Re:Patreon mistakenly shut down successfully funded project ...
by throwaway2016a on Friday July 13, 2018 @07:42AM
(#17522042)
> ... whether it was something I (unknowingly) did or if it was a mistake.
> I realized Patreon has every right to do this.
While true. I don't suspect that I would have had this much restraint. I applaud the author for resisting what must have been the urge to make a statement against Patreon, I can't help but to think it should be stronger about who as at fault here.
> (Update: Patreon notified me that my email has been unblocked and I can start a new page from scratch. Apparently it was a mistake. Armory will continue to be funded on this page to stay safe.)
At least they are voting with their wallet and not just going back to the platform. This is an awful response by Patreon. I can't believe this don't have a way to restore backers and content. They really need to make a whole new page from scratch? What the heck?
Best practice is first you suspend, give a chance for the person to respond, then you terminate after 30 / 60 / 90 days. Full deletion immediately seems like a bad software design choice.
This reminds me of the old (?) days of Paypal freezing accounts with no recourse. I could understand if someone considered this theft. Theft of future earnings in this case (past earnings in the case of Paypal).
Am I alone in thinking companies that handle money should be held to a higher standard?
Re:Patreon mistakenly shut down successfully funded project ...
by tropdrop on Friday July 13, 2018 @05:08PM
(#17526709)
It seems lately I see an article like this about once a week - "an algorithm did it" and 1 person's livelihood in shambles, with said person needing to prove they're real/not a criminal/not violating policies/not fired/ etc.
We need to think critically about how to propel legislative action requiring every company/organization using machine learning to have a human-in-the-loop that can override the mistake. It doesn't matter how good an algorithm is - thanks to the nature of probability and a large enough sample size, it will always make a mistake. The onus to correct that mistake should not fall to the victim.
Currently, if, say, one's Google's account is suspended because of a mistake, there seems to be no recourse for a victim except to stir up a large enough PR scandal. In essence - a "guilty until proven innocent" approach. Our courts don't work that way and neither should the closure of our accounts (which are, increasingly, our livelihoods).
Re:Patreon mistakenly shut down successfully funded project ...
by DanAndersen on Friday July 13, 2018 @06:14PM
(#17527319)
This is the danger of the "law is just code" mindset of companies interacting with customers/clients. In the rush to automate and process-ize interactions with "mere humans" under a Great Algorithm, they forget that effective law and processes relies not on kafkaesque bureaucracies following flowcharts blindly, but by ensuring that human judgment is kept in the loop.
Beware the rise of the techno-bureaucracy, as it is only a low-dimensional lossy encoding of what we actually want.
Re:Patreon mistakenly shut down successfully funded project ...
by squarefoot on Friday July 13, 2018 @07:13AM
(#17521929)
With size often comes excessive automation, which could be the cause: something being flagged by an algorithm and dealt with by another algorithm before a human can actually see what's happening.
Re:Patreon mistakenly shut down successfully funded project ...
by falcolas on Friday July 13, 2018 @09:56AM
(#17522997)
I have to be honest, "an algorithm did it" is a pretty poor excuse, and it gets harder and harder to swallow. People need to take responsibility for the algorithms they create and they need to be ready to step in when they fail.
Re:Patreon mistakenly shut down successfully funded project ...
by breakingcups on Saturday July 14, 2018 @12:03PM
(#17530837)
"Update: Patreon notified me that my email has been unblocked and I can start a new page from scratch. Apparently it was a mistake."
Is anyone else really worried about both the technical state of Patreon and the lackluster motivation to fix their own fuckups reading the above quote?
> I realized Patreon has every right to do this.
While true. I don't suspect that I would have had this much restraint. I applaud the author for resisting what must have been the urge to make a statement against Patreon, I can't help but to think it should be stronger about who as at fault here.
> (Update: Patreon notified me that my email has been unblocked and I can start a new page from scratch. Apparently it was a mistake. Armory will continue to be funded on this page to stay safe.)
At least they are voting with their wallet and not just going back to the platform. This is an awful response by Patreon. I can't believe this don't have a way to restore backers and content. They really need to make a whole new page from scratch? What the heck?
Best practice is first you suspend, give a chance for the person to respond, then you terminate after 30 / 60 / 90 days. Full deletion immediately seems like a bad software design choice.
This reminds me of the old (?) days of Paypal freezing accounts with no recourse. I could understand if someone considered this theft. Theft of future earnings in this case (past earnings in the case of Paypal).
Am I alone in thinking companies that handle money should be held to a higher standard?
Just off the top of my head - [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17350645
We need to think critically about how to propel legislative action requiring every company/organization using machine learning to have a human-in-the-loop that can override the mistake. It doesn't matter how good an algorithm is - thanks to the nature of probability and a large enough sample size, it will always make a mistake. The onus to correct that mistake should not fall to the victim.
Currently, if, say, one's Google's account is suspended because of a mistake, there seems to be no recourse for a victim except to stir up a large enough PR scandal. In essence - a "guilty until proven innocent" approach. Our courts don't work that way and neither should the closure of our accounts (which are, increasingly, our livelihoods).
Beware the rise of the techno-bureaucracy, as it is only a low-dimensional lossy encoding of what we actually want.
Is anyone else really worried about both the technical state of Patreon and the lackluster motivation to fix their own fuckups reading the above quote?
Maybe Patreon shouldn’t have that right?