Imagine being unable to buy food because an algorithm determined that “you violated our community standards” and there’s no way to contact them. One or two stories like that will kill Libra stone dead.
If Libra ignored these rules, they'll put these guys (or at least a part of their offerings) out of business
This is called money laundering, people go to jail for it.
Ive had similar thoughts about paypal for a long time after they randomly shut down one of my accounts for unspecified suspicious activity and was doing everything possible to not deal with it and fix their mistake. And I know I wasn't the only one either. And yet it still survives to this day.
My favourite thing is how they wait for you to put money in and then lock your account for ID verification/adding a bank account. They know that 99% of people would just exit the site if they had to verify on registration, so they wait until you get paid, holding your money hostage so you have no choice but to verify or lose the money. Skrill is the worst, their ID verification is all automated, wonder if they deleted my $900 yet after 2 years because i just couldn't be bothered sending ID for a 5th time.
> Imagine being unable to buy food because an algorithm determined that “you violated our community standards” and there’s no way to contact them. One or two stories like that will kill Libra stone
This already exists. If your bank's AML algorithm flags certain transactions, your account will be frozen, with no explanation (they legally can't tell you why they did it, it is an offense). You will be asked to produce some documents whilst they and potentially law enforcement investigate. Again, you won't be told why or how long it will take. Usually, if you haven't done anything wrong, you'll have no access to your money for 1-2 months.
Now, here's the kicker. Those flagging algorithms aren't very good. They don't work on any sophisticated social graphs.
They're based on a bunch of simple rules -- maybe you made a large cash deposit, or wired more money than usual, or received a bunch of small transactions (maybe you're selling drugs?). The flag is raised, the account is frozen and you're shit out of luck trying to get an explanation or buying things for a few months.
Given we still use banks, I'm sure "you violated our community standards" won't be the straw that broke the camel's back.
This isn't quite correct. At Monzo (and thus I assume other banks in the UK as well) you won't be sanctioned until a human being had reviewed your case history.
> Given we still use banks, I'm sure "you violated our community standards" won't be the straw that broke the camel's back.
That depends entirely on how much trust there is.
Lots of people don’t trust their governments, but most do; ditto corporations. A government can be arbitrary and capricious in ways that corporations cannot, but most of us live in democracies and even those of us that don’t most live in countries that follow the rule of law.
I assume all large corporations care about rule of law, but I also assume they outspend governments on lawyers looking for legal loopholes, and corporations are not normally democracies. I don’t trust Facebook basically at all, I wouldn’t trust Google with money, the only reason I trust Apple with money is they’ve outsourced it to an actual bank, and I am only grudgingly willing to trust PayPal for occasional small transactions.
The banks themselves? Well, since the financial crisis I assume any given one will go under so I have several and distribute my money between them.
>Imagine being unable to buy food because an algorithm determined that “you violated our community standards” and there’s no way to contact them
Not to defend Facebook in any way but, isn't that already the case with a bank system automatically blocking your card for no valid reason and no way to call them over the weekend for example? (happened to me a few times)
This is why I'm against a cacheless society as it becomes too easy to lock someone out of society, being it a bug, algorithm, network downtime, or abuse. And for the platform to automatically draw money for arbitrary reasons like fees or because you forgot to push some buttons in their web interface. And then you have to pay a percentage in all transactions and probably also a monthly fee. And the platform will keep drawing money putting your account into negative.
Prepaid wallets with offline/anonymous use are a thing, already used for over a decade in some countries. It’s not easy to build in any way, but it’s already a reality.
Your card isn't your account, just an avenue to getting at the money in your account, so it's not quite the same. I can go into a bank branch, or log into online banking and still access my money. I can also go into a branch or phone my bank and get my card unblocked.
In all cases where my bank has blocked my card, they've been contactable (24/7), though to be honest, they've always contacted me in less than a minute after my card has been blocked, so I've never had to do this. I'm in the UK for reference, as I know experience will vary from bank to bank and place to place, as you've already identified.
In the case of Libra, you have no recourse if Facebook decide to block your account. You just have to hope that someday your case will be reviewed. Paypal seem to be just as bad, so it's not only Facebook who would have this problem, but I also avoid Paypal for that same reason.
probably because we have precedent of social media companies not bothering with that level of support/intentionally avoiding having to provide proper support. There's no reason to assume Facebook will change that either.
Well in France I can tell you that bank services are a big joke, no one ever called me when my card was blocked, worst, most of the time they don't even know why the card doesn't work. Happened to me on multiple occasions with different banks in different regions in France.
And if you dare pointing out how incompetent they are they'll just close you account and leave you in the wild.
Happened to me too, over weekend, when I shop online and my bank thinks there is something suspicious, they freeze the transaction (not block it), text me a Y/N question with the merchant&amount, and if I reply fast enough, it goes through. Otherwise the vendor cancels the request and I can 5mins later try again, and this time it goes through.
But that's my "main" bank. My secondary bank is not as user friendly and thus don't get an equal cut of my business.
To be honest, I think the same people, who ignore how corrupt and criminal Facebook is and has been for a long time, will be the people, who don't give a damn about whether someone cannot buy food. They just don't want to see it and want to keep going on in their comfort zone and not care about the consequences for others. So I think I have to disagree here, that this would be the nail in the coffin for Libra. I kid you not, there are still people out there, who did not hear or read about all the data scandals Facebook had and who still think it is all well and good and Mr. Zuckerberg is an idol for these kind.
You made so many assumptions about other people. And seemingly are making yourself out to be vastly morally superior to the people you grouped together.
> Imagine being unable to buy food because an algorithm determined that “you violated our community standards” and there’s no way to contact them.
This seems very likely to happen.
> One or two stories like that will kill Libra stone dead.
This seems sadly very unlikely to follow. I doubt even a "juvenile starved to death"- or "kid stranded because bus ticket purchase was denied"-story would put a dent in this project.
Don't get me wrong, I think it should, I just don't think it very likely.
With 1 billion users, a serious bug/pattern that affects 0.1% of the users - harms a 100 000 people.
But their voices still drown in the crowd, as far as I can tell.
>Imagine being unable to buy food because an algorithm determined that “you violated our community standards” and there’s no way to contact them. One or two stories like that will kill Libra stone dead.
Imagine being unable to buy food because (an algorithm at) Visa or MasterCard decided that you violated their (community) standards. Oh wait, we don't have to imagine anything, because that's the world we already live in.
Not only do these corporations ban some individuals, some of them (Paypal, Square) seem to be taking aim at outright banning the sale of certain goods that are otherwise considered to be legal.
You're not in general paid in "visa". You either have a bank account and can withdraw cash, or you can get paid in cash.
Now,if you're paid into your libra account (or indeed PayPal account, Apple pay, Google whatever) - then you're indeed at the whim of those companies use policies.
Visa won't stop your card over a nude Pic on Facebook - but Facebook might suspend your account and your libra over it.
Note that for example in Norway (probably Europe?) every card transaction is run through a check for money laundering and criminal/suspicious activity in real-time.
You touch your card, central authority can decline the transaction. (I have a friend that used to work on this system, implementing rules).
But they don't check your tweet history (although, I'm sure the intelligence services do, and I assume they have a secret, quasi-legal "terrorist" watch list that probably is linked to this system somehow).
> You're not in general paid in "visa". You either have a bank account and can withdraw cash, or you can get paid in cash.
But we've already seen that you can effectively be "banned" from the financial system in the United States. Just look at Alex Jones and what California is trying to do against the NRA.
Regardless of what you think of them, it is very obvious that they are canaries. It should be very obvious to everyone that there is a political movement trying to weaponize the financial system against their opposition under the guise of re-defining terrorism and hate speech.
Now, there are separate issues here - the limit of banking for "bad actors" (terrorists, hate speech, democracy activists...).
That is mostly happening through the proper channels, that is the police and the judicial system do the policing and the legislative system makes the rules.
That in itself isn't a safeguard against abuse - but the other aspect is the privatization of utilities, and self-moderation that these companies do.
In between is the credit rating system, which allows for pretty arbitrarily denying banking services to individuals.
Still, if you are paid in a regulated currency, you still have an option to use cash. An access to legal tender.
With something like Libra, a private corporation, with a horrible track record wrt complaints/customer service can vanish your money because a friend shared a picture on your "wall", or some other entirely arbitrary thing that leads to account suspension.
You don't have to go out of your way to purchase fertilizer, diesel and nails - you could do a million different completely innocent things and still be locked out of your money - with no real recourse - including a viable legal recourse.
It’s all speculation but I wouldn’t be so sure about some negative press killing Libra. Thinking of another large platform where an algorithm determined a driver safe and then they perform a sexual assault on one of their passengers, it gets tons of press, still has millions of users...
Example: https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/30/technology/uber-driver-sexu...
Very correct, bad results or user experience would unfortunately not have any effect if it is not a systemic problem that the great mass of users experiences. Google services also are still successful and used by billions even though google has a track record of terminating accounts at random...
You're comparing oranges to apples here. I really don't see how Facebook potentially refusing access to their platforms for obscures reasons can be compared to an employee of a platform committing sexual assault.
PayPal has so many horror stories of locking thousands of dollars from its users for "violating terms of use" and no one seems to bat an eye. They are as big as ever.
> Imagine being unable to buy food because an algorithm determined that “you violated our community standards” and there’s no way to contact them. One or two stories like that will kill Libra stone dead.
This is basically what happens in real life too. There are people that cannot buy food because "they violated community standards". This Libra thing is totally aligned with the world!
> One or two stories like that will kill Libra stone dead.
Unfortunately not. The problem is that only few people are affected by such problems. Privacy issues and unacceptable EULAs are similar, not enough people get actual problems with them, hence companies can get away with them.
Imagine being unable to buy food because an algorithm determined that “you violated our community standards” and there’s no way to contact them. One or two stories like that will kill Libra stone dead.
If Libra ignored these rules, they'll put these guys (or at least a part of their offerings) out of business
This is called money laundering, people go to jail for it.