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I think the worst thing that they do is disable your ability to send messages. This weekend a friend committed suicide, and I had just started a seven day ban d

I think the worst thing that they do is disable your ability to send messages. This weekend a friend committed suicide, and I had just started a seven day ban due to idiotically posting the wrong photo (a nude) to a meme group. Whereas most of my closest friends have me on WhatsApp, so I could reassure them I was ok, it was really fucking horrible getting a bunch of Messenger messages asking if I was ok and being completely unable to respond to them. Poor timing I know, but if they expect people to use and depend upon Messenger, it's actually really irresponsible to take away the ability for people to communicate with each other, plus I see no benefit in doing that. Most of my friends I eventually managed to get in contact with in other ways, but others I couldn't. Sure it's technically my fault for posting smut whilst drunk, but hindsight is 20/20 and we all make mistakes. Furthermore, there appears to be absolutely no form of appeals process or a way to say, get the ban suspended due to it being some messed up times. With great power comes great responsibility.

King-Aaron 9y ago
I know it's not directly on-topic, but I find it amazing that people end up copping a seven-day ban for a bit of titty, but then nothing is done for those videos of people killing puppies and shit.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  There are plenty of racist extremist kooks on FB, and their posts are rarely - if ever - banned. Apparently a stray nipple is more of a threat to society.
  - InitialLastName 9y ago
    A stray nipple is a cheaper binary test than "above some threshold of ideological hatefulness"
    - jjnoakes 9y ago
      "cheaper binary test" shouldn't be the way to decide though.
      - AlexandrB 9y ago
        It's the quintessential Computer Science way to decide. "Which algorithm has lower complexity? Nudity filter? Ok, use that one." This is why it's very frustrating that any equivalent of "the public square" on the internet is almost always owned by a private entity.
  - antihero 9y ago
    Full disclaimer, this was a picture of me where my dick is kinda visible - I was intending on uploading it to a secret adult only group where this shit is consensual which I know is taking a bit of a risk, but it harms/affects absolutely no-one, but accidentally posted it to the wrong group.
- olavk 9y ago
  On the other hand, I find it interesting that everytime somebody is complaining about censorship on Facebook, they are almost always following up with complaints of some other objectionable content not being censored. The think about the nipple ban is it is a really simple rule and it is really easy to decide if a picture contains a nipple or not.
  - 659087 9y ago
    I suspect Zuckerberg had a traumatic breast feeding experience as a teenager, and decided if he can't do it anymore, nobody can.
    - dang 9y ago
      Please don't do this here.
  - antihero 9y ago
    Only girl nipples though, which is another stupid thing.
- antihero 9y ago
  I think it was my third time to be honest, I probably fully deserved it, I just think taking away people's ability to speak privately to people is verging on cruel and unusual, and from an uncaring perspective a fucking terrible way to instil trust in your service. Like hey, do you want to use one of these messengers where you wont get banned for utter bullshit, or do you want to entrust your communication to a service where you can lose it for an arbitrary period for breaking some of our shitty prudish rules?
Mikushi 9y ago
> there appears to be absolutely no form of appeals process It's a common problem with these giants (Facebook, Google, Twitter). Being an area that does not generate profit there is not attention paid to it, or just the bare minimum. Though I understand the difficulties to scale something like that to hundred of millions of users. Even if a small fraction want to appeal whatever ban they received that could be quite the mass of people to deal with.
- facetube 9y ago
  They flat-out have evidence of offers of bribery in exchange for fake news site takedowns – right now, along with the Senate intelligence committee – and have failed to act. They're knowingly turning a bling eye to criminal activity because it is in their profit interest.
- Domenic_S 9y ago
  > Being an area that does not generate profit there is not attention paid to it, or just the bare minimum. I don't buy that. Amazon Associates/Google adwords/etc have a long history of silently banning people who are actively generating revenue for them with no recourse.
Matt3o12_ 9y ago
Well, they banned you because they want you to stop posting inappropriate pictures (as defined by their TOS). They also stopped you from using their messager because they were afraid you would just continue sending inappropriate picture using private messages (which would make their ban completely useless). I agree though that they should have let your friends know that you cannot answer any messages for X amount of days. My tip is to just stop using any social networks when you are intoxicated because their will be a permanent record of the things you have done and said which is almost never good. It is so much more fun without a mobile fun anyways.
- throwanem 9y ago
  > Well, they banned you because they want you to stop posting inappropriate pictures (as defined by their TOS). No, they banned him because they can do what they damn well please, and their approach to content moderation starts with a hammer and escalates from there. It would've sufficed to delete the offending post and issue a warning, even ban him from the group where he misposted the nude. Completely severing access, for a week, from a primary means of social interaction, is vastly disproportionate - that's something you do because someone has demonstrated a clear pattern of deliberately shitty behavior, not because he got loaded and acted the fool one time. Considering the extent to which Facebook has inveigled itself into so many people's social lives, and the consequent scope and impact its moderation actions may have, I think it's long past time that some severe regime of external regulation be imposed on the corporation, whether by legislation - although that's a forlorn hope at best in the US, where Congress is largely useless no matter who's in it at any given time - or by shareholder activism, as someone else here suggested. I'm not the man to run that project, but I'd surely buy a few shares to participate in it. To be clear, I don't want Facebook fixed, because I don't think it can be. I want Facebook gone, engineered out of profitability - and thus out of existence - and replaced with a world in which no new Facebook can arise because everyone can both own her data and identity outright, and participate in what we now call "social networking" without having to make herself beholden to any corporate behemoth at all. It's possible! There are a lot of smart, capable people working on it, and more join in every day. Eventually, someone's going to hammer that stake into Facebook's heart. Before then, finding a way to enforce nuance upon it is a good place to start. Facebook hurts people every day, and cares not at all that it does so. As we work toward the ultimate goal of killing it, we do well also to reduce its ability to do this sort of harm.
kidsil 9y ago
A super easy solution to this would've been disabling your ability to send new messages, but enabling your ability to respond to incoming chats. This way even a hypothetical spammer case is properly blocked..

King-Aaron 9y ago

I know it's not directly on-topic, but I find it amazing that people end up copping a seven-day ban for a bit of titty, but then nothing is done for those videos of people killing puppies and shit.

TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
There are plenty of racist extremist kooks on FB, and their posts are rarely - if ever - banned. Apparently a stray nipple is more of a threat to society.
- InitialLastName 9y ago
  A stray nipple is a cheaper binary test than "above some threshold of ideological hatefulness"
  - jjnoakes 9y ago
    "cheaper binary test" shouldn't be the way to decide though.
    - AlexandrB 9y ago
      It's the quintessential Computer Science way to decide. "Which algorithm has lower complexity? Nudity filter? Ok, use that one." This is why it's very frustrating that any equivalent of "the public square" on the internet is almost always owned by a private entity.
- antihero 9y ago
  Full disclaimer, this was a picture of me where my dick is kinda visible - I was intending on uploading it to a secret adult only group where this shit is consensual which I know is taking a bit of a risk, but it harms/affects absolutely no-one, but accidentally posted it to the wrong group.
olavk 9y ago
On the other hand, I find it interesting that everytime somebody is complaining about censorship on Facebook, they are almost always following up with complaints of some other objectionable content not being censored. The think about the nipple ban is it is a really simple rule and it is really easy to decide if a picture contains a nipple or not.
- 659087 9y ago
  I suspect Zuckerberg had a traumatic breast feeding experience as a teenager, and decided if he can't do it anymore, nobody can.
  - dang 9y ago
    Please don't do this here.
- antihero 9y ago
  Only girl nipples though, which is another stupid thing.
antihero 9y ago
I think it was my third time to be honest, I probably fully deserved it, I just think taking away people's ability to speak privately to people is verging on cruel and unusual, and from an uncaring perspective a fucking terrible way to instil trust in your service. Like hey, do you want to use one of these messengers where you wont get banned for utter bullshit, or do you want to entrust your communication to a service where you can lose it for an arbitrary period for breaking some of our shitty prudish rules?

Mikushi 9y ago

> there appears to be absolutely no form of appeals process It's a common problem with these giants (Facebook, Google, Twitter). Being an area that does not generate profit there is not attention paid to it, or just the bare minimum. Though I understand the difficulties to scale something like that to hundred of millions of users. Even if a small fraction want to appeal whatever ban they received that could be quite the mass of people to deal with.

facetube 9y ago
They flat-out have evidence of offers of bribery in exchange for fake news site takedowns – right now, along with the Senate intelligence committee – and have failed to act. They're knowingly turning a bling eye to criminal activity because it is in their profit interest.
Domenic_S 9y ago
> Being an area that does not generate profit there is not attention paid to it, or just the bare minimum. I don't buy that. Amazon Associates/Google adwords/etc have a long history of silently banning people who are actively generating revenue for them with no recourse.

Matt3o12_ 9y ago

Well, they banned you because they want you to stop posting inappropriate pictures (as defined by their TOS). They also stopped you from using their messager because they were afraid you would just continue sending inappropriate picture using private messages (which would make their ban completely useless). I agree though that they should have let your friends know that you cannot answer any messages for X amount of days. My tip is to just stop using any social networks when you are intoxicated because their will be a permanent record of the things you have done and said which is almost never good. It is so much more fun without a mobile fun anyways.

throwanem 9y ago
> Well, they banned you because they want you to stop posting inappropriate pictures (as defined by their TOS). No, they banned him because they can do what they damn well please, and their approach to content moderation starts with a hammer and escalates from there. It would've sufficed to delete the offending post and issue a warning, even ban him from the group where he misposted the nude. Completely severing access, for a week, from a primary means of social interaction, is vastly disproportionate - that's something you do because someone has demonstrated a clear pattern of deliberately shitty behavior, not because he got loaded and acted the fool one time. Considering the extent to which Facebook has inveigled itself into so many people's social lives, and the consequent scope and impact its moderation actions may have, I think it's long past time that some severe regime of external regulation be imposed on the corporation, whether by legislation - although that's a forlorn hope at best in the US, where Congress is largely useless no matter who's in it at any given time - or by shareholder activism, as someone else here suggested. I'm not the man to run that project, but I'd surely buy a few shares to participate in it. To be clear, I don't want Facebook fixed, because I don't think it can be. I want Facebook gone, engineered out of profitability - and thus out of existence - and replaced with a world in which no new Facebook can arise because everyone can both own her data and identity outright, and participate in what we now call "social networking" without having to make herself beholden to any corporate behemoth at all. It's possible! There are a lot of smart, capable people working on it, and more join in every day. Eventually, someone's going to hammer that stake into Facebook's heart. Before then, finding a way to enforce nuance upon it is a good place to start. Facebook hurts people every day, and cares not at all that it does so. As we work toward the ultimate goal of killing it, we do well also to reduce its ability to do this sort of harm.

kidsil 9y ago

A super easy solution to this would've been disabling your ability to send new messages, but enabling your ability to respond to incoming chats. This way even a hypothetical spammer case is properly blocked..