Whether it's legal or not is really a moot point. They're using Stripe to take payments, which will close a merchant's account if they get too many chargebacks.
IMHO, it would be better to eat a few refunds than risk changing my payment provider.
I don't believe there are many designers who are interested in creating experiences with poor usability, thus my point about ignorance and not understanding the tradeoff they are making. On "incompetence", if a designer understands fully that they are creating something that will be less useable and accessible for the sake of aesthetics they have earned the label. To take the HN search page as an example, the filters can't be interacted with via keybord or screen reader. When it's your job to help users solve problems and you have made it knowingly harder to do that, I don't see how that's competent.
Luckily, it has been my experience that in most cases(including my own) the former, rather than the latter, is at play.
Never is a hard word. Let me explain: In the US the white were masters and the black were slaves. A white was rarely a slave, a black person was likely a slave. And slavery was not abolished that long ago.
In MANY countries people of color X enslaved people of color X. So now - many generations later - no one knows anymore who was slave and who was master. So the term master is insignificant for the individuals in the country and dominantly associated with mastery in something.
So while technically the statement is correct, for the discussion here, many countries are not having an active discussion around slavery because it is no concern in the society because there are not slave-descendants (which are mistreated until today) vs. master-descendants.
And is there a relatively distinct group of their descendants being pulled over by the police today in Morocco, after continuously being excluded from economic progress for a few hundred years? Actually really curious -- one of the "innovations" of US slavery was the slavery of the descendants of slaves -- was that the case in northern Africa? I think not; if you have some evidence otherwise happy to think about it.
> after continuously being excluded from economic progress for a few hundred years? Actually really curious -- one of the "innovations" of US slavery was the slavery of the descendants of slaves -- was that the case in northern Africa? I think not; if you have some evidence otherwise happy to think about it.
No, if you read the article eitland posted (no judgment, I don't know) then you'd see that it was Muslims that was behind this slave trade.
One of their habits (or "innovations" in your terminology) that we don't often talk about was that of literally emasculating (in the literal sense) male captives.
This explains a whole lot of why there isn't a white population like the black in US.
Another explanation is that some where bought out from slavery by relatives in Europe.
You should read up on this.
You'll find that compared to the Arabic slave traders (that the Western slave traders sourced from), Western slave traders were kind of nice (edit: or smart, or less sadistic or something).
Oh, and their slave trade didn't end until much later, if ever. (Ever heard about how facilities for a certain sports event in Qatar were built?)
Why don't we talk about this? Sources are after all plentiful.
Edit: Let me add my guess: it doesn't fit the narrative that white, Christian men are worse than everyone else.
Less than 1% of American whites during slavery owned slaves. In fact, the most identifying characteristic of American slave-owners was Judaism. You could just as easily say that Jews were masters and blacks were slaves, although your argument would be equally as incorrect and ignorant. To say that "whites were masters" is just as ignorant as saying "all 1940s Germans were Nazis".
Your comment is as reductionist as it is to call all slaves black.
What about Romans using Germanic slaves or ancient Greece? What about the Middle East, past and to some degree present? What about the Mongols or China?
What about Romans using Germanic slaves or ancient Greece?
British people have been enslaved at various times by the Romans, the Normans, the Vikings, the Moroccans and probably more besides. This is a matter of history that we are all aware of. But there is noone living right now who was ever a slave of a Norman nor are there any French who ever had a Saxon slave.
You are right. Smaller groups/tribes remember in many more countries. Like you said, skin color is maybe not the best example.
Take my situation: I am a German. Our slavery ("Leibeigener") cannot be seen in todays society. It cannot be seen by skin color or any other attribute.
I try to void the statement "Tell me a society which never had no slavery". My argument is: There are societies which had slaves which you cannot reflect in today society. No ones knows, no one is affected.
We have tons of other problems (like the Holocaust and tons of other crimes) we have to work on still today, but slavery among the German society (being a problem today) is no such problem. And I guess, there are many countries where this applies.
I would still consider trafficking of people slavery in everything but name and that is still going on right under our noses all over the world. Hardly anyone cares about that.
Yes. And there are enough places in the world where the "slaveowners" were those who, if I'd named them, I'd be immediately considered here as a "racist" for just mentioning the historical fact.
So... I guess we all have to learn that there are more contexts than just one.
> And there are enough places in the world where the "slaveowners" were those who, if I'd named them, I'd be immediately considered here as a "racist" for just mentioning the historical fact.
You're clearly hinting at something specific, though I don't know what it is. Mind explaining?
Also try to figure out why would the current derogatory term for slaves in South Africa have its origin in the word meaning "the unbeliever" in Arabic, i.e. one who's not an adherent of certain religion, as used in their religious texts:
Well, as it was discussed in another thread, in another culture/language it may be totally not about slavery. I mean the word "master", which comes from a common Latin root, in different languages it's evolved into a different meaning. So for Americans, it has an association with slavery (which I'm surprised to learn), but exactly the same word "master" in another language means just "doing good work".
I think this idea that “master” is associated so narrowly in English is ignorance, perhaps even willful. It obviously has broader meaning depending on context, and I would argue that the majority of its use is disassociated entirely with the history of the American slave trade (just think through examples and count them).
It also occurs to me that having these kinds of fights means people are running out of meaningful struggles, like we’re trying to wring out the last 5% and it gets inefficient because it starts doing harm as well. Then you see these hoaxes like Smollett and others and start thinking that the demand for egregious behavior exceeds supply in the US. It can happen, but it’s surprisingly rare given the state of conversation and rhetoric in this country.
For most Americans, until very recently, it only had an association with slavery in very specific contexts. Virtually nobody heard phrases like "git push origin master" or "I'm working towards my Master's degree" and thought "slavery." The blanket association is a product of very recent political activism.
There are a lot of countries 100 years or less old, that were parts of big european empires, unless you want to hold them accountable for what the foreign ruling class did.
Well ... it is societies which have a problem. As a German, my society is very old. As a country we are very young. But we would never think, that nationalism would not be a problem we had in our society.
Accountable implies a lot. But mindful we should be.
I can't find anything on your website or the app's website listing your qualifications. How are you qualified to advise people on how to fix their depression?
What medical studies and approval has your app been through?
If this article persuades even a single person to ditch their prescribed medication in favour of your app—after all who would want to end up in a straight-jacket—and that person then harms themselves, how are you going to deal with that?
You sound foolish and pompous. And you speak from an arrogance that medicine is a definitive solution to depression and depression-like problems.
But that's not necessarily true. Maybe it helped you. It certainly doesn't help all others. It partially helped me. But eventually a bunch of other cognitive practices (none of which are 'approved by medical studies') became a much better cocktail of long-term solutions.
This app appears to be just another tool that adults can use to find the custom solution that works for them. I don't see anywhere that he's recommending stop taking SSRIs and use his app exclusively. He's explaining his own journey.
Your comment deserves an honest reply. If someone hurts themselves because of something that I've said or done, and there is a chance it might, I will hurt, I will mourn and I will do time if it comes to that. But the risk of this won't stop me from looking for better answers to these problems because the answers we have right now aren't good enough. And if a thousand people avoid harming themselves because of this approach and one still does, is that a failure?
> And if a thousand people avoid harming themselves because of this approach and one still does, is that a failure?
That’s why we have trials and regulations to assess this risk. Is 1000:1 a good ratio? I don’t know. But I know it is not up to us to make that call.
> But the risk of this won't stop me from looking for better answers to these problems because the answers we have right now aren't good enough.
Current answers we have for covid is not good enough either but it doesn’t mean we get to experiment willy-nilly in the public space.
I admire your self-experimentation and I actually like your tool but you can’t make money out of it while advertising in association with the claim that it fixed your depression.
You’re a small enough operation right now that neither FDA or FTC would care much about it, but the very least if you are sincere with your intentions you should put out a bold banner saying “I am not a professional, this is not intended to diagnose cure any problem, if you need help see a professional” everywhere on the site.
Also you should be careful with collecting psychometric data, not that it would put you in HIPAA land because you’re not a licensed medical professional, but it is still highly sensitive data so you should be explicit about your data collection.
In the United States, the FDA considers personal anecdata forbidden when it comes to the sale and marketing of dietary supplements -- for example, statements such as "This product cured/helped/relieved/improved/fixed my/my aunt's/someone's diabetes" (on a product label, website, or even verbally by a salesperson or retail clerk in a store) are strictly forbidden as they may be construed to be medical advice
This is covered by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. I don't know if DSHEA covers websites/apps/digital products -- probably not -- but I would be very surprised if there wasn't similar legislation covering websites, apps, and digital products
Note that DSHEA does prescribe language for safely discussing the effects of non-drug therapies. It's called structure-function language -- OP should definitely read up on it (better: talk to a lawyer versed in these matters, and note that I am not a lawyer, none of the above is intended as legal advice)
> It’s an online app that can help you tap into your hidden emotions and release them so they no longer influence your behaviour or cause depressive symptoms.
Did you read the article at all?
Here is a quote where they state the app can stop the cause of your depressive symptoms. That clear cut enough for you? Or do you still want to be wilfully obtuse?
Nobody owns the intellectual property to "the cure of depression". Are you suggesting that the only way to cure depression is by paying a medical professional using only scientifically backed and proven methods and procedures some money? Are you in the industry yourself?
A hobby can cure depression. A better diet can cure depression. More exercise can cure depression. Finding purpose can cure depression. Painting can cure depression. Dancing can cure depression. The heavens forbid someone start a dancing class that claims to help release negative emotions without a medical degree and scientific research to back it up.
And if a hobbyist, dietician, personal trainer, life coach, painter, or choreographer was telling people to stop taking their perscribed medications before they end up in a straight-jacket and instead just diet/exercise/paint/dance/etc then yes I think those people would be just as culpable for any harm they caused.
There's a difference between "these things might help the symptoms of depression" and "Doctor telling you to take life saving medication, what if it makes you crazy? I have no evidence that it will, but I feel like it might. You should use this app instead"
> A hobby can cure depression. A better diet can cure depression. More exercise can cure depression
We are not talking about a mere feeling down here. Depression is a clinically defined term with specific criteria, and no nothing you can fix with a new hobby is clinical depression, and yes if you claim to be fixing it with any tool which you make available to public you need to be a licensed professional.
> Nobody owns the intellectual property to "the cure of depression".
Luckily intellectual property protection is not the only protection we have around medical interventions. No one has the intellectual property to tonsillectomy either, and you're free to try operating on your own, but you will get into trouble real fast if you advertised you doing it to public as a fix to some ailment.
> We are not talking about a mere feeling down here.
Down where? Go to the apps website and find the term "clinical depression", then come back and tell me what we're talking about down here. It most certainly not back there... which is my whole point. Whats the world coming to if someone cannot create an app to help ease negative emotions without being harassed by gatekeepers and rent seekers?
You parsed the sentence wrong, I am talking about "feeling down", not "down here".
The title of the advertising blog post is literally "I built an app to fix my depression" and goes on to the details of their situation. Certainly we don't have enough data to assess the severity of their n=1 depression but having gone to professionals and used SSRI medication by definition makes them a part of the clinical population.
If they were to say "this app helped me with the negative emotions that came with depression", that would be OK, but they go on to claim that app has fixed their previously SSRI requiring depression, an app they sell a public subscription for. That association is definitely not OK.
> Whats the world coming to if someone cannot create an app to help ease negative emotions without being harassed by gatekeepers and rent seekers?
It is the same world where people have induced harm abusing people's illnesses or desperation in the name of a quick buck. I am not saying this is the intention of the app maker, but the gate-keeping is there for a reason.
Look at this way, anything claiming to be potent enough to fix something can also be potent enough to hurt you. We can't have it both ways with wishful thinking. That is why we need discrete labels, concrete processes and well evidenced claims when we go about what is an antibiotic or what is a cure for depression.
> The title of the advertising blog post is literally
He has every moral and legal right to share his story of what inspired him to create his app. He also has every right, to share his story about his struggles with depression, and what did and did not work for him. You too, have every right to be cynical about his intentions and healing. If he makes money out of his work, good for him. If you read some of the comments here, many have already found it beneficial. Good for them too. And your twitter friend just gave him even more publicity and marketing. so you keep living in your world of fear and cynicism. I'll live in mine of love and courage.
> You too, have every right to be cynical about his intentions and healing.
On the contrary, I don't doubt much about their intentions or healing. But that alone isn't sufficient to absolve them from responsibility or scrutiny while talking about a paid product for a holy grail medical problem like depression.
> He also has every right, to share his story about his struggles with depression, and what did and did not work for him.
But that is not the only thing they are doing now, is it? They are linking their paid app to that story, and that puts it in the realm of false advertising. FTC and FDA regulates the real world, independent of our being full of love or fear, and if that app was big enough it would likely be in trouble.
> so you keep living in your world of fear and cynicism. I'll live in mine of love and courage.
Do you also ask anyone who writes a dieting cookbook for their medical degree? The author does not state anywhere that the user should stop taking their medication or stop getting treated by professionals.
Think about why organized religion has survived for thousands of years all over the world. You will reach this inequality sooner or later -
Number of ppl with qualifications to help the suffering < Number of people suffering
So keep asking the questions, but also be aware of the values of those 2 variables in your neck of the woods. And when there is a gap expect all kinds of gap filling.
reCAPTCHA works in a similar way, they just ask you to determine which photos in a set of 9-12 contain a particular object (2^12 at best). If you just asked people to do the Reddit classification 7 or 8 times you'd get the same chance of random guesses passing. The trick is to rate limit attempts.
Personally my problem with this is that even with the basic categories reCAPTCHA asks for I find it difficult to figure out whether certain edge cases should count. I feel it could be more frustrating to have to guess whether someone on Reddit found a particular image interesting or not.
As someone who's had to read/review thousands of CVs, interesting != good. Your CV is incredibly difficult to grok, if I have a stack of CVs to get through and I can't immediately identify the information I need, I'm probably going to pass
They do have permission though. The people used granted permission when they submitted their face to uifaces.com, in fact they even went so far as to submit their faces to the "authorised" section on uifaces
> those awesome folks allow their faces to be used on live products
They might not have ever imagined that their faces would be used in this manner, but they did give their permission.
If you read further down the Twitter feed, it's clear that this particular person didn't think she'd granted such permission, and the whole setup looks questionable on other grounds as well.
Putting someone's face next to suggestions of serious problems like drug abuse or STIs on a public site without their knowledge or explicit consent at least raises ethical questions, and then trying to argue that it's obviously a joke when apparently the person in question has been receiving concerned mail from friends who didn't know that makes it pretty clear that any joke has gone too far. The dismissive attitude of the site developer just makes it worse.
I did read the entire thread, the site developer offered two different solutions. But the other commenters seemed to dismiss both suggestions, preferring to fetch their pitchforks instead.
His “solution” would be to hack it to avoid that specific person's image, which is not really solving anything, other than the site author’s own problem.
The footer of uifaces still says _mockups_ and the FAQ/TOS haven’t been available for a while. This is clearly playing legal sword fighting and unethical.
I'm not sure I'd consider anything he suggested a good solution, though.
What he's done, and the aggressive/dismissive way he's handled a perfectly reasonable request afterwards, are what very expensive defamation lawsuits are made of. That is as it should be, IMHO, given that notwithstanding the developer's personal opinions about visitors understanding, the consequences of his actions demonstrably did reach someone close to the person whose photo was used and cause real distress and concern.
> Putting someone's face next to suggestions of serious problems like drug abuse or STIs on a public site without their knowledge or explicit consent at least raises ethical questions
This was the plot of a Friends episode like 20 years ago. Joey's face is used in a herpes ad in the subway.
I think he got paid but the issue is the same. Give someone carte blanche to use your likeness and there might be some negative consequences.
Give someone carte blanche to use your likeness and there might be some negative consequences.
But clearly in this case the lady didn't believe she'd given carte blanche to use her likeness even in such an obviously offensive manner, as she repeatedly mentions only expecting it to be used in mockups.
Moreover, such evidence as anyone has linked to from that Twitter feed seems to support her side of the story more than his so far. There is no explicit licence available anywhere that I can see, apparently there used to be some sort of separate area where people offered their photos for production use as well, but that no longer seems to exist, the FAQ no longer seems to be working, and there's no indication that this particular lady's photo was in that section.
In any case, the onus is definitely on the guy whose site is posting her photo next to that kind of content to justify his actions here. It doesn't take a genius to realise that this could seriously upset someone even if he is covered legally, and so far it's not even clear that he is covered legally. As I said in another comment, this is what very expensive defamation lawsuits are made of.
I worked with the author on getting it published and the code is on GitHub (linked from the post) for people to try it out, sorry if that doesn't meet the requirements. Should I have posted the Github link directly?
