THIS POD LIFE: THE GREAT REDBUBBLE PURGE OF 2021

Recently Redbubble (RB) began suspending what appears to be a large number of user accounts from across the globe. Thankfully, my account remains unaffected (knock on wood), but I delayed uploading for a week in fear I'd be zapped.

Users were baffled, many cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced so to speak.

Some estimates put it at 20% of users, although these guesses were hardly scientific. But whatever the numbers, it was clear that something big was going on.

And Redbubble didn't say a word.

Until on Feb 3, 2021, when they issued the following tweet;

Recently, we identified an error that inadvertently suspended several user accounts. We apologize for the frustration this has caused, and are currently investigating the issue and working towards a swift solution. Thank you for your patience while we look into this matter.

You have to wonder if they were having a bit of a giggle when they used the phrase; 'several user accounts'. Twitter, Facebook, no doubt their own email channels, have been clogged with account re-instatement requests and complaints. There's no way they could mistake it for 'several accounts' unless they are somehow wondrously oblivious. 

But here's the thing; likely it wasn't an 'error', at least not in the way of a 'glitch', but a deliberate purge in which the 'error' was that it involved a good amount of collateral damage.

To expand; my guess is that there was a huge influx of new users over the last year, particularly as people looked for other ways to supplement their incomes and pass the time productively while in lockdown.

But with that came a surge in spam, copyright violations and general bad behavior that would have placed a greater burden on RB to effectively police. So instead they took the nuclear option.

Apparently RB uses a third-party anti-fraud service called Threatmetrix. Reading about their services on their website is a somewhat Orwellian experience. 

Each user is given a 'dynamically matched, tokenized customer identifier' that can '...reliably recognize the same returning user across multiple devices, email addresses, physical addresses and account names.'

Furthermore, each ID is assigned a threat score which amongst other things, is aggregated from user activity across the net - not just what they do on Redbubble.

Immediate big red flags for Threatmetrix, are VPN usage (and presumably not just on the RB site), and 'high-risk' geo-locations.

So too bad if you're in a location deemed 'high-risk' as you're on thin ice to begin with. 

This explains the higher volume of non-western usernames popping up complaining their accounts have gone bye-bye. Let's just say it's definitely an advantage to be in the good old 'respectable' First World club. Too bad if you're in the Third World (is this a form of racism? I'll let the reader decide).

So my guess is that they lowered the bar at which Threatmetrix flags accounts as high-risk and suspended any who couldn't limbo. And it did the job, but it also caught up a lot of valid users as well.

It also explains why RB continues to be infested with copyright infringing work. The ban was focused on 'risk', not existing copyrighted material - at least not directly.

So I suspect RB will quietly process the account reinstatement requests and 'move on' - which at time of writing is what they seem to be doing.

Until the next time. 

They'll do this again, but they'll be better at it. This was a first time run. Redbubble security management is probably working with Threatmetrix right now, reviewing what went wrong and honing their ban hammer tools.

Perhaps this highlights an aspect of this brave new world of online entrepreneurship not much examined; the insecurity. The fact that whoever holds your account (and revenue stream), can cancel it with a single on-screen message and, if you're lucky, an email. Of course it could be argued that you can lose your job at the mall as well. But there are generally more protections in play for 'real world' workers - protections you can mostly thank unions for.

So if you're an enterprising journalist looking for a breakout story, this might be something for you? It covers a lot of topical points regards the net, online entrepreneurship and public interest is sure to be through the roof - of that you can be sure.