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When will platforms start to be charged for their mistakes? Pretty sure if they had to make financial compensations for their mistakes, they would start using

When will platforms start to be charged for their mistakes? Pretty sure if they had to make financial compensations for their mistakes, they would start using humans more often to support this crap automated system. You would start to see more people being able to reach human support, getting human replies, etc. Would be pretty easy - for each day without reply, fine X. For X day of suspension, fine Y. And so on. If they give tools for people to make their lively hood on, then they are responsible for their mistakes. This is happening for far too long, on too many platforms: Youtube, Amazon, Twitch... only if you have special access to insiders, or if you're some kind of celebrity, or you reach a massive outcry, is when you are able to reach a human that solves your problem rather quickly? I say that's bullshit. Make them pay.

true_religion 6y ago
When you enter into a contract with Twitch, the language basically says "neither of us puts any money into this venture to begin with, and we share profits as they come and none of us is responsible for any losses incurred by the other". The same language that keeps Twitch from being responsible here, keeps you from being responsible if your controversial content causes advertisers to pull out of Twitch, making them lose potential profits.
golemotron 6y ago
What does the contract say?
zamadatix 6y ago
The ToS makes no guarantee it'll be there to make your livelihood on tomorrow because you are today. Tomorrow it could say "no music, we don't like that noise" and you'd be shit outta luck because video hosting isn't a public service. Not to mention this doesn't solve anything, who arbitrates the absolute mountain of disputes that come out of this which is just the same thing moved up a level? Especially when someone boys a competitor. The "simple" idea would take hundreds of pages of detail to even be implementable before we started talking about if it was a good idea.
- nowledge 6y ago
  i love that we are running out of jobs in hundreds of fields (especially adjusted to population growth) but the idea of creating jobs to enforce anything against billion dollar monopolies is just crazy talk. 'WHO?! HOW?!' bleated the corporate apologists from safely inside their own privileges.
  - zamadatix 6y ago
    The idea of whether or not a job is efficient to exist is independent of this. There are other ways to distribute money than creating jobs with output we don't need. I.e. maybe this is something we decide is a useful public service and we do create some public department to arbitrate this - great, we created the work because we said the work was worthwhile. My guess is most don't consider a place to host your videos/livestreams a public service though and trying to regulate the private companies in a way they'd function like a public service instead would both be unpopular and extraordinarily inefficient/complicated. The comment at the end of your comment is probably what triggered the negative response here at HN for what it's worth.
wolco2 6y ago
If he leaves the platform they end up paying some ad revenue / membership fees back from what they would normally get.
helsinkiandrew 6y ago
> When will platforms start to be charged for their mistakes? When they start to charge their customers. I know I’ll get downvoted first this, but this kind of thing happens because each user in general is earning them cents and the the only way to enforce their policies is to do it on mass with automation and review by a human if the person complains (and then often rushed and not very well). Although some large accounts will get account managers and are handled more carefully. The truth is that even if these are deleted, their viewers will just spend their time watching others.
- jowsie 6y ago
  In this case with Twitch, the person needing the support is the partnered streamer, who is earning them substantially more than cents.
  - helsinkiandrew 6y ago
    Yes, but a large proportion of a streamers viewers will just spend their time watching another streamer. We have our favourites but there’s always a second best that I’d spend my time watching.
barney54 6y ago
This is driven by overly cautious attorneys. Twitch has obviously been attacked by some rights holders so they over compensate in an effort to protect themselves from future legal challenges.
codingdave 6y ago
You make them pay by abandoning them as a customer. Stop streaming. Stop watching. Fining businesses who make mistakes is a dangerous path. That means anyone new to the industry who tosses up their first project is open to getting fined if they make a mistake. It also means there is either some organization in charge of being the watchdog for the industry with power to just apply fines to companies as they see fit... or we are doing this via lawsuits which just means cranking up litigation to absurd levels. No, it is better to pressure businesses via our own choices to only patronize those who treat their customers and subscribers well. We talk about it all the time on here - stop using Facebook, stop using Google, find alternatives that match your ideals. We need to truly embrace those types of grassroots change if we want to drive behavioral changes.
- annexrichmond 6y ago
  Instead of fining businesses, perhaps the answer is litigation. I’m not sure what their TOS says, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it protects from this, but yeah, the liability should be that you open yourself up to being sued if you erroneously remove a user from your platform, who is using it as their job
  - supportlocal4h 6y ago
    codingdave already gave the answer. If you are dissatisfied with the service, cease to employ it. If bad actors are protected by barriers to entry, work to lower the barriers. Competition is your best hope. Chasing artificial alternatives is a poor choice.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    Litigation on what basis? The service I pay nothing to use accidently took down my video. Case dismissed.
    - rolph 6y ago
      the service regardless of payment was withdrawn to your detriment without notice, thats the thin edge. the body of the wedge is any financial damages. You cant sell or give out snake oil for free and have no repercussions, caveat emptor only goes so far.
Aunche 6y ago
They do get charged for their mistakes. When creators lose money, Twitch loses money too. For copyright infringement, humans aren't much any better (see the Katy Perry/Flame lawsuit). Even if the solution was more human review, it would be unprofitable to allow smaller channels to monetize, and inevitably people would complain about that too.
Rick1 6y ago
Never, because it's impossible to have a platform if keeping something content up gets them fined AND taking content down gets them fined. They don't have perfect knowledge of how a court would rule in each case, so they err on the side of caution. Remove the side of caution and you can't have a platform.
root_axis 6y ago
This perspective is completely baffling to me. This was an algorithmic mistake not a targeted attacked, Twitch is also a free service the use of which is a privilege not a right. This is just a product of the business environment surrounding copyrighted works and advertising, Twitch would be perfectly happy to continue raking in cash from everything on the platform, but that just isn't possible. If you just think about how things work for a second its obvious that twitch and other video platforms have a huge incentive NOT to take things down, but somehow people discount the profit motive for these services.
- libertine 6y ago
  Yet it doesn't baffle you that you can be a victim of a algorithmic mistake, and you can't even reach anyone that can help you? This was an algorithmic mistake of a celebrity, what about the other algorithmic mistakes?
whack 6y ago
> When will platforms start to be charged for their mistakes? Pretty sure if they had to make financial compensations for their mistakes, they would start using humans more often to support this crap automated system. How exactly would you enforce this? Media companies have the right to not show content from a given artist, at any time, for any reason. If you passed a law saying that twitch has to pay fines for false DMCA takedowns, they would simply take down the same artist anyway, without giving them any reason whatsoever. Which hurts the artist even more - now they can't even appeal the decision, because they would have no idea why it occurred
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  It’s easy to blame the platforms here, but this is just a symptom of the root problem. This will continue to be an issue as long as most art is controlled by litigious conglomerates trying to protect their cash cows. The immediate fix is to fine the entities filing false DMCA claims, not the platforms enforcing them. The longer term fix is to take away power and control from these giant corporations and give it back to the artists.
- coryrc 6y ago
  Public businesses are held to higher standards on choosing who to do business with than individuals, so why shouldn't monopolies be held to even higher standards? No secret takedowns, only allowed method is to follow the dmca law process, not take down whatever they want whenever they want. If they don't want to do that, then they can choose to not be a monopoly by raising prices significantly and leave room for competitors.
- bostik 6y ago
  > If you passed a law saying that twitch has to pay fines for false DMCA takedowns You have to dig deeper, beyond the platforms themselves: make it extremely expensive and dangerous to file copyfraud claims. As long as the incentives are in favour of carpetbombing, you will have lots of casualties. Repeating something I have said before, it feels to me the correct solution would be to go full Hammurabi on the perverse incentives. To eliminate the asymmetric warfare, one change would be enough. -- If a company, or an agent acting in their name, files a fraudulent copyright takedown, then the victim of that takedown gets to choose one item from that company's catalog that will become public domain. The company also becomes liable for all the lost [royalty] income for the creators of that particular item. The point is not to eliminate takedowns or make them technologically less effective. Goal should be to eliminate the incentives on abusing them, and make the depletion of culture a bad default.

true_religion 6y ago

When you enter into a contract with Twitch, the language basically says "neither of us puts any money into this venture to begin with, and we share profits as they come and none of us is responsible for any losses incurred by the other". The same language that keeps Twitch from being responsible here, keeps you from being responsible if your controversial content causes advertisers to pull out of Twitch, making them lose potential profits.

golemotron 6y ago

What does the contract say?

zamadatix 6y ago

The ToS makes no guarantee it'll be there to make your livelihood on tomorrow because you are today. Tomorrow it could say "no music, we don't like that noise" and you'd be shit outta luck because video hosting isn't a public service. Not to mention this doesn't solve anything, who arbitrates the absolute mountain of disputes that come out of this which is just the same thing moved up a level? Especially when someone boys a competitor. The "simple" idea would take hundreds of pages of detail to even be implementable before we started talking about if it was a good idea.

nowledge 6y ago
i love that we are running out of jobs in hundreds of fields (especially adjusted to population growth) but the idea of creating jobs to enforce anything against billion dollar monopolies is just crazy talk. 'WHO?! HOW?!' bleated the corporate apologists from safely inside their own privileges.
- zamadatix 6y ago
  The idea of whether or not a job is efficient to exist is independent of this. There are other ways to distribute money than creating jobs with output we don't need. I.e. maybe this is something we decide is a useful public service and we do create some public department to arbitrate this - great, we created the work because we said the work was worthwhile. My guess is most don't consider a place to host your videos/livestreams a public service though and trying to regulate the private companies in a way they'd function like a public service instead would both be unpopular and extraordinarily inefficient/complicated. The comment at the end of your comment is probably what triggered the negative response here at HN for what it's worth.

wolco2 6y ago

If he leaves the platform they end up paying some ad revenue / membership fees back from what they would normally get.

helsinkiandrew 6y ago

> When will platforms start to be charged for their mistakes? When they start to charge their customers. I know I’ll get downvoted first this, but this kind of thing happens because each user in general is earning them cents and the the only way to enforce their policies is to do it on mass with automation and review by a human if the person complains (and then often rushed and not very well). Although some large accounts will get account managers and are handled more carefully. The truth is that even if these are deleted, their viewers will just spend their time watching others.

jowsie 6y ago
In this case with Twitch, the person needing the support is the partnered streamer, who is earning them substantially more than cents.
- helsinkiandrew 6y ago
  Yes, but a large proportion of a streamers viewers will just spend their time watching another streamer. We have our favourites but there’s always a second best that I’d spend my time watching.

barney54 6y ago

This is driven by overly cautious attorneys. Twitch has obviously been attacked by some rights holders so they over compensate in an effort to protect themselves from future legal challenges.

codingdave 6y ago

You make them pay by abandoning them as a customer. Stop streaming. Stop watching. Fining businesses who make mistakes is a dangerous path. That means anyone new to the industry who tosses up their first project is open to getting fined if they make a mistake. It also means there is either some organization in charge of being the watchdog for the industry with power to just apply fines to companies as they see fit... or we are doing this via lawsuits which just means cranking up litigation to absurd levels. No, it is better to pressure businesses via our own choices to only patronize those who treat their customers and subscribers well. We talk about it all the time on here - stop using Facebook, stop using Google, find alternatives that match your ideals. We need to truly embrace those types of grassroots change if we want to drive behavioral changes.

annexrichmond 6y ago
Instead of fining businesses, perhaps the answer is litigation. I’m not sure what their TOS says, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it protects from this, but yeah, the liability should be that you open yourself up to being sued if you erroneously remove a user from your platform, who is using it as their job
- supportlocal4h 6y ago
  codingdave already gave the answer. If you are dissatisfied with the service, cease to employ it. If bad actors are protected by barriers to entry, work to lower the barriers. Competition is your best hope. Chasing artificial alternatives is a poor choice.
- root_axis 6y ago
  Litigation on what basis? The service I pay nothing to use accidently took down my video. Case dismissed.
  - rolph 6y ago
    the service regardless of payment was withdrawn to your detriment without notice, thats the thin edge. the body of the wedge is any financial damages. You cant sell or give out snake oil for free and have no repercussions, caveat emptor only goes so far.

Aunche 6y ago

They do get charged for their mistakes. When creators lose money, Twitch loses money too. For copyright infringement, humans aren't much any better (see the Katy Perry/Flame lawsuit). Even if the solution was more human review, it would be unprofitable to allow smaller channels to monetize, and inevitably people would complain about that too.

Rick1 6y ago

Never, because it's impossible to have a platform if keeping something content up gets them fined AND taking content down gets them fined. They don't have perfect knowledge of how a court would rule in each case, so they err on the side of caution. Remove the side of caution and you can't have a platform.

root_axis 6y ago

This perspective is completely baffling to me. This was an algorithmic mistake not a targeted attacked, Twitch is also a free service the use of which is a privilege not a right. This is just a product of the business environment surrounding copyrighted works and advertising, Twitch would be perfectly happy to continue raking in cash from everything on the platform, but that just isn't possible. If you just think about how things work for a second its obvious that twitch and other video platforms have a huge incentive NOT to take things down, but somehow people discount the profit motive for these services.

libertine 6y ago
Yet it doesn't baffle you that you can be a victim of a algorithmic mistake, and you can't even reach anyone that can help you? This was an algorithmic mistake of a celebrity, what about the other algorithmic mistakes?

whack 6y ago

> When will platforms start to be charged for their mistakes? Pretty sure if they had to make financial compensations for their mistakes, they would start using humans more often to support this crap automated system. How exactly would you enforce this? Media companies have the right to not show content from a given artist, at any time, for any reason. If you passed a law saying that twitch has to pay fines for false DMCA takedowns, they would simply take down the same artist anyway, without giving them any reason whatsoever. Which hurts the artist even more - now they can't even appeal the decision, because they would have no idea why it occurred

jakelazaroff 6y ago
It’s easy to blame the platforms here, but this is just a symptom of the root problem. This will continue to be an issue as long as most art is controlled by litigious conglomerates trying to protect their cash cows. The immediate fix is to fine the entities filing false DMCA claims, not the platforms enforcing them. The longer term fix is to take away power and control from these giant corporations and give it back to the artists.
coryrc 6y ago
Public businesses are held to higher standards on choosing who to do business with than individuals, so why shouldn't monopolies be held to even higher standards? No secret takedowns, only allowed method is to follow the dmca law process, not take down whatever they want whenever they want. If they don't want to do that, then they can choose to not be a monopoly by raising prices significantly and leave room for competitors.
bostik 6y ago
> If you passed a law saying that twitch has to pay fines for false DMCA takedowns You have to dig deeper, beyond the platforms themselves: make it extremely expensive and dangerous to file copyfraud claims. As long as the incentives are in favour of carpetbombing, you will have lots of casualties. Repeating something I have said before, it feels to me the correct solution would be to go full Hammurabi on the perverse incentives. To eliminate the asymmetric warfare, one change would be enough. -- If a company, or an agent acting in their name, files a fraudulent copyright takedown, then the victim of that takedown gets to choose one item from that company's catalog that will become public domain. The company also becomes liable for all the lost [royalty] income for the creators of that particular item. The point is not to eliminate takedowns or make them technologically less effective. Goal should be to eliminate the incentives on abusing them, and make the depletion of culture a bad default.