Brandon Jackson, a Microsoft site reliability engineer, says an errant report of racist abuse led to the suspension of his Amazon account... Most of his smart home gear, he said, is self-hosted locally, via Apple HomeKit.
All we're missing is some Facebook/Google stuff and we've hit a FAANG bingo :)
Facebook already added pixels to every website and gathered all your data without your express consent. Then, requires a government issued ID + current picture to delete any account. In contrast to Amazon, Facebook doesn't want your account to be deleted; it's actively compiling data to form a "persona" of you.
I'd argue Google falls in the same category as Facebook. You have to try very hard to get a suspension from Google.
A situation like the one described in the article is not enough evidence for Facebook, Google, or Apple to suspend an account.
This is sort of a perfect storm of idiocy, frankly. What happened was that the Amazon delivery employee complained about the owner making racist remarks over the smart doorbell[1] during the delivery. This has the result, I guess, of terminating/locking/suspending/whatever the owner's Amazon account. Which... I guess is not really all that surprising? Abusive behavior online gets treated the same way.
There's an argument to be made about appeals and justice, I guess. But the mechanisms here seem to basically be working as intended. It's just another false positive. They happened with pen and paper businesses in the 1960's too.
[1] Denied by the homeowner, obviously. The story seems to check out, but at the same time it's never a great idea to believe one-sided accounts like this blindly. "I was harmed by Big Tech Run Amok" is click bait in this particular community. Always be extra careful to confirm enraging stories that confirm your priors!
> Denied by the homeowner, obviously. The story seems to check out, but at the same time it's never a great idea to believe one-sided accounts like this blindly.
If only the other side of the story was available in the original article. Much easier to figure out who to blame if Amazon went on the record.
For instance, if an Amazon spokesperson said, "In this case, we learned through our investigation that the customer did not act inappropriately, and we’re working directly with the customer to resolve their concerns while also looking at ways to prevent a similar situation from happening again."
There is a lot of focus on the smart home features in this story but I believe it is a red herring.
I’m much more concerned how easy it is for amazon to stop trading with someone. A single driver misheard a few words and that is enough to ban you?
I live in a flat and whenever I hear the post flap make the characteristic noise of something dropped through it I shout “thank you” to whoever just delivered something to me. What if a delivery driver mishears that one day? I don’t have recording devices on my door, how would I clear my name? What if a delivery driver has a genuienly bad experience somewhere and as they report it they misclick or misremember where it happened and associate my adress with it? What if someone on the street or in the building hassles the delivery driver and they mistakenly associate their trouble with me? (Because for any reason they think they were interacting with me.)
Now of course i would survive without Amazon, but it would suck greatly.
It is just crazy how easily the whole story could have ended as “amazon banned me. I called them. They told me I am a racist, I don’t think I am. They demanded evidence but there was nothing I could send them. My account remains banned. I don’t understand how it happened.” And how many times might have the above already happened before they did it with someone who had enough online clout to report the situation widely?
if anything they are likely claiming it was the driver, but was more likely the algos listening in to his every conversation through his devices in the home.
Oh? I invite you to take a job at Amazon, where you will discover more than enough evidence to remove any doubt. Cameras and mic channels can be opened at-will, across all devices (e.g., TVs, laptops, phones, Alexa devices). How? Set up an Echo device. Download the Alexa/Video/Shopping App. Connect your devices via Wifi/Bluetooth. That's it.
> A single driver misheard a few words and that is enough to ban you?
Surely that depends on the facts of the case? You'd agree that if a customer did yell racist insults at an employee through a doorbell or not, that Amazon shouldn't be required to do business with them anymore. If you were an employer in some non-tech business, and your delivery employee accused a customer of that, what would you do?
This is what's so frustrating about this kind of story. It confirms your priors so well that you don't care if it's true or not. Everyone here is just assuming that the facts are as this article claims. And maybe it's true!
But we don't know that, and in the real world there really are terrible people out there. And real businesses need real processes for dealing with real abuse.
> in the real world there really are terrible people out there. And real businesses need real processes for dealing with real abuse.
100%. Absolutely.
> Everyone here is just assuming that the facts are as this article claims.
I don’t. In fact I am tending toward thinking that there is more to the story. That is why i was entertaining the possibility that maybe the driver received real abuse, did not report it immediately and by the time they reported it they misremembered which of their many addresses from that day it was.
That would be very human, for a report to fail that way.
But I also don’t believe that made up story! It is just one of the many things which might have happened. What i do know is that I am unlikely to hurl abuse at a delivery driver. So I am not personally worried about being banned from their business for good cause. That leaves us with weird edge cases where some misunderstanding or an abusive neighboor gets me banned. And I have no control over those factors as opposed to my own behaviour which I can control.
For that to worry me I don’t need to believe the details of the story, just that amazon has a delivery driver safety system (which is great). They can completely ban you (as opposed to for example marking your address not-safe-for-delivery, which still leaves many alternative options) And in case of a dispute I have no way to prove I am innocent (because I don’t, and can’t record approaches to my place)
>Now of course i would survive without Amazon, but it would suck greatly.
When a business is so big, that not using it would make your day to day life pretty difficult, it's far past time to break them up. I think Walmart falls into the same category. When people in small towns get trespassed in Walmart, what are they going to do?
I am sure this is why they want us all to buy EVs much more than the reality of "climate". It will lead to complete control of mass population; you can shut down a persons home and vehicle remotely and they can't do much about it.
governments make mint on "climate change" politics. is they.
"paranoia" is claiming the climate is doomed when its been changing since the dawn of earth and curiously those same prophets of this doom, own and purchase ocean side property.
so who is paranoid, the denier or the, "we are all doomed if you dont buy batteries made from congo child mines" virtual-signalling mob?
Honestly this sounds like a good system overall. Many Ring owners are racist towards delivery drivers. Shutting off their accounts ie firing them as customers is appropriate. Harassment should not be tolerated.
A more common situation than the case reports is home owners getting delivery drivers fired.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 53.3 ms ] threadAll we're missing is some Facebook/Google stuff and we've hit a FAANG bingo :)
I'd argue Google falls in the same category as Facebook. You have to try very hard to get a suspension from Google.
A situation like the one described in the article is not enough evidence for Facebook, Google, or Apple to suspend an account.
There's an argument to be made about appeals and justice, I guess. But the mechanisms here seem to basically be working as intended. It's just another false positive. They happened with pen and paper businesses in the 1960's too.
[1] Denied by the homeowner, obviously. The story seems to check out, but at the same time it's never a great idea to believe one-sided accounts like this blindly. "I was harmed by Big Tech Run Amok" is click bait in this particular community. Always be extra careful to confirm enraging stories that confirm your priors!
If only the other side of the story was available in the original article. Much easier to figure out who to blame if Amazon went on the record.
For instance, if an Amazon spokesperson said, "In this case, we learned through our investigation that the customer did not act inappropriately, and we’re working directly with the customer to resolve their concerns while also looking at ways to prevent a similar situation from happening again."
That would be less one sided.
I’m much more concerned how easy it is for amazon to stop trading with someone. A single driver misheard a few words and that is enough to ban you?
I live in a flat and whenever I hear the post flap make the characteristic noise of something dropped through it I shout “thank you” to whoever just delivered something to me. What if a delivery driver mishears that one day? I don’t have recording devices on my door, how would I clear my name? What if a delivery driver has a genuienly bad experience somewhere and as they report it they misclick or misremember where it happened and associate my adress with it? What if someone on the street or in the building hassles the delivery driver and they mistakenly associate their trouble with me? (Because for any reason they think they were interacting with me.)
Now of course i would survive without Amazon, but it would suck greatly.
It is just crazy how easily the whole story could have ended as “amazon banned me. I called them. They told me I am a racist, I don’t think I am. They demanded evidence but there was nothing I could send them. My account remains banned. I don’t understand how it happened.” And how many times might have the above already happened before they did it with someone who had enough online clout to report the situation widely?
Surely that depends on the facts of the case? You'd agree that if a customer did yell racist insults at an employee through a doorbell or not, that Amazon shouldn't be required to do business with them anymore. If you were an employer in some non-tech business, and your delivery employee accused a customer of that, what would you do?
This is what's so frustrating about this kind of story. It confirms your priors so well that you don't care if it's true or not. Everyone here is just assuming that the facts are as this article claims. And maybe it's true!
But we don't know that, and in the real world there really are terrible people out there. And real businesses need real processes for dealing with real abuse.
100%. Absolutely.
> Everyone here is just assuming that the facts are as this article claims.
I don’t. In fact I am tending toward thinking that there is more to the story. That is why i was entertaining the possibility that maybe the driver received real abuse, did not report it immediately and by the time they reported it they misremembered which of their many addresses from that day it was.
That would be very human, for a report to fail that way.
But I also don’t believe that made up story! It is just one of the many things which might have happened. What i do know is that I am unlikely to hurl abuse at a delivery driver. So I am not personally worried about being banned from their business for good cause. That leaves us with weird edge cases where some misunderstanding or an abusive neighboor gets me banned. And I have no control over those factors as opposed to my own behaviour which I can control.
For that to worry me I don’t need to believe the details of the story, just that amazon has a delivery driver safety system (which is great). They can completely ban you (as opposed to for example marking your address not-safe-for-delivery, which still leaves many alternative options) And in case of a dispute I have no way to prove I am innocent (because I don’t, and can’t record approaches to my place)
When a business is so big, that not using it would make your day to day life pretty difficult, it's far past time to break them up. I think Walmart falls into the same category. When people in small towns get trespassed in Walmart, what are they going to do?
"paranoia" is claiming the climate is doomed when its been changing since the dawn of earth and curiously those same prophets of this doom, own and purchase ocean side property.
so who is paranoid, the denier or the, "we are all doomed if you dont buy batteries made from congo child mines" virtual-signalling mob?
A more common situation than the case reports is home owners getting delivery drivers fired.