3 ms·

I've become increasingly more skeptical when I read those stories. Let me be clear, I absolutely despise Facebook, but as I understand it, they are massively u

I've become increasingly more skeptical when I read those stories. Let me be clear, I absolutely despise Facebook, but as I understand it, they are massively under fire from all sorts of governments over moderating the content which is posted on their platforms. There is a chance that this business knew they were doing something borderline dodgy in a grey area and Facebook started to weed those "bad" actors out in the moment of heat. I'm not implying that this is the case for sure, but it's not entirely impossible to imagine. Perhaps it's good that when governments take action and put pressure on FAANGs that they are even prepared to cancel a 57M customer if that means staying in business for themselves.

Gunax 6y ago
I agree that skepticism is necessary, but it's likely a lot less logical than that. They probably tripped some algorithm. This happened last year to podcast-addict (one of the most popular applications in Google's Android store) [1]. The lesson I take away is: even big players spending millions are subject to the algorithm. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219427
jonathanstrange 6y ago
That's the really bad thing about being the victim of algorithmic discrimination (like I was too with FB ads) and quasi-monopoly abuse. There are plenty of people with similar stories like this one complaining on forums like r/PPC. Dealing with Facebook is like a bureaucratic nightmare from a Kafka story even for customers who spend millions of dollars. But of course these cases remain a minority or else Facebook would already be bankrupt. That's why the majority will call these people whiners, probably guilty, and so on. Basically, what Facebook is doing is automatized slander. You've violated some policy but we don't tell you which one. You've been caught in "suspicious behavior" (an actual term used by them) but we don't tell you what we mean by that. You've tried to circumvent our policies - or maybe you haven't, just beg us to give you another chance. Let's just say it's not fun having to deal with this, and no company should rely much on Facebook ads.

Gunax 6y ago

I agree that skepticism is necessary, but it's likely a lot less logical than that. They probably tripped some algorithm. This happened last year to podcast-addict (one of the most popular applications in Google's Android store) [1]. The lesson I take away is: even big players spending millions are subject to the algorithm. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219427

jonathanstrange 6y ago

That's the really bad thing about being the victim of algorithmic discrimination (like I was too with FB ads) and quasi-monopoly abuse. There are plenty of people with similar stories like this one complaining on forums like r/PPC. Dealing with Facebook is like a bureaucratic nightmare from a Kafka story even for customers who spend millions of dollars. But of course these cases remain a minority or else Facebook would already be bankrupt. That's why the majority will call these people whiners, probably guilty, and so on. Basically, what Facebook is doing is automatized slander. You've violated some policy but we don't tell you which one. You've been caught in "suspicious behavior" (an actual term used by them) but we don't tell you what we mean by that. You've tried to circumvent our policies - or maybe you haven't, just beg us to give you another chance. Let's just say it's not fun having to deal with this, and no company should rely much on Facebook ads.