Comment by _qulr
5 years ago
> If every abuser requests those explanations (which they will)
It's not a request, it's a requirement. If your account is suspended, you deserve an explanation. You should get one without having to request it.
I'm not saying that companies shouldn't be able to suspend accounts temporarily. I'm simply saying that there needs to be a way to get your account unsuspended if you're innocent. The way it "works" now is that innocent consumers are without any recourse whatsoever.
I heard on a podcast recently that a trading system needs to keep logs of why a particular trade was executed for several years just in case the authority wants it. So it isn't too much effort to build a similar report or log of behaviour to explain why someone was banned.
Obviously this will also help the spammers who will use this information to get around the filters.
Complete speculation because I don't actually know how this works, but I wonder if the explanation would be something like this:
"You've been banned because our black box ML algorithm says your usage patterns share similar traits to those of known spammers."
Some government decisions are indirectly forbidden from using black box "algorithms" because they are obligated by law to explain (on demand) the steps that the algorithm took to reach its decision. Maybe something like this should also apply to some private companies ?
Thats kinda what the PayPal support told me when I asked why half of my in-store payments via Google Pay get rejected.
Most were payments of about 2€ in the same store next to work.
Whatever I dont use it anymore
Podcast link: https://www.twoscomplement.org/, I think it was the latest episode.
For the record, they don't give away these explanations because such explanation would hint the spammer to what they should _not_ do next time, to avoid getting caught. Same as with anticheat software.
> they don't give away these explanations because such explanation would hint the spammer to what they should _not_ do next time
We've heard this excuse countless times, but it's simply not acceptable. The foundation of our legal system is that it's better to let a criminal go than to punish an innocent person. How many innocents have to get caught in the crossfire before we start protecting them?
This isnt criminal law. This is the right a private property owner (say the owner of a bar) has to kick you out. There are some limits on that (e.g. a restaurant can't kick black people out) but for the most part a business that doesnt want your business doesnt have to serve you, right or wrong.
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the legal system deals with a finite number of people; the internet enables that finite number of people to act as a potentially infinite number of entities, without a great way of disaggregating them into people.
E.g. if a spammer can pretend they're 10 million different people, and each of those "people" requests an explanation, the whole system grinds to a halt.
This is the reason behind a push for more KYC-like verification on these platforms (e.g. asking for IDs). But this comes at a huge privacy cost for legitimate users. So one way or another people who are real, legitimate and with good intentions somehow pay the cost of the harm that is being done on the internet. This is a hard problem.
Source: am thinking/working on this sort of stuff; not representing my employer, my opinions are my own etc. etc.
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When someone is in court on charges of child abuse, maybe we don't want them to know in case they (After serving their sentence) or their friends go for reprisals. Maybe the next child abuser might know their likely avenue of getting caught. Yet still we tell them the charges and evidence and give them a chance to defend themselves. Often in my country, given the damage such allegations could cause to both the victim and alleged (but not yet proven) perpetrator, we don't even reveal the identities of culprits until there's a guilty verdict.
If we can extend that courtesy to people accused of child abuse, surely we should extend it to people accused of internet spam?
I imagine if that happen in real courts. And You got jail without any info on why on how to evade - or You will behave properly on not go in jail
Well it would still be better, because it's at least documented what kind of activity will lead into that.
You don't have to tell them how you detected them but you can tell them what they did wrong. A lot of times when these cases come up there is nothing in the reason you got banned that would help you avoid the ban. It's purely to avoid any kind of accountability (if they say you got banned for a reason that is plainly not true because their algorithms suck)
It would also give non-spammers a better understanding of why they were banned and teach them to be better humans. It’s this lack of empathy that’s leading to more and more anger online.
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/810/
I think we give up on that when we agree to the rule
Google has the right to suspend, remove your account without prior notice
I'm sure there should be a clause like that in their TOS