MSN, Community guidelines and standards being inappropriately applied.

Dear moderator.

Back when I was using MSN I wrote literally dozens of times on the feedback option asking why a particular innocuous statement was against community standards. I never got any kind of response. This was even when something with nary a swear word or obscene insinuation or remote reference to anything religious got dinged for "profanity." That, as I recall, was the objection to "sigh." Each time I read the community standards and could find no way they fit what I'd said.

Is this sort of forum NOT the place to discuss why Microsoft refuses to clarify its community standards? If so, what is the right forum? Is this forum not the place to share our experiences in this regard? If not, what is the right forum?

I have been reading the responses and have been disturbed by the number who think the strange behavior regarding community standards is a liberal plot to silence voices or a conservative plot to do same. I try to suggest that it it is neither since since so many people of all political persuasion seem to suffer from the problem, and wonder why technically speaking this is so, and this is a conspiracy theory?

If anyone DOES have an explanation of why so many of us are befuddled by MSN's application of community standards, none of which I disagree with in the slightest but none of which seem to be violated by a post. I have been using Microsoft products from MS Dos onward, through all versions of Windows. I'm not a tech person but my son was a software engineer at Microsoft for over a decade. I am a Microsoft Stockholder. I subscribe to Microsoft 365. I am about the last person you will find who is Anti-Microsoft. That is why the particular behavior of the particular corner of it known as MSN as exemplified by the homepage built into Windows is so disturbing. It is a betrayal of my years of defending Microsoft.

Moderator note

The Microsoft Support Community supports Microsoft end customers, with issues you might have with Microsoft's products.

It is a global and public, peer to peer forum, you are not communicating with Microsoft Staff

it is not the place to post comments you were not allowed to post on MSN, nor is it the place to post ill-informed conspiracy theories, religious or political content.

If you wish to send feedback to Microsoft please use the feedback option on the MSN page

Please read the Microsoft Community Code of Conduct
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Continued violations of the Microsoft Community Code of Conduct may result in your profile being suspended or removed.

The weird thing is that in the comment above you see the exact same "keyword" you were just dinged for.

I'm wondering the the AI is one of those "self-teaching" types. If it dings you once, it increases scrutiny of whatever you say next, and every time it finds a "keyword" (whether or not others use it) you are dinged again--and it snowballs. Pretty soon (as I noted when I started all this) it dings you for saying "sigh." I suspect there is a hierarchy of forbidden keywords and every time snow adds to the ball the AI digs deeper down into the hierarchy so eventually "auldtwa" plus "sigh" becomes against standards.

This is why I don't think the AI is a nefarious political censorship plot against either side. This snowball effect can happen to EVERYONE no matter the content. You can see complaints in this thread from both liberals and conservatives. This is why I no longer read MSN news, for fear I will be tempted to comment and then have to go through the whole rigmarole of guessing what the AI has decided is the "wrong" part of whatever I said. That was how I got to "sigh." I just started deleting words till "sigh" was all that was left, and BANG, against community standards.

I can find plenty of venues to comment on whatever the story is.

They don't want the advertising dollars from my clicks on the numerous ads? They can just do without.

My only negative response is the reference to "free speech". That's a right guaranteed in the Constitution, but it only applies to the government. A private business has the right to limit or censor anything they want on their own platform.

My objection is that MSN neither adequately states what these "community standards" are except within a very vague, general manner, nor allows for any sort of appeal or request for human review. If that's what they want, they should very clearly state that all comments will be refused if they reference the "key words" that MSN blocks.

Your Welcome.