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It's really disheartening that these support channels are so poor. I had my bank account terminated recently for a valid support request the bank didn't want to

It's really disheartening that these support channels are so poor. I had my bank account terminated recently for a valid support request the bank didn't want to deal with as it would require a change to their concrete support script. My girlfriend had her Tumblr account terminated by some automated process and Tumblr won't respond to her. And this was devasting to her, because not only was it content she had spent a long time curating, but there were many friends of hers that she only had contact with through Tumblr due to her wish to protect her offline identity. To suddenly lose dozens of good friends overnight due to a software error was insanely depressing for her. The effects of these account terminations can be far-reaching. After watching the effect on my SO, I have to wonder how many suicides have been precipitated by an unfair account termination?

torstenvl 5y ago
I wonder what the right rule is. I think if I were running a Web 2.0 site, a deactivated account would still allow log-in for, say, 60 days, but present only an account admin panel with four options: - Appeal the deactivation, with guaranteed human review of the account if above the, say, 20th %ile of account age - Download your text and media assets - Send a message to social connections with an e-mail where to reach you - Truly delete everything within the next 24 hours (right to be forgotten, etc.)
- kingcharles 5y ago
  I think you present some excellent ideas. And I would guess some of them depend on the reason for termination (although often the reason selected by some automated processes makes no sense). In the OP's scenario, for instance, YouTube could have at least allowed his partner to export all the videos. There are some definite easy wins to be made by players in this space that don't even involve them having to hire more humans.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    Thanks! For the things that do require human review, I wonder what the best way is to scale that. It actually might be a potential business opportunity. Gig economy social media moderation. Pay $50 and YouTube contracts out with a company for $40 to pay a subcontractor $30 to spend an hour reviewing your appeal and account history and making a recommendation. It has an icky protection racket feel to it and would incentivize YouTube to be more aggressive in deactivating accounts. But... maybe it's less icky than advertising, selling your privacy for pennies, and permanently deleting your stuff?
    - kingcharles 5y ago
      And while the quality of random gig economy contractors would be pretty poor, it certainly could not be worse than no support at all as they are bound to make the correct determinations some of the time.
      - torstenvl 5y ago
        Maybe some kind of consensus protocol?
exikyut 5y ago
I am very curious to get a tad more context about the bank issue, if that's straightforward. Also, I have no idea if this will work, but: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19418165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19418165 - a bit of quote-googling (recommended to verify) suggests this person may use gmail. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- kingcharles 5y ago
  It's worth a try, thanks :) The bank (Square) issue is that I ordered something online, FedEx screwed up the delivery, it got returned to merchant, but merchant does not respond. I asked bank for chargeback, but they can't do one as the package got delivered (back to the merchant). Their support script only allows chargebacks when there is no delivery at all. They tried to get me to persuade FedEx to change the package status to nondelivered, but I refused, so they gave me the money back anyway and closed my account because it was easier than changing their immutable support script to allow for an edge case where a package was delivered, but not delivered to customer.
  - exikyut 5y ago
    Now I'm curious to find out how it works out. That comment was from a few years ago so the poster may be relatively distant to Tumblr nowadays and it might take a few additional people-hops (if it doesn't fall through) to get anywhere. I also wonder if old/deactivated non-public account data is held indefinitely (eg, private messages)... it probably is... Regarding Stripe, wow, I admittedly didn't quite read the name the first time through the paragraph, and was very surprised when I actually noticed ("...that Stripe?"). I guess it makes sense; they're similar in scale and incumbance to the big-N stuffy local banks now. A good reminder that class-leading web design isn't necessarily a function of broad-spectrum competence across the board, just a very well-paid design team lol I take it you can't reopen an account? :/ (Uh, if you'd even want to...)
    - kingcharles 5y ago
      Not Stripe - Square. I get the two mixed up also. Square is now Block, but their banking at least is still called Square. I sent an unsolicited email to the person above, and was polite about asking, but no reply yet :)

torstenvl 5y ago

I wonder what the right rule is. I think if I were running a Web 2.0 site, a deactivated account would still allow log-in for, say, 60 days, but present only an account admin panel with four options: - Appeal the deactivation, with guaranteed human review of the account if above the, say, 20th %ile of account age - Download your text and media assets - Send a message to social connections with an e-mail where to reach you - Truly delete everything within the next 24 hours (right to be forgotten, etc.)

kingcharles 5y ago
I think you present some excellent ideas. And I would guess some of them depend on the reason for termination (although often the reason selected by some automated processes makes no sense). In the OP's scenario, for instance, YouTube could have at least allowed his partner to export all the videos. There are some definite easy wins to be made by players in this space that don't even involve them having to hire more humans.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  Thanks! For the things that do require human review, I wonder what the best way is to scale that. It actually might be a potential business opportunity. Gig economy social media moderation. Pay $50 and YouTube contracts out with a company for $40 to pay a subcontractor $30 to spend an hour reviewing your appeal and account history and making a recommendation. It has an icky protection racket feel to it and would incentivize YouTube to be more aggressive in deactivating accounts. But... maybe it's less icky than advertising, selling your privacy for pennies, and permanently deleting your stuff?
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    And while the quality of random gig economy contractors would be pretty poor, it certainly could not be worse than no support at all as they are bound to make the correct determinations some of the time.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      Maybe some kind of consensus protocol?

exikyut 5y ago

I am very curious to get a tad more context about the bank issue, if that's straightforward. Also, I have no idea if this will work, but: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19418165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19418165 - a bit of quote-googling (recommended to verify) suggests this person may use gmail. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

kingcharles 5y ago
It's worth a try, thanks :) The bank (Square) issue is that I ordered something online, FedEx screwed up the delivery, it got returned to merchant, but merchant does not respond. I asked bank for chargeback, but they can't do one as the package got delivered (back to the merchant). Their support script only allows chargebacks when there is no delivery at all. They tried to get me to persuade FedEx to change the package status to nondelivered, but I refused, so they gave me the money back anyway and closed my account because it was easier than changing their immutable support script to allow for an edge case where a package was delivered, but not delivered to customer.
- exikyut 5y ago
  Now I'm curious to find out how it works out. That comment was from a few years ago so the poster may be relatively distant to Tumblr nowadays and it might take a few additional people-hops (if it doesn't fall through) to get anywhere. I also wonder if old/deactivated non-public account data is held indefinitely (eg, private messages)... it probably is... Regarding Stripe, wow, I admittedly didn't quite read the name the first time through the paragraph, and was very surprised when I actually noticed ("...that Stripe?"). I guess it makes sense; they're similar in scale and incumbance to the big-N stuffy local banks now. A good reminder that class-leading web design isn't necessarily a function of broad-spectrum competence across the board, just a very well-paid design team lol I take it you can't reopen an account? :/ (Uh, if you'd even want to...)
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    Not Stripe - Square. I get the two mixed up also. Square is now Block, but their banking at least is still called Square. I sent an unsolicited email to the person above, and was polite about asking, but no reply yet :)