Monday, September 10, 2018

Google's One-Way Conversational Style

So, the other day I suddenly started receiving email messages that read like this:

Hello,

Your Google+ content has violated the Google+ User Content and Conduct Policy, which is against the Google+ Terms of Service. As such, your content has been removed or blocked.

Content type: Post or comment
Reason for removal: Spam
Content identifier: z13wvtwpjo2jwt2ts232gp0gbku4efjkr

Certain removal reasons may result in your content being visible either only to you, or only in certain countries.

Sincerely,
The Google+ Team

Replies to this email will not be monitored. If you have other questions or concerns regarding Google, please visit the Google Help Center.

I've been unable to turn that "content identifier" into any way of um, identifying the content.

This morning, that passel of emails was followed up with this one:

Dear Google+ user,

Your Google+ post or comment activity has recently violated the Google+ User Content and Conduct Policy.

Spamming, including sending unwanted promotional or commercial content, or unwanted or mass solicitation, is not permitted.

This is a warning, and your access to Google+ should not be currently impacted. If you continue to create or share content that violates our policies, you may lose the ability to use some or all features of Google+. Learn more

Sincerely,

The Google+ Support Team

Replies to this email will not be monitored. If you have other questions or concerns regarding Google, please visit the Google Help Center.

So -- warnings that I am "spamming" one of my own accounts (it's the Rational Review News Digest page on Google+)*, with no way to identify what content the warnings refer to and no one to ask WTF. And then a "we're STILL not going to tell you what you're doing, but you better stop doing it" warning. The links, including "Learn More" lead to non-specific help pages, not any useful information on the specific case.

Kinda pisses me off.


* I try not to be paranoid, but I have an inkling that the warnings are generated from user complaints, and that this set of user complaints is a spiteful little prank by an admin on another social medium who accused me of "spamming" while proving that he or she has no idea what "spamming" is (what he or she was actually complaining about was "flooding" -- small user base, more messages per hour from one user than he or she liked,  a complaint which I addressed accordingly while simultaneously urging him or her to stop defaming me with a false "spam" label).

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