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> Every action of this kind should be accompanied with clear and very specific (including time and date) specification of the reason. I can see Facebooks side

> Every action of this kind should be accompanied with clear and very specific (including time and date) specification of the reason. I can see Facebooks side of this - when you give a specific reason, you open yourself up to a lot of counter-arguments, possibly outraging news articles for a bad formulation or a not fully specific reasoning and you give intel to spammers on how you detected them. Additionally, having service reps find and cite the exact violated terms costs a lot of time and it would not even matter - FB is free to ban you if it wants, the specific reasoning would be more of a FYI. And, of course, in cases like this, where the ban was presumably unjustified or unnecessary, this is rather cruel. I fully agree. But on the other hand, FB bans probably hit bots 99% of the time and, even if not, are usually justified [0]. Opening up such a large attack surface and spending large amounts of money for the few cases where it hits a innocent (?) person is just not viable, and, as bad as it is, I can understand Facebook here. The moral of the story is, as mentioned in the article, that the actual error was to rely on Facebook. [0] I have obviously no hard data on this, but if this would happen a lot, it would be quite bad press. So I'm very sure that FB would tackle this problem if users would actually become scared of a false ban.

baybal2 6y ago
> FB bans probably hit bots 99% of the time Greatly doubt that given overt spam being so prevalent.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Confirmation bias. If, hypothetically, 99% of bots were banned and there's enough lingering, you would doubt it to be true. Although, I tend to agree with you about spam prevalence. I've reported dozens of spam/scams/fake accounts and almost every time, I'm told that the post/account "doesn't violate [their] community standards."
CogitoCogito 6y ago
> I can see Facebooks side of this - when you give a specific reason, you open yourself up to a lot of counter-arguments, possibly outraging news articles for a bad formulation or a not fully specific reasoning and you give intel to spammers on how you detected them. If the counter-arguments are reasonable, then Facebook _should_ be attacked. > Additionally, having service reps find and cite the exact violated terms costs a lot of time and it would not even matter - FB is free to ban you if it wants, the specific reasoning would be more of a FYI. I think the implicit implication is that Facebook should _not_ legally be allowed to ban you only if it wants. I would personally get behind such legislation. Sure if Facebook were just a social platform that's one thing, but it is tied to other services (e.g. Oculus) and is an identity provider for many other services. I don't believe Facebook should be able to have it both ways.
- Sebb767 6y ago
  > If the counter-arguments are reasonable, then Facebook _should_ be attacked. Yes. But this will probably end in a lot of arguing, which is good for spammers, offenders and innocent alike, but bad for Facebook in practically all cases - so seen from their side, it is all downsides, especially when the innocent make up a small proportion. Don't get me wrong - I don't think the result is good, but I can understand FB acting the way it does. > I think the implicit implication is that Facebook should _not_ legally be allowed to ban you only if it wants. [...] I'd agree to that, but I think we need to treat carefully to not create something wrong here. Forcing FB to allow you to have an account might lead to required identity documents across the industry, for example, which would hurt privacy even more. OTOH, FB should not be able to simply "void" your hardware. Steam and the Nintendo Switch, for example, only ban you from multiplayer and social functions, but you can access anything you bought still (I think). That would be a reasonable solution for the Oculus as well. Generally, removing the need for an account from hardware by legislation, unless proven to be required, seems good. Still, this would not help the guy in this article and I actually don't think we should force Facebook to allow anyone to ping random people or justify retracting free services. He should not have relied on Facebook as backup or sole point of contact. Yes, FBs conduct looks bad[0], but if he would've been realistic about the problems of a free services, the ban would be more of an inconvenience. [0] I don't want to take sides here without knowing the details of the story.

baybal2 6y ago

> FB bans probably hit bots 99% of the time Greatly doubt that given overt spam being so prevalent.

colejohnson66 6y ago
Confirmation bias. If, hypothetically, 99% of bots were banned and there's enough lingering, you would doubt it to be true. Although, I tend to agree with you about spam prevalence. I've reported dozens of spam/scams/fake accounts and almost every time, I'm told that the post/account "doesn't violate [their] community standards."

CogitoCogito 6y ago

> I can see Facebooks side of this - when you give a specific reason, you open yourself up to a lot of counter-arguments, possibly outraging news articles for a bad formulation or a not fully specific reasoning and you give intel to spammers on how you detected them. If the counter-arguments are reasonable, then Facebook _should_ be attacked. > Additionally, having service reps find and cite the exact violated terms costs a lot of time and it would not even matter - FB is free to ban you if it wants, the specific reasoning would be more of a FYI. I think the implicit implication is that Facebook should _not_ legally be allowed to ban you only if it wants. I would personally get behind such legislation. Sure if Facebook were just a social platform that's one thing, but it is tied to other services (e.g. Oculus) and is an identity provider for many other services. I don't believe Facebook should be able to have it both ways.

Sebb767 6y ago
> If the counter-arguments are reasonable, then Facebook _should_ be attacked. Yes. But this will probably end in a lot of arguing, which is good for spammers, offenders and innocent alike, but bad for Facebook in practically all cases - so seen from their side, it is all downsides, especially when the innocent make up a small proportion. Don't get me wrong - I don't think the result is good, but I can understand FB acting the way it does. > I think the implicit implication is that Facebook should _not_ legally be allowed to ban you only if it wants. [...] I'd agree to that, but I think we need to treat carefully to not create something wrong here. Forcing FB to allow you to have an account might lead to required identity documents across the industry, for example, which would hurt privacy even more. OTOH, FB should not be able to simply "void" your hardware. Steam and the Nintendo Switch, for example, only ban you from multiplayer and social functions, but you can access anything you bought still (I think). That would be a reasonable solution for the Oculus as well. Generally, removing the need for an account from hardware by legislation, unless proven to be required, seems good. Still, this would not help the guy in this article and I actually don't think we should force Facebook to allow anyone to ping random people or justify retracting free services. He should not have relied on Facebook as backup or sole point of contact. Yes, FBs conduct looks bad[0], but if he would've been realistic about the problems of a free services, the ban would be more of an inconvenience. [0] I don't want to take sides here without knowing the details of the story.