Re: How not to start the day

On Tue, 3 Dec 2024 18:33:03 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

On 12/3/2024 7:40 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

 
So, Steam locked my account today.
 
And why not? After all, I posted an incredibly suspicious (their
words) comment the other day. It was a response to a review on their
storefront. I forget what the game was, but that review basically
said: 'don't buy this game, even if its on sale, even if it looks
good, it's not worth it.'
 
So I replied:
 
    "It's true. I saw the game. I saw the pretty graphics. I saw
     the negative scores. But I also saw it was on sale and I
     thought, 'it couldn't be that bad'. I was >< this close to
     buying it. Then I saw this review... and I put away the
     credit card. It's like you knew me. Thank you for saving
     me $40USD."
 

Did they lock the account of the person who's review you were responding to?

I have no idea. I don't remember what the game was. It was a
throw-away comment to some person's review about a not-very-good game;
it didn't occur to me to memorize the details at the time.

Since then, Valve has -unsurprisingly- unlocked the account. They
claim it was about 'suspicious activity' and it was 'merely to help
protect people against account hacking and phishing', which would have
been more convincing if they hadn't quoted the (very unsuspicious)
comment specifically. It's not like I haven't made comments in the
past so they can't even say just the fact that I made a comment is
unusual.

(I also today received a notification that "content of mine has been
removed" because it "violated community guidelines" without any clues
as to what content that was, or how it violated the guidelines. All it
said was "comment", which doesn't really narrow it down much. I've
contacted Steam customer service AGAIN for clarification)

It isn't that Valve is so unusual in this behavior. Internet
corporations are famous for their shoot-first attitude towards any
violations. This, combined with shoddy algorithmically-led detection
schemes, results in a lot of false positives. But it reflects a
certain lack of respect for their customers.

I do wonder if Valve recently changed the algorithm's weighting
tables, following the accusations by the ADL a few weeks ago, and what
we're seeing is growing pains as they tune it. Even so, it still
shouldn't be the customers who pay the price for their problems.

Anyway, it's annoying for me because Steam is really the only service
where I have a significant amount of digital content under somebody
else's control. Were EA or Ubisoft to lock my account, I could shrug
it off fairly easily, but I've a significant investment in games on
Steam. All the more so since to some degree I feel that Steam was
forced on me because I wanted to keep at my PC gaming hobby. It's not
something I would have picked, had there really been an option
otherwise. In fact, when there is an option (read: the game is
available on GOG) I always pick that one instead of Steam. So Valve's
high-handedness seems especially galling to me.

Others might not feel the same way, understandably.