Comment by ashtonkem
5 years ago
You’d think that there’d be a “this person is high profile and any automated bans will cause a stink” flag on accounts to require human review on such decisions, but apparently one of the richer companies in the world just can’t be bothered to hire a few extra people to avoid a PR problem.
That or they’re convinced that they’re this close to fixing the automated system, which they obviously are not.
> That or they’re convinced that they’re this close to fixing the automated system, which they obviously are not.
Knowing Google's engineering culture, you're probably spot-on. Ignoring long-tail events like this one is a common failure mode of this kind of relentless metrics-driven optimization (and they should know better).
On the other hand, I'd prefer they fix this process for everyone and not just those with X twitter followers.
I'm completely uninterested in making waves on social media, but I still expect services (whether paid or free) to work as advertised considering I'm not misbehaving. If they don't want me as customer/user, then say so and I'll find another provider.
As an end user, I agree. But Google clearly doesn’t care in the slightest about the end user; if they did we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’m thinking about this from Google’s own self interest only.
> You’d think that there’d be a “this person is high profile and any automated bans will cause a stink” flag on accounts
What does high profile mean? I've heard of Leon Spinks, the boxer, but I've never heard of Andrew Spinks in my life until today. People with 5 digit Twitter follower counts are actually a dime a dozen.
Even people who were obscure can become "high profile" for a day. That's how going viral works.
Surely the creator of a video game that's sold tens of millions of copies, who also has an on-going business relationship with your company passes the bar?
My point is that literally millions of people could be considered "high profile". Does (the recently deceased) Leon Spinks pass the bar? I could go on naming semi-famous people indefinitely, they all ought to pass this bar.
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Andrew Spinks isn't famous, but Terraria is. This probably cost Google a few million dollars for botching a simple customer support case.