While it seems like bad press has changed the review outcome it is plausible to me that the stance would be reversed regardless because it's such a grey area in the rules.
Why does your software need an approval from some random American corporation to deploy on hardware?
Id much rather have a human involved with some inconsistency and an appeal process, than an automated algorithm or rigid process that is consistently wrong.
Hardly “working as intended”.
You may be right but we should gather some metrics before jumping to claims about correlation between publicity/outcome. Perception bias is inevitable when remembering anecdotal evidences.
As a developer you may not have enought follower to publicize widely but you could fill a report. Theses report could then be audited by the independent plateform to label claims as legitimate or not (and maybe publicized or not).
I acknowledge this is a huge work, but this would be a good way to make a strong case and eventually go to court together. Collecting anecdotal evidence is not enough and is always biases toward publicized cases.
Why not?
Their intention is to make money (they do). And to do so, they have to maintain a good image and please different crowds. Some of them want very restrictive regulation, some none at all. Not possible to make them all happy and very expensive to try.
So they indeed make decisions based on public "feedback".
Is this fair? No.
But walled gardens by monopolists are never fair. But this is sadly where the money is.