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That's my point, if it's not clear exactly why the account is disabled, it is irresponsible of Signal to create a blog post blaming it on Facebook simply not li

That's my point, if it's not clear exactly why the account is disabled, it is irresponsible of Signal to create a blog post blaming it on Facebook simply not liking their ad campaign. This isn't a couple of Tweets sent out harmlessly by Signal during troubleshooting, they wrote an official blog post about it. Signal should have verified the problem first, then ran the ads campaign and posted a legitimate response from Facebook regarding why. The situation makes Signal look nefarious.

toast0 6y ago
When Facebook says you can't use your account to run ads, how do you verify the problem? Does that channel actually work? How would one know they could use that channel? Since there's no contact link or phone number on the thing that says you can't run ads. I guess the moral of the story is FB doesn't care about user experience for users or advertisers.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> if it's not clear exactly why the account is disabled, it is irresponsible of Signal to create a blog post blaming it on Facebook This is called the benefit of doubt, and it’s something you lose when your company and culture gain a reputation of chronically lying to the public, regulators and legislature.
- NoPicklez 6y ago
  I would be cautious of writing blog posts and sharing tweets based on the benefit of doubt, when the information you provide to substantiate your argument shows signs of going against your claim. Facebook would likely reject thousands of ad campaigns as they would go through an automated clearance platform. Therefore why are there no rejected ads at all in the screenshots provided by Signal. Without that information I would have expected Signal to have dug deeper to resolve the issue to find the reason why before launching a public claim. As I said in my earlier post, it's not the benefit of doubt but conjecture.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > would be cautious of writing blog posts and sharing tweets based on the benefit of doubt Facebook has lost the benefit of doubt. That means when one is in doubt, Facebook isn't given the benefit of assumed good faith. > when the information you provide to substantiate your argument shows signs of going against your claim Reading this as someone who doesn't use Facebook Ads on a day to day basis, I don't see anything in their evidence that goes against their claim. It's only the fact that multiple credible accounts on HN have corroborated that claim of Facebook's that leads me to trust it. At the very least, the messaging therein sows doubt. You've repeated similar comments across this thread. It might make sense to consider where the other side is coming from. This may come down to nothing more than horrible UI at a predictably sensitive time combined with Facebook's arrogance in believing they can skate by with minimal support costs and Signal's trigger finger on its Twitter account.
    - NoPicklez 6y ago
      I disagree, Signal claimed that their ads were rejected. Yet the images provided show that for the campaign in question there were no rejected ads. They need to provide something a little more accurate to argue that. My argument is based on the fact that Signal have come out with an official blog post about it, because they believe that Facebook have rejected their ads and have disabled their account because of the campaign. They have not said that Facebooks UI is confusing and they’re unable to figure out how to unblock their account, they have made the assumption that the campaign was rejected because and I quote “Facebook is more than willing to sell visibility into people’s lives, unless it’s to tell people about how their data is being used. Being transparent about how ads use people’s data is apparently enough to get banned; in Facebook’s world, the only acceptable usage is to hide what you’re doing from your audience.”. This is a massive call to make and is a big overstep in judgement without much to substantiate your claim (based on the images). Even if it was due to Facebook’s confusing UI, I think it is irresponsible for Signal to simply assume this is what Facebook have done and why. If it has come down to what you say it has, it does not look good for Signal.

toast0 6y ago

When Facebook says you can't use your account to run ads, how do you verify the problem? Does that channel actually work? How would one know they could use that channel? Since there's no contact link or phone number on the thing that says you can't run ads. I guess the moral of the story is FB doesn't care about user experience for users or advertisers.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> if it's not clear exactly why the account is disabled, it is irresponsible of Signal to create a blog post blaming it on Facebook This is called the benefit of doubt, and it’s something you lose when your company and culture gain a reputation of chronically lying to the public, regulators and legislature.

NoPicklez 6y ago
I would be cautious of writing blog posts and sharing tweets based on the benefit of doubt, when the information you provide to substantiate your argument shows signs of going against your claim. Facebook would likely reject thousands of ad campaigns as they would go through an automated clearance platform. Therefore why are there no rejected ads at all in the screenshots provided by Signal. Without that information I would have expected Signal to have dug deeper to resolve the issue to find the reason why before launching a public claim. As I said in my earlier post, it's not the benefit of doubt but conjecture.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > would be cautious of writing blog posts and sharing tweets based on the benefit of doubt Facebook has lost the benefit of doubt. That means when one is in doubt, Facebook isn't given the benefit of assumed good faith. > when the information you provide to substantiate your argument shows signs of going against your claim Reading this as someone who doesn't use Facebook Ads on a day to day basis, I don't see anything in their evidence that goes against their claim. It's only the fact that multiple credible accounts on HN have corroborated that claim of Facebook's that leads me to trust it. At the very least, the messaging therein sows doubt. You've repeated similar comments across this thread. It might make sense to consider where the other side is coming from. This may come down to nothing more than horrible UI at a predictably sensitive time combined with Facebook's arrogance in believing they can skate by with minimal support costs and Signal's trigger finger on its Twitter account.
  - NoPicklez 6y ago
    I disagree, Signal claimed that their ads were rejected. Yet the images provided show that for the campaign in question there were no rejected ads. They need to provide something a little more accurate to argue that. My argument is based on the fact that Signal have come out with an official blog post about it, because they believe that Facebook have rejected their ads and have disabled their account because of the campaign. They have not said that Facebooks UI is confusing and they’re unable to figure out how to unblock their account, they have made the assumption that the campaign was rejected because and I quote “Facebook is more than willing to sell visibility into people’s lives, unless it’s to tell people about how their data is being used. Being transparent about how ads use people’s data is apparently enough to get banned; in Facebook’s world, the only acceptable usage is to hide what you’re doing from your audience.”. This is a massive call to make and is a big overstep in judgement without much to substantiate your claim (based on the images). Even if it was due to Facebook’s confusing UI, I think it is irresponsible for Signal to simply assume this is what Facebook have done and why. If it has come down to what you say it has, it does not look good for Signal.