Google play bans video app for supporting advanced sub stations alpha (.ass) subtitles files

[spartaman64]

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This time, the puritan robot overlords that run the Play Store briefly decided that listing support for common subtitle files is enough to get your app banned. The developer for Just (Video) Player posted their story to Hacker News, writing in the app's bug tracker, "After a tiny unrelated description update, Just Player got suspended from the Google Play Store for "Sexual Content and Profanity policy". Google finds issues with following: Full description (en_US): “* Subtitles: SRT, SSA, ASS, TTML, VTT.”"

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Yes, just listing standard video player features like support for the "ASS" subtitle format was apparently enough to temporarily earn a suspension. The developer says they "immediately filed an appeal" and today, the app is back up with the ASS subtitle listing still in the description.

We ended up with a ".ass" filetype thanks to the anime subtitling community. Unsatisfied with bog-standard SRT files, the community came up with the "Sub Station Alpha" subtitle editor and two file types. The first three versions all used a namesake ".ssa" filetype, and then version four and above created "Advanced Sub Station Alpha" files, or ".ass." While the editor is abandonware, the .ass filetype lives on, and compared to SRT, you get advanced features like subtitle styling, precise subtitle placement, and karaoke-style graphics. ASS files are supported by most good video players, including VLC and Google's own Android video player library, Exoplayer.

source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/01/googles-bots-decide-ass-subtitle-support-is-too-risque-for-the-play-store/

 

Bad bot but at least they resolved it quickly and hopefully they updated their bot to take more context into account than just looking for lone words. Also I'm not surprised that extension came from the anime subtitle community.

[Arika]

This is why i'm annoyed at youtubers who say they are just "doing things because of the algorithm". Algorithms can fail, they are not the be all and end all, they can be changed. If you think something is stupid, do something about it. See: what spiffing and others are doing about the community post exploit.

[TetraSky]

This bot thought it smelled ass, it found ASS instead.

 

But seriously, considering words like "associated" is often also abbreviated as "ass.", this bot is gonna have a bad time if Google doesn't back down on the sensitivity.

[Drama Lama]

9 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

ASS subtitle

hehe

[Master Disaster]

 

[Master Disaster]

5 minutes ago, seee the state im in nooow said:

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It took me a second to get the joke

[RejZoR]

This is how Google's super advanced sentient artificial intelligence code to detect profanity looks like:

*ass*

 

Hilarious fail

[CTR640]

Amazing how such big tech company can do a lot of things and yet they are extremely dumb and stupid AF.

[BigDamn]

Hopefully they don't start scrubbing phones for this type of stuff. I've got some .ass images that I'd like left alone.

[PhoenixFire22588]

9 hours ago, seee the state im in nooow said:

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Why dont I just speak in english?

Yes! Then I won't misread the subtitles making it seem like youre saying things that are dirty...