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Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

355 points by igitur 6y ago

phendrenad2 6y ago
A lot of crying from the dev in these tweets, but has he considered that Google has a valid point? A button which appears to "report user" but really "reports content" is a big no-no in 2021, where being able to report user content is very important in a legal sense. It just feels like immature whining to me.
- hermanmx 6y ago
  What type of system would allow you report the user without the context? Banning users with consistent bad behaviour is much better for content quality than just removing content.
- okamiueru 6y ago
  I find this to be a rather strange take. Shouldn't this have been a feedback from Google to the developers, followed up by a swift change to conform, and everyone is happy? The main issue here is lack of communication, and automated removals with little recourse from developers? Complaining about this process does not seem like "immature whining" to me.
- enlyth 6y ago
  Why not give them some notice to fix it rather than just outright ban it on a Saturday? I'm surprised how many people on HN defend these hostile big corporation practices
  - veeti 6y ago
    Because it would never happen to them, they are smart enough to name their report button however our corporate overlords want it.
- creshal 6y ago
  > has he considered that Google has a valid point? Then why did Google not flag this during one of their release reviews? Randomly banning already approved apps over minor wording problems without giving devs any time to react is insane.
- panpanna 6y ago
  Since when is google in charge of app functionality and UI??
  - WolfRazu 6y ago
    Since the first Android market guidelines? There's always been standards.
    - panpanna 6y ago
      No, the only rules that Google actually enforces are about security, scamming, trademark and stuff like that. While there are guidelines for making better apps, google is happy to publish anything.
- WolfRazu 6y ago
  I don't agree this is immature, he definitely has a point that Google should consider giving even a day's leeway in cases like this. That being said, I may be in the minority here, but I wouldn't expect a button that's labeled "report user" to report the content of the message, only the user profile for things like an abusive name, fake profile etc.
- jboogie77 6y ago
  Lol you must be trolling
- ratww 6y ago
  The point is not whether Google has or not a point regarding UX, but more about banning the app and giving extra work to the team during a weekend. This is the kinda thing that could have been handled by "please submit another version with the correct text ASAP or we'll ban you in X days".
- pjc50 6y ago
  This feels like a minor point even if it's valid. This is like allowing the police to confiscate your car for a single defective bulb.
- mitchdaily 6y ago
  I too welcome the Google overlords deciding what functionality must be included in chat software owned by another company. What's next, banning European apps that allow people to sell cheese that is illegal in USA?
threatofrain 6y ago
What's hostile is the timing and bluntness of Google's treatment of developers on their platform, as well as the difficulty of getting a decent human conversation with the party you're doing business with. But if Google sets clear rules about how your bad people/behavior reporting button must look, I don't see Obvious fault in such policy.
- creshal 6y ago
  When did Google ever set clear rules? It's all rubber paragraphs that are enforced at the whim of anonymous bureaucrats who will never be held responsible for whatever decisions they make.
  - KineticLensman 6y ago
    > enforced at the whim of anonymous bureaucrats Not all of whom are human.
    - mcny 6y ago
      You could argue that someone or a some group asked for a change order and/or approved a change request with a “bot” or a piece of code.
poisonborz 6y ago
Watch the amount of these posts rise steeply in the future. Mass moderation is a Don Quixote fight, and in addition to their own products, big platforms increasingly force these policies on everything available in their app stores. There was a great thread on moderation just now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26458826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26458826
- chromanoid 6y ago
  It is probably a reaction to the pressure platforms (IMO to some extent rightfully) receive from regulators. Kicking downwards... but platforms especially app stores will probably be forced to do this anyway in the middle-term future - be it social pressure or regulatory enforcements.
panpanna 6y ago
Daily reminder that your business/project/hobby should not depend on anything controlled by Google. Edit: Despite all their shortcomings, I wouldn't mind seeing android phone makers join force and create an independent app store.
- bawolff 6y ago
  That's unrealistic if your target is android phones. You can wax poetic about the idea of an independent app store all you want, it doesn't change the facts on the ground in the current moment.
  - wheresmycraisin 6y ago
    Or you can just make a web app. Unless you are doing games or anything requiring lower-level hardware access, like a bluetooth scanner or something.
    - arkitaip 6y ago
      Why stop there? Web apps can trivially be taken down if your domain registrar, hosting provider, datacenter partner or payment solution decides to kick you out.
      - nguyenkien 6y ago
        There many hosting provider, datacenter, payment gatway to choose from. But just 2 appstore to use (technically android can have as many as you want, but how many pp use 3rd store right now?)
        em-bee 6y ago
        compare to china where google is blocked, which as a result has dozens of competing appstores. each phone brand has their own, and then some. i do believe that if google didn't have an appstore that it forces android licensees to use, then we would have a similar variety of appstores world wide.
tommilukkarinen 6y ago
This is the other side of the Play-store problem. The other side is the tax. Play store employee can ban your app = destroy your business at any time. The reason can be 'new policy', 'misunderstanding' or something more problematic, such as influence from your competitor to the employee. A 'power to destroy business', should not be a click away from some random employee.
- curiousgal 6y ago
  Except it's not, they give you time to comply with the policy.
  - kenrose 6y ago
    How much time was given in this instance?
    - drcongo 6y ago
      I don't think they read the tweets.
- avereveard 6y ago
  "they should have built their own phone with their own app store" - the hn community, when it suited their political agenda
  - throwaways885 6y ago
    What political agenda?
    - simion314 6y ago
      When the giants banned that app after the incidents in 6 January in US, you see a lot of comment like "free markets" and build your own platform from scratch including banks, ISPs and hosting. P.S. I am not from US so I am not in a blue or red camp, I just don't like it when some big corporation can lock you out of your account, decide what books you can read, what apps you can install or brick your application/device ( I am thinking at the case where Photoshop stopped working in Venezuela and how on some systems the device will contact the mother ships at boot/resume or when you launch an apo for "security" reasons that could be used in future to block you using the device or app)
jonathanlydall 6y ago
For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a "planned power outage", or as Eskom (our state owned power utility) refers to it, "load shedding". "Load shedding" is enacted whenever they have a power production capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so as to not let the power grid collapse. This app aggregates information from various data sources and provides push notifications too. It is without a doubt the best source of this information and the app being unavailable significantly affects the day to day lives of a significant portion of the South African population who use it to plan around these power outages. While the app also has a "chat" feature, it's really tangental to the primary purpose of the app and I expect that most users of the app, like myself, don't use that feature at all and only care about knowing when they will be without electricity. In case you're wondering why they hell we have load shedding, it's because Eskom is grossly incompetent. Their incompetence is hugely exacerbated by nepitism and corruption where government has historically appointed people to Eskom management positions solely as "favours", rather than on qualification for the job.
- chmod775 6y ago
  And here's a link to the app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ashwhale.sepush.eskom https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ashwhale.s...
- brodo 6y ago
  OMG. This is as bad or even worse than Texas or California...
  - pistoriusp 6y ago
    It is far worse, but South Africa has an inept and corrupt government, I wonder what the excuse is for Texas?
    - signal11 6y ago
      I suspect the truth is, in the narrow domain of electric power distribution, Texas too has an inept government that’s beholden to certain vested interests in the garb of “free markets”. This is a state that has fetishized “light touch regulation” so much that it, for most of the state, has its own grid to avoid dealing with Federal authorities. And repeatedly failed to take action to get power companies to winterize their equipment even though cold snaps in Texas are not unheard of — they’ve had disruption in 1989 and 2011, in addition to other near misses. Let’s not even get into the wisdom of a market that allows Griddy to offer wholesale prices without caps to retail customers.
toastal 6y ago
It won't solve these issues with gatekeepers fundamentally and doesn't work for all cases, but embracing PWAs means anyone can click the 'install' button for your application and side step some of this nonsense while getting a fairly robust feature set.
- orborde 6y ago
  What is a PWA?
  - doctor_eval 6y ago
    Progressive web apps - i.e. web apps
zo1 6y ago
For anyone unaware, the name of the app is a play on a swear word. "EskomSePush" is an intentional play on the phrase "Eskom Se Poes". Eskom being the power utility that provides electricity to South Africa, and has been woefully inadequate at doing so. See here for a meaning of the word Poes in Afrikaans. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/poes#Afrikaans https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/poes#Afrikaans Wonder if Google is aware of that and has been getting lots of "reports" by genuine users that are offended by this? And this weird "technicality" is just a cover for why they really got banned/taken down. They have a one-hit wonder that they're trying to ride the wave on. So instead of sticking to the functionality they had (notifications/schedule/etc) which was perfect for users, they decided to add a "comments section" it seems for people to vent their frustrations. So no sympathy from me, despite Google being in the wrong here.
- TheCapeGreek 6y ago
  So you dislike the devs because they added an optional feature? There's not much more to expand on the core functionality of notifications & schedule visibility.
  - zo1 6y ago
    I didn't say I dislike them. I'm just saying they don't get sympathy from me regarding this "User Generated Content" feature that is now being targeted by Google. They should have known this feature would be a place for people to vent in ugly ways rather than to discuss or offer advice. And South Africa right now is a hotbed of civil discontent, especially between different racial/cultural groups.
- igitur 6y ago
  Herman Maritz, the author, has stated that they were overwhelmed with app users that complained to them when there were normal unplanned power outages or when Eskom deviated from the planned load shedding schedules. The chat feature was a way for user of close proximity to confirm a power outage with each other [1]. I wouldn't call it a 'comments section'. [1] https://twitter.com/hermaritz/status/1371017176593928194 https://twitter.com/hermaritz/status/1371017176593928194
euph0ria 6y ago
The company I work for has forbidden the use of Google and their services such as GCP etc. due to how they treat their Play Store developers and other customer, in particular that there never seems to be any human being that you can talk to and find out what you need to do to fix the situation. We do not want the same to occur to our servers or if there is an overflow from Play Store ban to GCP etc. The business risk is too high when you rely on Google's services. Some examples: Terraria banned - https://twitter.com/Demilogic/status/1358661840402845696 https://twitter.com/Demilogic/status/1358661840402845696 New project banned - https://medium.com/@amton15127/why-you-should-not-use-firebase-and-google-cloud-c05fe6ccdbe8 https://medium.com/@amton15127/why-you-should-not-use-fireba... Google bans company - https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8kvias/tifu_by_getting_google_to_ban_our_entire_company/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8kvias/tifu_by_gettin... Google bans mail - https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm Ban app for communicating changes during covid - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221447 Adwords ban - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23224791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23224791 Serverpunch bad support - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17431609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17431609 Delete app - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20826618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20826618 Google bans game with pandemic - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229073 Google bans dev with no recourse - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197357
- ryan29 6y ago
  Another good example of an awful implementation can be seen in Google Workspace. Sometimes the crappy ML algorithms will generate a false positive and suspend an account for a suspicious login. Fine. I get it. It’s hard to do at scale and nothing’s perfect. The thing I’d like to have Google explain to me is why they think it’s a good idea to bounce incoming mail for a user that’s been auto-suspended by an algorithm. In what scenario would I want that, especially when the account is locked at 3:00 AM local time? That’s something that actually happened to me this weekend. For anyone at Google, NO ONE wants their incoming email bounced because of your crappy ML algorithms.
fakeyguy 6y ago
Google doesn't understand customer service. They really don't. When speaking to customers, I ask them what is the biggest issue with using a google product.They will most likely say - reaching a human being. PS: I work for a competitor of one of google's products.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Dissley 6y ago
After reading this, I think Signal is also violating this policy. I was not able to find a way to report messages or users. In comparison on WhatsApp I can report a user or group and the "most recent messages" will be forwarded to moderation. I think it is kind of strange that even a private messenger needs to implement a report system for messages.
- andreynering 6y ago
  > In comparison on WhatsApp I can report a user or group and the "most recent messages" will be forwarded to moderation. Really? So if a random person decide to report me, plain text uncrypted messages will be sent to WhatsApp? Even if this does not happen regularly, this means that WhatsApp have means to read my messages, which is scary enough.
  - Dissley 6y ago
    I dont think this confirms that WhatsApp can ready our messages. In theory it could be implemented as a simple message forward, just as any message can be forwarded in Whatsapp.
  - LorenPechtel 6y ago
    No. It means the person making the report has the ability to read the message. Of course they do, otherwise it would be completely useless. You can't stop the recipient from doing something you don't want with the message you send them.
rendall 6y ago
The app has been restored https://twitter.com/EskomSePush/status/1371423310878183426?s=20 https://twitter.com/EskomSePush/status/1371423310878183426?s...
throwawaysea 6y ago
A more fundamental question is why it is Google’s business at all to police apps or the content users generate on them. If someone finds content “objectionable”, they should just move on, and not complain or try to shut down that content. What an utterly unnecessary fiasco. We need decentralized platforms and alternatives to the hegemony of Google, Apple, and other big tech companies.
- dariusj18 6y ago
  Imagine what it would be like if the section 230 protections were eliminated.
IncRnd 6y ago
It's sad and ironic that Google used the exact same banning procedure they incorrecftly surmised the app used.
tjpnz 6y ago
This troubles me enough to start considering webviews again for my next project.
thiscatis 6y ago
Our app recently got banned a full week before being reinstated because of a non-published outdated .apk in an alpha test track that was not used. To be fair, we cleaned up our artefact management but still. Google is evil.
CivBase 6y ago
> We don't allow apps whose primary purpose is featuring or hosting objectionable [User Generated Content]. [...] your app currently only includes feature to flag inappropriate users. [...] the app must provide a user-friendly, in-app system for reporting objectionable UCG. It's user generated content. How is reporting a user functionally different from reporting content? This makes me even more driven to switch to F-Droid for everything I possibly can. Hopefully we'll see a daily-drivable Linux smartphone before too long so I can ditch Android all together.
- bena 6y ago
  The difference is the same between malice and ignorance. A user may just be wrong about something or not quite understand something. They're not trying to deliberately cause disruption, there's no need to fault the user. Remove the content, inform the user, move on. It's only a problem is a user continues to submit reported material.
  - buu700 6y ago
    Agreed, that is an important distinction. As written, the button might discourage users from ever clicking it except in the most extreme cases or until after observing a pattern over time. Which isn't to say that Google's actions are at all justified here. This kind of thing makes me extremely wary of continuing to do business with them.
  - LorenPechtel 6y ago
    Yup. I reported a message on a forum a couple of days ago. The user made a completely innocent mistake and there was nothing at all objectionable about the message--the problem is that he inadvertently doxxed himself. Elsewhere I am a moderator on a forum and I have seen exactly the same mistake, zapped it (the errant line, I left the rest of the message alone) on the spot and PMed the user--and been thanked for doing so.
djohnston 6y ago
This seems so unnecessarily hostile. Honestly if I build a side project it has to be viable as a web service, I can't imagine hinging my business on the arbitrary whims of the apple Google duopoly.
lerietaylor 6y ago
I think people forget that you don't need an app on the app on an app store to use it. The app is out there already, just give it to people. The app store simply gets rid of the "bad boy message". Stop complaining and find a way around it.
kaliali 6y ago
This is what happens when you have shitlibs in control. They want to control and keep you down in whatever way possible.
devtul 6y ago
How long until we have to validate our code against a list of banned terms, like "master" or any new truly egregiously offensive terms of the day, before we are able to host our code or binaries on a third-party service?
Farbklex 6y ago
This is my new favorite ban reason. "Reviewer glanced over functionality and decided that a required feature is probably not implemented although it is implemented. Ban immediately on a Saturday."
IshKebab 6y ago
Kind of ironic that their own mod tool apparently uses bans as the first step!

355 points by igitur 6y ago

A lot of crying from the dev in these tweets, but has he considered that Google has a valid point? A button which appears to "report user" but really "reports content" is a big no-no in 2021, where being able to report user content is very important in a legal sense. It just feels like immature whining to me.

hermanmx 6y ago
What type of system would allow you report the user without the context? Banning users with consistent bad behaviour is much better for content quality than just removing content.
okamiueru 6y ago
I find this to be a rather strange take. Shouldn't this have been a feedback from Google to the developers, followed up by a swift change to conform, and everyone is happy? The main issue here is lack of communication, and automated removals with little recourse from developers? Complaining about this process does not seem like "immature whining" to me.
enlyth 6y ago
Why not give them some notice to fix it rather than just outright ban it on a Saturday? I'm surprised how many people on HN defend these hostile big corporation practices
- veeti 6y ago
  Because it would never happen to them, they are smart enough to name their report button however our corporate overlords want it.
creshal 6y ago
> has he considered that Google has a valid point? Then why did Google not flag this during one of their release reviews? Randomly banning already approved apps over minor wording problems without giving devs any time to react is insane.
panpanna 6y ago
Since when is google in charge of app functionality and UI??
- WolfRazu 6y ago
  Since the first Android market guidelines? There's always been standards.
  - panpanna 6y ago
    No, the only rules that Google actually enforces are about security, scamming, trademark and stuff like that. While there are guidelines for making better apps, google is happy to publish anything.
WolfRazu 6y ago
I don't agree this is immature, he definitely has a point that Google should consider giving even a day's leeway in cases like this. That being said, I may be in the minority here, but I wouldn't expect a button that's labeled "report user" to report the content of the message, only the user profile for things like an abusive name, fake profile etc.
jboogie77 6y ago
Lol you must be trolling
ratww 6y ago
The point is not whether Google has or not a point regarding UX, but more about banning the app and giving extra work to the team during a weekend. This is the kinda thing that could have been handled by "please submit another version with the correct text ASAP or we'll ban you in X days".
pjc50 6y ago
This feels like a minor point even if it's valid. This is like allowing the police to confiscate your car for a single defective bulb.
mitchdaily 6y ago
I too welcome the Google overlords deciding what functionality must be included in chat software owned by another company. What's next, banning European apps that allow people to sell cheese that is illegal in USA?

threatofrain 6y ago

What's hostile is the timing and bluntness of Google's treatment of developers on their platform, as well as the difficulty of getting a decent human conversation with the party you're doing business with. But if Google sets clear rules about how your bad people/behavior reporting button must look, I don't see Obvious fault in such policy.

creshal 6y ago
When did Google ever set clear rules? It's all rubber paragraphs that are enforced at the whim of anonymous bureaucrats who will never be held responsible for whatever decisions they make.
- KineticLensman 6y ago
  > enforced at the whim of anonymous bureaucrats Not all of whom are human.
  - mcny 6y ago
    You could argue that someone or a some group asked for a change order and/or approved a change request with a “bot” or a piece of code.

poisonborz 6y ago

Watch the amount of these posts rise steeply in the future. Mass moderation is a Don Quixote fight, and in addition to their own products, big platforms increasingly force these policies on everything available in their app stores. There was a great thread on moderation just now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26458826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26458826

chromanoid 6y ago
It is probably a reaction to the pressure platforms (IMO to some extent rightfully) receive from regulators. Kicking downwards... but platforms especially app stores will probably be forced to do this anyway in the middle-term future - be it social pressure or regulatory enforcements.

panpanna 6y ago

Daily reminder that your business/project/hobby should not depend on anything controlled by Google. Edit: Despite all their shortcomings, I wouldn't mind seeing android phone makers join force and create an independent app store.

bawolff 6y ago
That's unrealistic if your target is android phones. You can wax poetic about the idea of an independent app store all you want, it doesn't change the facts on the ground in the current moment.
- wheresmycraisin 6y ago
  Or you can just make a web app. Unless you are doing games or anything requiring lower-level hardware access, like a bluetooth scanner or something.
  - arkitaip 6y ago
    Why stop there? Web apps can trivially be taken down if your domain registrar, hosting provider, datacenter partner or payment solution decides to kick you out.
    - nguyenkien 6y ago
      There many hosting provider, datacenter, payment gatway to choose from. But just 2 appstore to use (technically android can have as many as you want, but how many pp use 3rd store right now?)
      - em-bee 6y ago
        compare to china where google is blocked, which as a result has dozens of competing appstores. each phone brand has their own, and then some. i do believe that if google didn't have an appstore that it forces android licensees to use, then we would have a similar variety of appstores world wide.

tommilukkarinen 6y ago

This is the other side of the Play-store problem. The other side is the tax. Play store employee can ban your app = destroy your business at any time. The reason can be 'new policy', 'misunderstanding' or something more problematic, such as influence from your competitor to the employee. A 'power to destroy business', should not be a click away from some random employee.

curiousgal 6y ago
Except it's not, they give you time to comply with the policy.
- kenrose 6y ago
  How much time was given in this instance?
  - drcongo 6y ago
    I don't think they read the tweets.
avereveard 6y ago
"they should have built their own phone with their own app store" - the hn community, when it suited their political agenda
- throwaways885 6y ago
  What political agenda?
  - simion314 6y ago
    When the giants banned that app after the incidents in 6 January in US, you see a lot of comment like "free markets" and build your own platform from scratch including banks, ISPs and hosting. P.S. I am not from US so I am not in a blue or red camp, I just don't like it when some big corporation can lock you out of your account, decide what books you can read, what apps you can install or brick your application/device ( I am thinking at the case where Photoshop stopped working in Venezuela and how on some systems the device will contact the mother ships at boot/resume or when you launch an apo for "security" reasons that could be used in future to block you using the device or app)

jonathanlydall 6y ago

For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a "planned power outage", or as Eskom (our state owned power utility) refers to it, "load shedding". "Load shedding" is enacted whenever they have a power production capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so as to not let the power grid collapse. This app aggregates information from various data sources and provides push notifications too. It is without a doubt the best source of this information and the app being unavailable significantly affects the day to day lives of a significant portion of the South African population who use it to plan around these power outages. While the app also has a "chat" feature, it's really tangental to the primary purpose of the app and I expect that most users of the app, like myself, don't use that feature at all and only care about knowing when they will be without electricity. In case you're wondering why they hell we have load shedding, it's because Eskom is grossly incompetent. Their incompetence is hugely exacerbated by nepitism and corruption where government has historically appointed people to Eskom management positions solely as "favours", rather than on qualification for the job.

chmod775 6y ago
And here's a link to the app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ashwhale.sepush.eskom https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ashwhale.s...
brodo 6y ago
OMG. This is as bad or even worse than Texas or California...
- pistoriusp 6y ago
  It is far worse, but South Africa has an inept and corrupt government, I wonder what the excuse is for Texas?
  - signal11 6y ago
    I suspect the truth is, in the narrow domain of electric power distribution, Texas too has an inept government that’s beholden to certain vested interests in the garb of “free markets”. This is a state that has fetishized “light touch regulation” so much that it, for most of the state, has its own grid to avoid dealing with Federal authorities. And repeatedly failed to take action to get power companies to winterize their equipment even though cold snaps in Texas are not unheard of — they’ve had disruption in 1989 and 2011, in addition to other near misses. Let’s not even get into the wisdom of a market that allows Griddy to offer wholesale prices without caps to retail customers.

toastal 6y ago

It won't solve these issues with gatekeepers fundamentally and doesn't work for all cases, but embracing PWAs means anyone can click the 'install' button for your application and side step some of this nonsense while getting a fairly robust feature set.

orborde 6y ago
What is a PWA?
- doctor_eval 6y ago
  Progressive web apps - i.e. web apps

zo1 6y ago

For anyone unaware, the name of the app is a play on a swear word. "EskomSePush" is an intentional play on the phrase "Eskom Se Poes". Eskom being the power utility that provides electricity to South Africa, and has been woefully inadequate at doing so. See here for a meaning of the word Poes in Afrikaans. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/poes#Afrikaans https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/poes#Afrikaans Wonder if Google is aware of that and has been getting lots of "reports" by genuine users that are offended by this? And this weird "technicality" is just a cover for why they really got banned/taken down. They have a one-hit wonder that they're trying to ride the wave on. So instead of sticking to the functionality they had (notifications/schedule/etc) which was perfect for users, they decided to add a "comments section" it seems for people to vent their frustrations. So no sympathy from me, despite Google being in the wrong here.

TheCapeGreek 6y ago
So you dislike the devs because they added an optional feature? There's not much more to expand on the core functionality of notifications & schedule visibility.
- zo1 6y ago
  I didn't say I dislike them. I'm just saying they don't get sympathy from me regarding this "User Generated Content" feature that is now being targeted by Google. They should have known this feature would be a place for people to vent in ugly ways rather than to discuss or offer advice. And South Africa right now is a hotbed of civil discontent, especially between different racial/cultural groups.
igitur 6y ago
Herman Maritz, the author, has stated that they were overwhelmed with app users that complained to them when there were normal unplanned power outages or when Eskom deviated from the planned load shedding schedules. The chat feature was a way for user of close proximity to confirm a power outage with each other [1]. I wouldn't call it a 'comments section'. [1] https://twitter.com/hermaritz/status/1371017176593928194 https://twitter.com/hermaritz/status/1371017176593928194

euph0ria 6y ago

The company I work for has forbidden the use of Google and their services such as GCP etc. due to how they treat their Play Store developers and other customer, in particular that there never seems to be any human being that you can talk to and find out what you need to do to fix the situation. We do not want the same to occur to our servers or if there is an overflow from Play Store ban to GCP etc. The business risk is too high when you rely on Google's services. Some examples: Terraria banned - https://twitter.com/Demilogic/status/1358661840402845696 https://twitter.com/Demilogic/status/1358661840402845696 New project banned - https://medium.com/@amton15127/why-you-should-not-use-firebase-and-google-cloud-c05fe6ccdbe8 https://medium.com/@amton15127/why-you-should-not-use-fireba... Google bans company - https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8kvias/tifu_by_getting_google_to_ban_our_entire_company/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8kvias/tifu_by_gettin... Google bans mail - https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm Ban app for communicating changes during covid - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221447 Adwords ban - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23224791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23224791 Serverpunch bad support - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17431609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17431609 Delete app - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20826618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20826618 Google bans game with pandemic - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229073 Google bans dev with no recourse - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197357

ryan29 6y ago
Another good example of an awful implementation can be seen in Google Workspace. Sometimes the crappy ML algorithms will generate a false positive and suspend an account for a suspicious login. Fine. I get it. It’s hard to do at scale and nothing’s perfect. The thing I’d like to have Google explain to me is why they think it’s a good idea to bounce incoming mail for a user that’s been auto-suspended by an algorithm. In what scenario would I want that, especially when the account is locked at 3:00 AM local time? That’s something that actually happened to me this weekend. For anyone at Google, NO ONE wants their incoming email bounced because of your crappy ML algorithms.

fakeyguy 6y ago

Google doesn't understand customer service. They really don't. When speaking to customers, I ask them what is the biggest issue with using a google product.They will most likely say - reaching a human being. PS: I work for a competitor of one of google's products.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Dissley 6y ago

After reading this, I think Signal is also violating this policy. I was not able to find a way to report messages or users. In comparison on WhatsApp I can report a user or group and the "most recent messages" will be forwarded to moderation. I think it is kind of strange that even a private messenger needs to implement a report system for messages.

andreynering 6y ago
> In comparison on WhatsApp I can report a user or group and the "most recent messages" will be forwarded to moderation. Really? So if a random person decide to report me, plain text uncrypted messages will be sent to WhatsApp? Even if this does not happen regularly, this means that WhatsApp have means to read my messages, which is scary enough.
- Dissley 6y ago
  I dont think this confirms that WhatsApp can ready our messages. In theory it could be implemented as a simple message forward, just as any message can be forwarded in Whatsapp.
- LorenPechtel 6y ago
  No. It means the person making the report has the ability to read the message. Of course they do, otherwise it would be completely useless. You can't stop the recipient from doing something you don't want with the message you send them.

rendall 6y ago

The app has been restored https://twitter.com/EskomSePush/status/1371423310878183426?s=20 https://twitter.com/EskomSePush/status/1371423310878183426?s...

throwawaysea 6y ago

A more fundamental question is why it is Google’s business at all to police apps or the content users generate on them. If someone finds content “objectionable”, they should just move on, and not complain or try to shut down that content. What an utterly unnecessary fiasco. We need decentralized platforms and alternatives to the hegemony of Google, Apple, and other big tech companies.

dariusj18 6y ago
Imagine what it would be like if the section 230 protections were eliminated.

IncRnd 6y ago

It's sad and ironic that Google used the exact same banning procedure they incorrecftly surmised the app used.

tjpnz 6y ago

This troubles me enough to start considering webviews again for my next project.

thiscatis 6y ago

Our app recently got banned a full week before being reinstated because of a non-published outdated .apk in an alpha test track that was not used. To be fair, we cleaned up our artefact management but still. Google is evil.

CivBase 6y ago

> We don't allow apps whose primary purpose is featuring or hosting objectionable [User Generated Content]. [...] your app currently only includes feature to flag inappropriate users. [...] the app must provide a user-friendly, in-app system for reporting objectionable UCG. It's user generated content. How is reporting a user functionally different from reporting content? This makes me even more driven to switch to F-Droid for everything I possibly can. Hopefully we'll see a daily-drivable Linux smartphone before too long so I can ditch Android all together.

bena 6y ago
The difference is the same between malice and ignorance. A user may just be wrong about something or not quite understand something. They're not trying to deliberately cause disruption, there's no need to fault the user. Remove the content, inform the user, move on. It's only a problem is a user continues to submit reported material.
- buu700 6y ago
  Agreed, that is an important distinction. As written, the button might discourage users from ever clicking it except in the most extreme cases or until after observing a pattern over time. Which isn't to say that Google's actions are at all justified here. This kind of thing makes me extremely wary of continuing to do business with them.
- LorenPechtel 6y ago
  Yup. I reported a message on a forum a couple of days ago. The user made a completely innocent mistake and there was nothing at all objectionable about the message--the problem is that he inadvertently doxxed himself. Elsewhere I am a moderator on a forum and I have seen exactly the same mistake, zapped it (the errant line, I left the rest of the message alone) on the spot and PMed the user--and been thanked for doing so.

djohnston 6y ago

This seems so unnecessarily hostile. Honestly if I build a side project it has to be viable as a web service, I can't imagine hinging my business on the arbitrary whims of the apple Google duopoly.

lerietaylor 6y ago

I think people forget that you don't need an app on the app on an app store to use it. The app is out there already, just give it to people. The app store simply gets rid of the "bad boy message". Stop complaining and find a way around it.

kaliali 6y ago

This is what happens when you have shitlibs in control. They want to control and keep you down in whatever way possible.

devtul 6y ago

How long until we have to validate our code against a list of banned terms, like "master" or any new truly egregiously offensive terms of the day, before we are able to host our code or binaries on a third-party service?

Farbklex 6y ago

This is my new favorite ban reason. "Reviewer glanced over functionality and decided that a required feature is probably not implemented although it is implemented. Ban immediately on a Saturday."

IshKebab 6y ago

Kind of ironic that their own mod tool apparently uses bans as the first step!