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Apple Refused To Remove Negative Ratings for Facebook App Left by Pro-Palestinian Activists (businessinsider.com) 242

Apple refused a request from Facebook to remove negative reviews in the App store after pro-Palestinian protesters coordinated an effort to tank ratings because of censorship of Palestinian content, NBC News reported. From a report: On Saturday, the Facebook app had a 2.3 out of five-star rating in the App store compared to a more than four-star rating last week. The largest category of ratings is one-star reviews, with many comments saying their rating is due to Facebook censoring hashtags like #FreePalestine or #GazaUnderAttack.

"User trust is dropping considerably with the recent escalations between Israel and Palestine," said one senior software engineer in a post on Facebook's internal message board, NBC reported. "Our users are upset with our handling of the situation. Users are feeling that they are being censored, getting limited distribution, and ultimately silenced. As a result, our users have started protesting by leaving 1 star reviews." An internal message reviewed by NBC showed that the company was very concerned about the coordinated effort to tank ratings, categorizing the issue as an SEV1, which stands for "severity 1."

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Apple Refused To Remove Negative Ratings for Facebook App Left by Pro-Palestinian Activists

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  • imagine that (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Monday May 24, 2021 @01:15PM (#61416784) Homepage Journal

    Who would have though that picking sides in a civil war would make you unpopular? You'd have to read some 20th century history books to know that deep level shit.

    • Don't need a civil war for that effect. Just post here.

      • I don't like you.

        :)
    • We are in a post "no comment" world. Refusing to pick a side is as bad or worse than picking the "wrong" one.
    • Re: imagine that (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MrNaz ( 730548 ) on Monday May 24, 2021 @01:30PM (#61416848) Homepage

      Start by not calling it a civil war, because it isn't close to that.

      • by shanen ( 462549 )

        How about if we call it an uncivil war?

    • "Civil war" my ass! Israel simply stole land in 1967 and should give it all back. They invent and spread red herrings to make it sound like a civil war or some other ridiculous classification, but in the end their zealots prefer land over peace because they believe God gave the land to them and that they have a God-given mission to be special on their special land.

      Bibi is the Putin of the Middle East.

      • It's the Arab side that refers to it as a civil war [yahoo.com]. I try to be generous and not take sides and some internet crank shows up and tries to debate-through-gaslight.

        • by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Monday May 24, 2021 @01:58PM (#61416996) Homepage

          How long can a territory be occupied before it's de facto part of the same state?

          The only reason Israel doesn't want to claim the territory is because then they'd have to let the Muslims vote and have rights.

          • If my country's (US) history is any indication of how this works, land is yours if you can take it and keep it. But maybe the Might Makes Right ethic has fallen out of favor after colonialism, the cynic in me doubts that method will ever go away though.

            • It isnt that Might Makes Right no longer applies, its that Israel has consistently kept the question looming.

              Nobody is questioning whether or not that the islands of Hawaii are the dominion of The United States of America, because America left no doubt.

              Israel has perpetually left doubt and uncertainty on the table on the matter of the Palestinian State.

              A significant population has over the years, been born into and have been perpetually locked within, for all of the now many decades of their lives, wh
          • by drnb ( 2434720 )

            How long can a territory be occupied before it's de facto part of the same state?

            Until the inhabitants are truly assimilated. Not faking it for practical necessity or convenience. Rather they actually identify as being part of the state. So it varies. History suggests that people can seem assimilated for centuries and then return to their original state as the conquering state weakens.

      • by Dog-Cow ( 21281 )

        Do you think Palestinians want Gaza handed back to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan? (The Golan Heights aren't going back to Syria unless they manage to get the forces necessary to take it.)

      • Egypt blocked a key shipping route extremely important to the Israeli econcomy and were warned it was a cause for war if they didn't stop. After things escalated, there was no point waiting for Egypt to attack so Israel did. They seized the Sinai, which was where Egypt was blocking the Straight of Tiran, as well as Gaza. They also kicked Jordan's and Syria's ass when they tried to attack Israel from the other side. Israel gave back the Sinai ten years later, and Gaza in 2005, after which the Palestinians in
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          Sorry, but to me this is clearly more FUD, red herrings, and excuses for blatant theft. It's all distractions away from Israel's original sin.

          They seized the Sinai, which was where Egypt was blocking the Straight of Tiran

          That's not an excuse to keep the land. Even if they kept the shipping routes, that's not a reason to keep the other land that has nothing to do with shipping. That's poor rationalization. It's "head for an eye".

          whose constitution says to kill Jews and destroy Israel.

          Two wrongs don't make a

  • Apple did some picking and choosing before about games in the app store about this conflict that they got flak for and ended up allowing it in the end under vague answers. I think they don't want to go down this route again. Easier for Apple to let all sides make their say then choose one side more over the other.

    https://www.alphr.com/apple/1003526/apple-backpedals-on-politically-charged-palestinian-game
    • This reminds me of the Robinhood reviews re GameStop, and I think in that case Apple was removing them.

      I'm having a hard time saying how the results are consistent. In the Robinhood case, people were complaining about something they couldn't do (buy GME), rather than the app itself. The same is true for Facebook, users are complaining that they can't post certain stories,not that the app is crappy.

      I also wonder if the ongoing trial is affecting their internal deliberation on these matters.

      • by Mitreya ( 579078 )

        This reminds me of the Robinhood reviews re GameStop, and I think in that case Apple was removing them.

        So basically they opened Pandora's box by agreeing to remove actual human reviews for "reasons".
        I am shocked that Apple didn't see this coming and cared enough about Robinhood's reputation to intervene. Now they'll be dealing with adjustment requests until the end of the universe.

    • I can see the confusion with that game. It's maybe 10 minutes of playtime, then two minutes of listing incidents on which it's based. There's no real way to fail. Where you fail, you get to try again, with most situations being resolved by making the other choice.

      I can see why somebody would think this doesn't belong in games. It's in that weird area, often occupied by educational or religious content, where game mechanics are very much a distant second to communicating a message.

  • I'll be knocking FB down 1 star wherever I can today. Not for any particular political reason, but instead because of what FB is: A sharp tool in the hands of fools.
  • I notice our app has been badly rated not for technical or usability issues, but because some undesirables feel it does not meet their needs. Obviously our product is focused on a particular demographic and we do not fell it fair that people outside that target audience have a right to reduce our ranking, especially when those so-called people my not even be legitimate users. We respectfully request you remove these mean, unfair review by nasty so-called people.
  • Lets not try to remove user reviews, because they were left for a "bad" reason.
    While I understand the desire to "fix" what they see as a problem, it sets a funny precedent where some reviews are "unfair" without a formal definition.
    • by larwe ( 858929 )
      There's no good answer here. If you have a hard and fast rule "all reviews shall stand" then you can't remove literally illegal content (slander/libel are prosecuted very differently around the world, and there are other illegal things you could put in a review). You also have zero protection against review bombing - either positive or negative, so your review system is going to be 90% spam within minutes.
  • by tomhath ( 637240 ) on Monday May 24, 2021 @01:40PM (#61416894)
    Facebook has no room to whine about being cancelled; they've done more than their share of it.
    • by Mitreya ( 579078 )

      Facebook has no room to whine about being cancelled; they've done more than their share of it.

      I honestly can't imagine why Facebook would care enough to request removing bad reviews. Do the users have any choice? Will they go somewhere else?

    • Facebook is mostly the middle aged and boomers now. Nobody under 30 bothers with it.

    • Facebook has no room to whine about being cancelled; they've done more than their share of it.

      I'm no fan of Facebook, but I'm even less a fan of political bullshit on a product review.

  • by Twillerror ( 536681 ) on Monday May 24, 2021 @01:50PM (#61416950) Homepage Journal

    Facebook shouldn't have a star rating. Anymore than McDonalds or Subways needs a Yelp review. All are known quanties that serve 10s of millions every day.

    Once an app has reach 100 million downloads or some threshold like that we should just turn off comments. It seems like a waste of Apple resources and just provides yet another place for toxicity and nothing else.

    • Some restaurant locations are way worse than others. I’ve written plenty for google maps.

      • * This location is frequently light on the cream or sugar in the coffee. After a bit of research I have discovered that this happens when the nozzles in the machines that dispense the cream and sugar havent been cleaned for days. I give them 5 stars because thats the only way that this review survives demonstrable anti-negative-review censorship.
    • Your suggestion strengthens an already one sided two class system. People may be critical of smaller groups, but not of larger ones. That is not in any way conducive to competition.

      Also you're ignoring the temporal nature of an app. Quickpic for instance had an insane global following before one day being sold to another company who straight away injected both full screen video ads and malware into the app. Just because it was good one moment doesn't mean its good the next. Just because it *had* many millio

    • Facebook shouldn't have a star rating. Anymore than McDonalds or Subways needs a Yelp review.

      Funny you should mention McD's and Yelp.

      True story: on a recent trip my wife asked Siri for directions to the nearest McDonald's (shameful, I know, but convenience is king on road trips, so we let our standards slip). Siri—somewhat derisively, if you ask me—responded, "One option I found is McDonald's at $location, but it only has a 1.5 star rating on Yelp. Want to try that one?". Though she hadn't said it, we both heard that second sentence as, "Still want to try that one?". Wide-eyed at Siri's

    • Facebook shouldn't have a star rating. Anymore than McDonalds or Subways needs a Yelp review. All are known quanties that serve 10s of millions every day.

      Once an app has reach 100 million downloads or some threshold like that we should just turn off comments. It seems like a waste of Apple resources and just provides yet another place for toxicity and nothing else.

      Exactly what I was thinking.

      "Facebook has a two-star rating? Unacceptable. I better delete my account right away."...said not one addict.

  • by RealNeoMorpheus ( 6713808 ) on Monday May 24, 2021 @02:58PM (#61417272)

    Imaging having your nice little house and suddenly, someone walks in and says, this is mine now and its able to do this because it has a powerful and scary uncle armed to the teeth.

    What do you do, bend over and take it or at least try to fight for what is yours?

    Anyways, good for Apple to stand their ground. Negative reviews should not be touched, as they do with the positive ones.

  • Funny FB refused to remove 1 star ratings and defamatory reviews that I sold drugs at my store from people in the US who never heard of my town. These were penny stock pumpers for a weed company trying to go public in Canada. Had to change the category my shop was in to disable the reviews by obvious fake accounts. 6 years later the accounts are still active and the reviews are still there if I put the business into a category that allows reviews

    Google is almost as bad but they do remove the fake bad revie

  • I know, I know, nobody reads TFA so it doesn't really matter, but the NBC News link in TFS goes to an unrelated article titled "Destiny and divination: Online fortunetelling booming among young people in Hong Kong".

    The actual NBC News article is this one [nbcnews.com].

  • by SuperDre ( 982372 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @06:06AM (#61419424) Homepage
    Well Apple is just a big hypocrite for refusing to remove those negative reviewbombs, it's clear those are just like fake reviews which they say they would remove. But ofcourse in this case Apple enjoys to see this happening as they have a particular hate toward Facebook. This is just another good example of how Apple is unfairly governing the AppStore.

If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research. -- Wilson Mizner

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