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Comment by car_analogy | Hacker News Reader

> We’re unable to discuss the specific circumstances of this or any suspensions.

This is a lie. They're not unable, they're unwilling.

This type of subtle corporate Newspeak enrages me. It's corporate gaslighting and I wish I understood it's intended goal. For me, the only thing it achieves is solidifying my resolve to end business with the offending company while simultaneously resenting the support agent who's willing to lie to strangers for money.

The goal is to say a little as possible so that they won't get into legal trouble or have to actually solve a problem

Also known as "weasel words" as it lets them weasel out of things

it's both. Explaining the case (by a support person) might be evidence used in court for wrongdoing. That's similar to the reasons why most interviews won't tell you why you are rejected.

Even if true, that still falls under unwilling. But is there a single case where being given a reason for a ban has been used to successfully sue someone? (Assuming the reason is half-way legitimate, i.e. not "You were banned based on a protected characteristic.")

I'm rather sick of implausible legal scenarios being imagined to excuse corporate behavior. At least let their PR department come up with the excuses, don't do it for free.

Not wanting to expose yourself to legal liability may be good business sense, but it is absolutely a choice they are making. It's not like they are under a consent order from the DOJ not to tell these guys why their account was suspended.

This sounds like splitting hairs but I think it's a meaningful difference. Powerful people and companies use Bullshit as a means of obfuscating their motives and actions. They hire armies of lawyers and PR flacks to message everything in a way that absolves them of responsibility. You can't just take stuff like this at face value.

They just murdered a business partner's company and won't even tell them why. It is possible that he's lying to us and was doing some shady shit (shady people almost never tell you they are being shady), or it is possible that he just got crushed by a Kafkaesque bureaucratic machine.

But in our case it looks like they're not willing to solve the issue at all. They will surely help someone who pays them millions in commissions, but they're not interested even to talk to smaller fish.

And I know which one I think it is…

I wonder why people tolerate such Kafkaesque situation. Government doesn't seem to thrash these big techs who doesn't give a damn about people's livelihood.

I think it should become one of the main Government responsibilities – to deal with corporations on behalf of people. Otherwise we'll find ourselves in Blade Runner / Cyberpunk-like corp-run world situation quite soon.

And they have collected information on 100 companies just like you that they're purposefully shutting down prior to the release of their new Google service! LMFAO.

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