Suspension of publishing and monetization access (Every month !?!)

[Afflictor]

Last month at 6:00 am PST I got 6 emails from Epics moderation in quick succession saying that my island submissions had all passed content review. I thought this was odd since I had not submitted anything to be reviewed so I went back to sleep, but what happened next baffled me. I got another email saying my publishing and monetization agreements with Epic have been suspended. As I got up to write Epic support an email or appeal, another email came in 10 seconds later saying the suspension had been lifted.

These are key signs that some automated systems are operating poorly. Can this be looked into? This happened the prior month with 2 emails and a suspension, now it’s happened again with no emails about island submissions, but a suspension of monetization notice claiming I am violating the rule: “1.13 Keep It Authentic.” ( I’ve checked all my islands and I’m not violating any rules and Epic refuses to provide any specific examples in my content that are violating any rules so I can fix them if I have missed something) It’s easy to verify the promo images (assets such as thumbnail images, lobby backgrounds, or videos) are not in violation by just looking at them and reading the rules.

I get these suspensions every month but when I check to see what rules I am supposedly violating, there are none. All my maps are enabled and do not violate any of the rules. When I reach out to help at Epic they point me to the appeals site but this issue doesn’t show up there so there is no way to appeal it and Epic help replies, if I can’t appeal it then I can’t appeal, sorry. There is no effort to verify if the suspension is accurate or erroneous.

The email claims that a human was used to moderate before handing out a suspension but it doesn’t feel that way. The sad part is it has taken longer than two weeks in the past to get any responses from Epic so the suspension is automatically lifted in 14 days and the issue never seems to get addressed.

If I have violated or am currently in violation of any rules please let me or any creator know what specifically we need to fix, or what your human moderation team has found, that requires a change or warranted a suspension. I have spent the last 3 hours emailing Epic help and submitting an appeal to a separate island rejection issue in hopes of getting some insight into resolving this suspension and preventing it from happening each month. At this point, it feels like even if I did not submit any new islands I would still get suspended each month for 14 days based on some legacy map rejections even if there weren’t any rules in violation.

Part of the problem could be that the style of many of my islands is a realistic rendering style so the algorithm could flag an image (such as an island background) as a photograph even though it’s a screenshot taken straight from the island. If this happens enough it seems that my account gets flagged even though I am not violating any rules I’m aware of, resulting in a ban every month, especially if I update that island frequently.

Something isn’t working, and I’d like to get to the bottom of this because it’s very stressful getting suspended each month and not knowing why, how to fix it, or even how to prevent it. Can this be looked into?

[Stevie-Moon]

@Afflictor Thank you for your feedback. While I cannot guarantee a response, I can confirm that this has been forwarded to the appropriate team.

[Afflictor]

Thank you! The suspension was wrongly applied and lifted. I appreciate you forwarding this issue. I think it helped.

[HeroTheAxolotl (Hero Creates)]

What is the thumbnail for said map(s)? I think I could help point out the issue with the promo image that got you rejected.

But yes, I agree with this. Epic NEEDS to let us know what is wrong so we can fix it easier, I have had my maps rejected multiple times (I am yet to be suspended) for breaking rules I didn’t even know existed.

[Afflictor]

I don’t think there are any issues with the promo images. Any time Epic looks at them they reverse the rejection, so I imagine it’s a glitch with the auto-moderation tool flagging something it believes is a violation but when a human goes in to look they see it was wrongly flagged.

Just this morning I submitted a quick performance update to a map that has passed 38 times and it got rejected for the IARC age rating. I filed an appeal and the rejection was reversed. It seems, whatever algorithm is being used has trouble identifying correct issues in some instances.

I think a bigger issue is the expected behavior of a creator once a rejection has occurred. The appeal process wasn’t always available so a creator would go into their map and wiggle an asset, re-save, and resubmit and it would pass. The problem is that those past rejections are not addressed and continue to be flagged on the account as active. So if a user did this 3 times and all their maps passed, when Epic goes in and looks to review which users are breaking the rules, these creators get suspended because it shows multiple violations still active on their account even though all their maps have passed the submission process and aren’t in violation of any rules.

The new appeals website helps resolve this but I don’t know how many creators know about going this route to resolve rejections. Many users will probably choose what they think is the fastest way to resubmit a fix even if they know they aren’t violating any rules.

This is all speculation from my experience. Now that I know it only takes a couple of hours or less to complete an appeal process and resolve/remove the active false violation from my account, I plan on doing this from now on, especially if it means not getting suspended every month for rules I wasn’t breaking.

[Afflictor]

@Stevie-Moon A new month and I just received a new erroneous suspension of monetization. Once again I didn’t break any rules. Could you please forward this to the team so they can lift my suspension for the 4th time?

(update ) - I went through the contact us / help page and the sanction was lifted. I’m curious if this will happen again next month. There’s no need for any action on this.

[jimmilepiel]

Having the same issue here. Just wanted to bump into the thread in hopes that somebody from support team can take a look at the post I made regarding this. I’ve also had suspensions created and subsequently lifted in the post so I’m convinced it’s a simple case of finding somebody who can properly look into my account status to see that the suspension is incorrectly placed - fingers crossed!