appeal with your one sentence reason, "these are not animals, they are programming languages with the same names as animals" which would take a very cursory check and continue to bring in advertising revenue.
I think like another poster it is probably true that if you were spending a lot, you would have been given more time to argue your case. For someone who brings in $10 a month, it's not worth their time.
by thedudeabides5 on 10/19/23, 1:58 PM
by pr337h4m on 10/19/23, 8:15 AM
If this is true, that is insanely embarrassing for a company that purports to be a sophisticated programmatic advertising platform.
by nmfisher on 10/19/23, 7:23 AM
I don’t really care how good Meta is on the open source side of things. They’re still a horrible company when it comes to literally everything else.
by nobi on 10/19/23, 7:39 AM
by klyrs on 10/19/23, 7:31 AM
Pretty weird how they delete the evidence after 180 days, but apparently the automatic review is still able to pass final judgement after that window closes.
by nonrandomstring on 10/19/23, 7:52 AM
You're right of course. Axiomatically there is always "something to be done".
But corporate technology brings out laziness, contempt for others, a lack of self-respect and a blindness to ethics.
It seems we don't understand why yet. Despite a great start in social tech critique in the 1960s from people like Ellul, Postman and Mumford, it remains a frontier of psychology and computer science where almost nobody dares to tread.
Maybe a sincere and sustained research programme would turn-up that most of the systems we build today are psychologically and socially harmful to us.
Perhaps this mirrors the way it took us half a century to see how fossil fuels and unbounded growth were invisibly destroying our ecological foundations, only this time we are destroying the capital of social bonds, mutuality and care, long term planning and so much more.
It is ironic then, that these engines of societal decay like Meta started out life being called "social networks".
by nottorp on 10/19/23, 7:43 AM
What? Google has humans? Where?
by mvdtnz on 10/19/23, 7:42 AM
It definitely sounds like something has gone wrong, but OP is jumping to conclusions on pretty thin evidence. I'm also conscious we're only hearing one side of a story here. How many people have come to HN to complain about being banned from Stripe only for it to turn out they were running an illegal crypto casino or whatever.
by mikojan on 10/19/23, 9:55 AM
by lambda_garden on 10/19/23, 8:45 AM
by philipwhiuk on 10/19/23, 10:22 AM
Does no-one else find this slightly fishy?
by Zetobal on 10/19/23, 10:28 AM
by megous on 10/19/23, 11:01 AM
It happens all, the, time. Also this non-sense is repetitive here, with nothing new to add, nothing technical, nothing intersting.
Just useless filler content, to induce some fake indignation towards some useless entertainment platform that will change nothing.