Google Play prohibits the video application from supporting standard “.ass” subtitles

Google Play’s automated app review process strikes again.

This time around, the Puritan robot lords who run the Play Store briefly decided that supporting the list of common subtitle files is enough to ban your app. The developer of Just (Video) Player posted his story on Hacker News, writing in the app’s bug tracker: “After a small unrelated description update, Just Player has been suspended from the Google Play Store for “Sexual Content and Blasphemy PolicyGoogle detects issues with the following: Full Description (en_US): “* Subtitles: SRT, SSA, ASS, TTML, VTT. “”

Yes, just listing the standard video player features like “ASS” subtitle format support was apparently enough to temporarily get a suspension. The developer said they “immediately filed an appeal” and today the app is back with the ASS subtitle list still in the description.

We ended up with a “.ass” file type thanks to the anime captioning community. Unsatisfied with 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 file type with the same name “.ssa”, then version four and higher was created “Advanced Sub Station Alpha “files or“ .ass. ”While the publisher abandons the software, the .ass file type persists and compared to SRT you get advanced features like subtitle style, precise placement Karaoke-style subtitles and graphics .ASS files are supported by most good video players, including VLC and Google’s own library of Android video players, Exoplayer.

It’s good that Google has reinstated the app, but it’s crazy that a suspension happened in the first place, and that’s just another story in the unstable relationship the developers have with the process. automated review of Google applications.

The robot masters of the Google Play Store

Google receives a lot of criticism from developers for the lack of human involvement in its app review process, with the Play Store opting instead for automated scanning of apps for viruses, policy violations and more. ‘other banned offenses. To say that Google’s app rating bots “ban first and ask questions later” would actually be an improvement over the current situation, as bots can’t ask questions. Bots ban, send automated email, and it’s up to the developers to figure out why they were banned and jump through obstacles to make bots happy, often without being able to speak to a human.

Google and Apple both collect a percentage of app sales, which companies classify as a necessary tax that pays for the infrastructure of the store ecosystem. Apple is using that money in part to hire an army of human app reviewers, a system that developers at Google Play often give as an example that Google should follow. Instead, Google only has this bot system – or, at best, a very small team of manual reviewers – and developers often complain that they are at the mercy of an illogical robot, with no one else. who to talk to, even during an appeal process.

Magic Frame Studios, Google Play app developer, echoed many common complaints in a blog post: “We are working to develop apps for an unfair system ruled by bots that just treat us like garbage. We are fighting against it. unfair bans, unfairly closed accounts and you can never learn from your mistake to have a better app. “The developer says if your app is banned,” nobody is telling you clearly why your app was banned, and if no one doesn’t clearly tell you what’s wrong with your app, how can you fix it? You just can’t. “

Google bots have had a particular issue with apps that display web content, often banning browsers, Reddit apps, or forum apps for things like nudity or hate speech because those are two things that exist. on the Internet.

Google’s apps are all immune to these illogical bans, and big companies like Facebook undoubtedly have access to better support than your average developer would have. The people most affected by Google’s app bots are the small independent developers, who can see their entire income stripped due to a bot error. Google wants developers to start a business and make a living on Google Play, but when it comes to such an unstable and illogical platform, it’s a tough way to run a business.