A prime way in which someone gets banned is when other users report the sender\u2019s texts as spam directly to Apple (an option that pops up when you delete a text from a sender who isn\u2019t a contact). According to an Apple spokesperson: \u201cAll reported messages are passed through an automated content analytics system to determine similarity to known spam messages, and reported messages may be reviewed by our trust and safety team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In our case, it turns out my daughter had done something whimsical and rash while bored: She reopened a group spam text she had received a few days before and decided to be a smartass and reply to the spammer with a hilarious meme image (in her defense, it was not her best material).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other recipients must have reported her reply as spam coming from the original spammer, and then Apple\u2019s anti-spam sausage machine flagged her account and promptly cut her off.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The family believes a teenager joking around with a spammer is what triggered the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And here\u2019s where handing these problems over to automated systems becomes a real sh*t show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, mistakes happen, algorithms get things wrong, and innocent people can get caught up in systems designed to identify bad behavior\u2026 but what happens when these folks try to correct one of those mistakes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, according to the NYT, getting your account restored can become an absolute hellish nightmare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They describe an appeals process involving online forms, repeated requests, customer service representatives who can\u2019t necessarily help, and the possibility of losing access permanently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIf your account has indeed been branded with the scarlet letter S, the support person will direct you to file a request to reactivate your account at the site apple.co\/IMFT-mac (note that the domain suffix is \u201cco\u201d not \u201ccom\u201d). There, you log in to your Apple Account; be sure to input a phone number if the Messages account is associated with one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While that is the official way to get your account restored, I read a number of anecdotal claims that human support people may provide a second chance by escalating your case to a supervisor. One Apple support person I spoke with also thought it was possible and transferred me to a supervisor \u2014 who nonetheless said he could do nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If your written request is successful, you\u2019ll receive a confirmation email stating that your iMessage service is active again and that you should be able to log in. Customer service told me that it typically happens around 24 hours after you file a request, but that it may take longer. And, I was advised, if it fails, I should keep refiling requests. Until it eventually works. Or not. Like Sisyphus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On my final call to Apple, after I\u2019d filed multiple requests, and after I was transferred to a supervisor, representatives confirmed what I had seen other people report in forums: If Apple repeatedly declines to honor your request for reactivation, you should accept that you have been permanently banned \u2014 Apple just won\u2019t come out and say that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brace yourself: I was told that the only way to use iMessage again on your iPhone is to create an all-new iMessage account, and to do that you would need to use a different email address and get a completely new phone number if you planned on texting non-Apple devices.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Oh, who had \u201cmust get a new phone number\u201d on their BINGO card?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You could spend years building your contacts, conversations, and digital life around Apple\u2019s system, only to find out that getting your messaging privileges restored might require a totally new account and even a new phone number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And apparently, you\u2019re supposed to accept all of that as perfectly normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, obviously, we\u2019re not defending spammers or people who deliberately abuse these services. Of course Apple needs a way to deal with that. But when legitimate, loyal customers get caught up in the system, why should they have to practically beg a giant corporation to explain what happened?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And how many times should someone have to fill out the same online form before an actual human being with some authority gets involved?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yes, this problem goes way beyond Apple, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conservatives have been dealing with versions of this nightmare for years, especially during Biden\u2019s regime, when social media censorship and the government\u2019s cozy relationship with tech platforms became a war zone for anybody who voted for Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Remember how many people were locked out of accounts, suspended, demonetized, or struggling to get their content seen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For somebody running a business, building an audience, or earning a living online, losing access to one of these platforms can be devastating. And trying to get answers from the people responsible is pretty much impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s what makes this entire situation so frustrating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, these companies know a helluva lot about us. They\u2019ve got our personal info, conversations, business contacts, and years of activity tied to our accounts. But when something goes wrong, suddenly finding someone with the authority to explain a decision becomes the most impossible thing on earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a pretty sweet arrangement for Big Tech, right? They know everything about you, while you\u2019re left wondering who the heck you\u2019re even supposed to contact for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then there\u2019s the issue of personal bias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What protections are in order to prevent somebody on the \u201cinside\u201d one of these companies from unfairly targeting a customer because of their politics, opinions, or personal beliefs? Imagine an employee who absolutely despises Trump supporters handling a complaint involving someone whose political views are all over their social media accounts. How would the customer ever know if bias influenced the decision?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They wouldn\u2019t. Because they can\u2019t ever get a hold of anybody to help piece the mess together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that\u2019s why the popular X poster amuse<\/a> is calling for government officials to start asking some serious questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\nTexas should make Apple explain itself. Attorney General Ken Paxton should open a consumer protection investigation into how Apple handles suspended messaging accounts, and the Legislature should follow with a narrow statute requiring large messaging providers to give notice, state the rule, offer a real review, and guarantee a reliable way to pull a phone number out of a proprietary system the customer can no longer use. I still do not know whether I violated some provision of Apple\u2019s terms, whether an automated filter misfired, or whether someone compromised my account and used it to send garbage. Apple will not say. Its position, as best I can reconstruct it, is that I may have done something wrong, and that this is all I am entitled to know.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
This is an issue that deserves a much bigger conversation than a couple frustrated Apple customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A consumer protection investigation could help establish how these decisions are made, how often innocent customers are caught up in them, and whether the appeals process actually works (it doesn\u2019t).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because when a company has this much control over a service people depend on, it should also have some responsibility to explain itself when that service is taken away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That ought to be common sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An interesting post about how Apple is treating customers by locking them out of iMessage and what it takes to get the service restored, if possible. And this is the problem with relying on centrally controlled services, and it seems it’s already extremely hard to get an actual human with authority to restore the service. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-world"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19190,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19188\/revisions\/19190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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