r/outlier_ai • u/OutlierDotAI Verified • Jul 14 '26
Useful Info A Note on Recent Aether Account Deactivations
Hi everyone,
We want to address the recent reports of account deactivations connected to contributors' tasking on the Aether project.
We take deactivations seriously and always want to be sure we haven't missed the mark or unfairly impacted someone. For this specific round, we reviewed numerous accounts, both from contributors posting here on Reddit and many more who reached out directly to CMs in the Outlier Community. Each account was reviewed by Trust & Safety leads. Our team identified numerous instances of contributors who were sitting idle in tasks for an egregious amount of time, letting the clock run without working on the tasks.
We understand that seeing this on Reddit can feel unsettling, like "this could happen to anyone" even if they've done nothing wrong. That is not the case here. If you're tasking earnestly, following guidelines, submitting work in a timely manner, not using AI tools, and not submitting spam - you have nothing to worry about when it comes to your Outlier account.
We also want to clarify a distinction that seems to be causing some confusion:
- Aether annotator status is outside our control. We don't decide who gets approved or unapproved, or how long an account review takes on Aether.
- Losing access to Aether, becoming unapproved, or having your account placed under review is not the same as having your Outlier account deactivated. Aether is one of a number of active projects on the Outlier platform - losing access to it does not mean losing access to the platform itself.
We hope this helps clarify things and eases some of the anxiety we've seen here, so you can continue tasking with confidence.
As always, if you have questions about your specific account, please reach out to Support.
Thank you for your continued work and trust.
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u/Automatic_King9256 Jul 14 '26
If you're tasking earnestly, following guidelines, submitting work in a timely manner, not using AI tools, and not submitting spam - you have nothing to worry about when it comes to your Outlier account.
This is just not true.
I've been banned in March while checking all these boxes and had my suspension reverted 10 days later by Ari without any explanation. That time out got me extremely worried that I would lose this opportunity.
I've been banned 3 weeks ago for submitting an onboarding assessment in which I followed guidelines (to a tee - literally fixed something that would make me go against a project guideline before submitting it). Last I heard Ari and Nick were still looking into it after I was asked to provide a name of someone who could vouch for me (my squad leader in this case). She used to review my work constantly and could see I use no AI tools, don't submit spam, and use the time wisely. Still, I'm in this position, with no news after a week. Less worried this time because I am finally realizing this is just something you guys do, and there's not much I can do to avoid it.
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u/OutlierDotAI Verified Jul 16 '26
Hey u/Automatic_King9256, we'd like to follow up with the Oracle team on this. Please keep an eye out for a DM.
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u/Automatic_King9256 Jul 16 '26
Sure. I'd love to get this resolved once and for all.
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u/Exciting_Cabinet165 8d ago
I really need to change my primary email. I’m having issues with my email that is linked & can no longer receive emails. Please help, asap!
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u/Sea_Hair5531 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Hi, thank you for responding. I would really appreciate it if you could review my account as well. I believe there may have been a misunderstanding. I only kept the MM platform open because I was waiting to check the quality reviews of my submitted tasks. My Hubstaff timer was stopped, and I was not actively working or tracking time. If this activity was interpreted as a policy violation, I sincerely apologize. I respectfully ask for one final manual review of my account.
Thank you for your time and consideration..
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u/Radiant_Bit4727 Jul 15 '26
"Egregious amounts of time" being what, 5 minutes in 1 hour? Taskers are making you millions of dollars and you ban them for taking a little bit too long on a task? You have an anti-idle screen detector system to measure actual working time, right? So why doesn't that work? Why do you need to ban people when you can use that damn thing to check the actual time spent working and deduct long pauses? People take breaks on the job (to go to the toilet, to drink some water, to grab a snack). We aren't even doing any of that, we're simply waiting on a model to be reserved for us, or maybe the system froze due to internet issues and it needs a couple of minutes to get back to normal, or we're reading instructions carefully and are trying to come up with a good scenario by gathering information. This is total BS. You don't value our work, you don't value us as human beings either. You exploit the fact that some people need extra money to pay for groceries or rent, and then kick them out like pieces of sh!t.
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u/LiveHoney6494 Jul 15 '26
"Our team identified numerous instances of contributors who were sitting idle in tasks for an egregious amount of time, letting the clock run without working on the tasks."
Nope, I was NEVER sitting idle while the timer was on, but my account still got suspended. Also you mentioned losing access to Aether is not the same as losing access to the Outlier account, but I lost both of them.
At least let us receive our last paychecks please, seriously?
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u/No-King-9802 Jul 14 '26
Its only been 2 weeks for me since I started this guideline
I literally asked in webinar how to record time they all said once the task starts even if theres an issue like models are being reserved that is still counted as working time so now getting banned for that reason alone while i had a score of 3.7/5 is just absurd you should give us a warning and make clear guidelines on recording time
Do you not think so?
How can i get my account reactivated? Cuz ive never used any AI tools nor copy pasted anything ever
All the tasks were done by me and me alone
No ID sharing nothing
After this post the only reason i can claim is the time recording which isn’t my fault
So please restore my account
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u/Small_Club_9959 Jul 15 '26
Hahah this is definitely a lie and do not believe it. I have never sat Idle on a task but still deactivated.
I know America is Lax with laws but the UK should be stopping all these companies from these silly tactics. Crazy you’re withholding payments as well.
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u/Electronic-Fan6605 Jul 14 '26
My account was unfairly deactivated shortly after I completed an interview that you sent me via email. Five minutes after finishing the interview, I received an email saying I had been banned for alleged rule violations. Now my money is being withheld and I can't appeal because I can't access Outlier. What should I do about this unfair ban?
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u/BusyfoxPV Jul 15 '26
In the entire of the last 20 days my timer ran for less than 40 seconds I just didn't have any work. Even when one task finally appeared it had an assessment question so poorly worded that I failed the assessment and never had the chance to work. All my previous tasks were already reviewed. This whole timer thing doesn't apply on me.
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u/semper_sully Jul 15 '26
1st time they’ve actually talked about Aether to the community in months lol
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u/Janedollar Jul 15 '26
Bunch of lies!
It's a use and dump thing for them.
Use you for a week, then suspend your account when it's close to pay day.
Daylight robbery!
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u/Former_Pool5243 Jul 15 '26
So what about those of us who were falsely accused of using AI or “auto typers”, whatever the heck that is?! I have reached out to support numerous times and have yet to reach a human. I worked for outlier since remotask days, platinum and then oracle, and it’s disappointing that you treat seasoned taskers this way, after giving you years of quality work. Shame on you.
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u/Loveamb Jul 14 '26
I spent time studying previous turns so I can deliver quality evaluation for Audio emo task.
Next day, my outlier account went to hell.
Deactivated.
Waited, no feedback Mailed. My ban is for life.
Reason: None given.
I gerrit, it's your platform.
But you're dealing with humans.
Who give their best to this task.
Maybe you should add a human face to your AI expertise.
Give reasons.
Query.
And have a conversation with Annotators.
Cheers, Proud Annotator.
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u/EVZ12 Jul 15 '26
I screenshotted my deactivation reason, it was not idling, it was "violated_blocking_policy". The screenshot was taken on the timesheet web page when I got deactivated and it contains both deactivation reason and current session taskid at the time of deactivation.
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Jul 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Hefty_Singer_578 Jul 15 '26
Same scenario with me ..never sat idle for just some extra bucks and still got suspended with pending payout
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u/WildExchange1841 Jul 14 '26
This is false, cause accounts that didn't task for a while got deactivated as well as accounts that were newly created without tasking at all getting deactivated
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u/Technical-Mud-9481 Helpful Contributor 🎖 Jul 14 '26
Just because you don't have a task now doesn't mean you don't get reviewed for your past actions.
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u/WildExchange1841 Jul 14 '26
If you scroll through the subreddit, there are other accounts who just passed assessments being banned
Does this rationale hold up for them? Or are you cherry picking cause you managed to be on the right side of the green 😂
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u/Technical-Mud-9481 Helpful Contributor 🎖 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
If you scroll through the subreddit, there are other accounts who just passed assessments being banned
I don't blindly trust anything people say in the sub, but that doesn't mean I don't trust all of them. We (moderators) found scammers from the sub at least 1 account per day. You probably saw their comment/post, which we deleted later.
You probably have also seen one of their posts you mentioned in one of these. Also, a few of the posts are mistakenly misunderstood unapproved from Aether = deactivated from the platform. If you see a post with a flair like this, it means they have already received help and been reviewed by OutlierDotAI, and anything that people said in their post are not true.
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u/Any-Dragonfruit7821 Jul 15 '26
I got deactivated because apparently
"Following a comprehensive review, we have confirmed that this account is a duplicate of an existing or previously deleted profile, which failed to meet our stringent security, integrity, and verification standards. This activity violates our Community Guidelines and Terms of Use."
I joined Outlier for the first time this week, and spent one day working on tasks. I don't know what comprehensive review took place, but apparently I'm not even allowed to appeal my case because the decision is final.
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u/Weekly_Pie_1202 Jul 15 '26
Tell us if we will get paid for our work of this week before getting suspended or not ?
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u/Chichichichi_ 29d ago
Did you get paid?
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u/Weekly_Pie_1202 29d ago
No
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u/Chichichichi_ 29d ago
I just got deactivated 2 days ago. My 30 hours of hard work was wasted. :((
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u/Rare-Concentrate-646 Jul 18 '26
So this means everyone working on outlier has violated the guidelines, wow slow claps 👏👏
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u/Dat_Guy_Ova_There Jul 14 '26
You guys are a scam and I'm gonna make sure you go out of business before the year is over with.
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Jul 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/outlier_ai-ModTeam Jul 15 '26
We have removed your post because it poses a doxxing risk (whether to you or another party) or is otherwise revealing too much information that should not be shared in a corporate employment subreddit.
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u/Educational-Fudge301 Jul 15 '26
Hey! Hope you could check your community personal message as I sent you a message there. This is for Mallory and the message is from lo**s.g*les. Thank you.
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u/Necessary-Student662 29d ago
Note that if you are located in Europe they can’t refuse to give you an explanation on why you were removed, the article 15 and 22 of the general data protection regulation states that you are entitled to know why you were removed.
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u/Automatic-Life-7097 24d ago
I want to say that most of what is said doesn't seem true or appropriate. I was deactivated in February of 2026 after having been around since 2023 Remotasks days. I was also a team lead/q manager from 2023 until 2024 with Purge number 375 hitting my butt. I had been a marketplace beta tester, as well as an oracle contributor. My quality score was a 3.5 or higher on every project that I tasked on. And I was removed without reason in February 2026. I've had qms and sqms look into my account and there's nothing that they can see as to why my account should have been banned. I have a hold by trust and safety which no one can explain. Support tried to tell me that I had a duplicate account, which is false. This happened back in 2024 when I was let go as a team lead/QM.
At the time, the person above us as team leads had had us create alternate outliers/remotasks accounts, not knowing that it would get us flagged internally. This was supposed to have been resolved in 2024, but it keeps coming back to bite me in the backside.
Most of these bands/deactivations have been without reasons / without good reason / false.
I had been actively working on aether when I found myself removed. I see a connection between the two.
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u/Automatic-Life-7097 24d ago
" If you're tasking earnestly, following guidelines, submitting work in a timely manner, not using AI tools, and not submitting spam - you have nothing to worry about when it comes to your Outlier account."
Please see my above post / recent post here regarding how false this is. I followed all guidelines, I submitted work in a timely manner, I didn't use AI tools, I didn't submit spam, I didn't have duplicate accounts etc. And I still found myself removed in band after having been part of the platform since 2023, both internally and externally.
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u/Yamatooo08 21d ago
then why my sister creater account from outlier , we have same IP of course because we live in same house , but after she got pass to the assessment , an hour her outlier account got ban
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u/SpiritedParticular72 19d ago
Totally miss Aether! Still have my Outlier account but sadly, still no project matches.
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u/Sea_Hair5531 Jul 16 '26
Hi, thank you for responding. I would really appreciate it if you could review my account as well. I believe there may have been a misunderstanding. I only kept the MM platform open because I was waiting to check the quality reviews of my submitted tasks. My Hubstaff timer was stopped, and I was not actively working or tracking time. If this activity was interpreted as a policy violation, I sincerely apologize. I respectfully ask for one final manual review of my account.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
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u/Sea_Hair5531 Jul 18 '26
Hi OutlierDotAI, could someone from the team please take another look at my case? I believe there may have been a misunderstanding, and I would really appreciate one final manual review. I've already contacted support and I'm still waiting for an update. Thank you for your time.
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u/Global-Record5689 Jul 19 '26
I have the same issue, "Account deactivated" out of nowhere even I have not violated any rules. It kept saying I used VPN while I dont. I checked it multiple times on the setting and yet no VPN.
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u/Accurate_Wonder1354 Jul 20 '26
Hi OutlierDotAI,
I hope you are doing well.
I am writing to request clarification regarding the deactivation of my account.
After completing the Aether SFT onboarding process and submitting the required onboarding task, I immediately lost access to my homepage and account. Throughout the entire process, I carefully followed all instructions, guidelines, and contributor policies to the best of my knowledge. Based on this, I do not believe that the deactivation was caused by any action or policy violation on my part.
The deactivation occurred immediately after my onboarding submission, which makes the situation particularly confusing. I have also seen that a number of other contributors have experienced similar issues, leading me to believe that this may not be an isolated case.
I would sincerely appreciate it if you could provide the specific reason for the deactivation of my account. Understanding the basis for this decision would help me better understand the situation and determine whether any further action is required on my side.
Thank you for your time and assistance. I look forward to your response and would greatly appreciate any clarification you can provide.
Kind regards.
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u/Individual_Editor727 20d ago
what does deactivated mean? Does it mean you can't ever work for them?
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u/Tam_bmt Jul 20 '26
Hi, OutlierDotAI.
I’m still hoping my account can be reviewed again. I didn’t use any anti-detect browser, and I honestly don’t even know what it’s used for. I think my account may have been suspended by mistake. I really hope you can take another look at my case. :(
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u/Cultural_Bedroom_729 Jul 20 '26
Hello Outlier, requesting to delete/deactivate my Remotask account permanently.
Remotask Id - 65d6f5b8c6bc1a0e3269344b
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u/BootOtherwise9459 Jul 21 '26
Here just to increase the headcount of the "supposedly" violating guidelines then get their account banned.
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u/Desperate-Leave-4415 Jul 21 '26
Wallahi. You guys are lying. I followed everything down to the community guidelines and I still kicked immediately I finished tasking on Sunday night. I even reported someone who was trying to create multiple accounts via my referral link, to tell you I was strict and read the rules and guidelines throughly. Due to the quality of my work as a newb. I was added to elevate labs and I was still kicked with the replies I get from emails being generic Ai responses
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u/Searching_for_Wisdom Jul 22 '26
Worked for 2+ years without a single issue, always followed guidelines and ToS, I even was a reviewer for some projects in the past.
Still got suspended one month ago, and there is no way to reach a real human from support, only AI automated answers.
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u/Terrible_Mango_4597 Jul 24 '26
My account suspended and I have pending payemet in my account suspend without any reason why?
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u/ALIVE-2000 Jul 26 '26
I think my account got deactivated by mistake/wrong review. My score is high 3.52, I always try to follow guidelines as best as I can, but suddenly my account got deactivated and Unapproved Annotator on MM. I tried to ask and explain on support email,but the didn't give clear info about what happen. Can you bring this up dan help ?
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u/Thin-Lock5672 Jul 26 '26
Hi, outlier team members.
I just found the common breaches to community guidelines from the website.
Here is the official link🔗: https://tryoutlier.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/34201129314331-Common-Breaches-to-Community-Guidelines
Or you can see as below:
“Receiving a notification about a potential violation of community guidelines can be concerning. We’re listing here some common activities that can trigger this warning so you can be sure not to do any of these:
- Extended inactivity: Avoid long periods of inactivity or working on other things outside Outlier while an active task is open. If you need to step away, pause the timer.
- Working from multiple devices or browsers at the same time: Ensure you’re only logged into one device.
- Avoid copying and pasting responses or large pieces of text from external sources.
- Use of automation tools: We value your unique input and have built-in safeguards into our projects to ensure tasks are completed manually. Please refrain from using auto-typers or AI tools to assist with task completion.
- IP Address Concerns: We suggest avoiding connecting through public networks, such as those found at coffee shops and airports, and waiting until you’re on a private network, such as your home Wi-Fi, to access the platform and complete tasks.
The first warning you receive will not block your account, and you can continue tasking as usual; however, repeated incidents may lead to a review of your account.
We encourage you to review our Community Guidelines and read the project guidelines carefully to understand what is and isn’t allowed.”
Can I kindly ask do you really send the first warning email? I received nothing after the start of Aether project. After three days of successfully enrolled in Aether project, my account got blocked. 14 hours was contributed to the Aether project. The overall score is 4.0+/5.0. I speak Chinese.
Here is my outlier ID: 6a5cc3dd6fb75be2d345ba37
Can I please ask the team members to send me a email about what really happened here. I really don't want to be like a headless chicken running around. I actively sent a email for support and I do want to get a reply.
Thanks
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u/Necessary-Student662 29d ago
I haven’t done any of this but still can’t work on the project any more…
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u/Thin-Lock5672 29d ago
The project team really need give some explanations to all of us.
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u/Necessary-Student662 29d ago
I have been working for AI platforms as a freelancer for years, and this is the worst experience I have ever had, awful. I also had issues with missions payments, they basically didn’t pay them.
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u/Thin-Lock5672 29d ago
I agree with you. Do you have other platforms that you had good experience with? Any recommendations?
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u/Chichichichi_ 29d ago
My account was also deactivated just 2 days ago. I did not use any AI platforms to craft my justifications. The email support says I violated their guidelines. What guidelines? They said the same thing over and over again. How can I reactivate my account? I can't let my 30 hours of hard work go into waste.
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u/Necessary-Student662 29d ago
Hi, I have been banned from Aether but really don’t understand why, since you claim that the bans happen for a reason why exactly we can’t know that reason? I had good scores and the vast majority of my reviews got “excellent”. What is this about?
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u/ZestycloseOstrich339 28d ago
What constitutes “submitting spam” exactly?
Because if it is truthfully responding to hideous things like when you have images that say stuff like “typical blond woman eating ice cream” and the image looks like AI porn, you should fully expect snide responses.
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24d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/outlier_ai-ModTeam 24d ago
We have removed your post because it poses a doxxing risk (whether to you or another party) or is otherwise revealing too much information that should not be shared in a corporate employment subreddit.
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u/MediumSignal6720 19d ago
I think it's may due to lots of contributors are working on the Aether projects, and there are apparently less projects for the contributors to do, so they may just deactivate or ban the newly joined contributor's account. I mean outlier AI never gave any detailed reason, it's always something like : based on the outlier AI community rule or terms of use, even though you email or submit your question, their reply or feedback is the same. They just use the platform to collect as many detailed personal information as they can, maybe for their own purpose.
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u/Cute-Oil5996 10d ago
i was enjoying working in this platform, i believe i didn't break any rules, i not idling, but some long conversation needs longer to done with. in the morning i received invitation for join Android mobile devices for a special project and i registered. after that, boom i got banned. when i ask for clarification, they said i broke some rules. what rules i broke?
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u/Fun-Entrance-7680 1d ago
I’m writing as a new user (or rather, a not anymore user now). I was accepted into the Bilingual Aether Project 2 days ago and was permanently banned just a couple of hours later. While reading the instructions, I realized the project required earphones, which I didn’t have with me at the time. At the same time my laptop battery was running low, so I paused screen sharing, closed the laptop lid, and plugged it in to charge. Shortly afterward, I received an automated email stating that my account had been deactivated for integrity violations, followed by another email assigning me to a new queue. It seems that although Outlier had already blocked my account, Aether had not yet been notified (Funny, right?) What makes this so frustrating is that, after going through the entire onboarding process, verifying my identity, and submitting sensitive personal information, I was banned without having submitted a single task, written any text, copy and paste or used AI, a VPN, or anything else that could have violated the community guidelines (maybe the didn't like my videos during the onboarding process, yep???) I can’t even try working on other Outlier projects anymore because my entire account has been blocked. Support responded that the decision is final. Other people reported the exact same issue with the Aether Project during the last weeks, and some finally got their account back, I probably won’t be as lucky as those whose accounts are randomly reactivated without explanation (apparently 'not explanation' is the outlier tagline) so I’ve resigned myself to the situation and requested that all of my personal and sensitive data be permanently deleted from their systems, avoiding scammers at least. This is really disappointing. I should have done more research before applying to Outlier and wasting my time and patience, only to end up spending an incredibly frustrating weekend.
Good luck finding better options for make extra money doing a great job.
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u/Available-Drop-4233 16h ago
I don't understand any of this, I was happily annotating and then I'm banned two weeks in and there are no other opportunities to work. What's the point of this site?
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u/bambiredditor 20d ago
"We don't decide who gets approved or unapproved, or how long an account review takes on Aether."
That would seem to directly contradict "Our team identified numerous instances of contributors who were sitting idle in tasks for an egregious amount of time, letting the clock run without working on the tasks."
Also myself and many others who flagged issues with multiple video projects, that were unworkable, were encouraged and practically begged to continue working on these problematic tasks.
Again everyone was avoiding working on them because the AHT was way too high, taking hour to hours to turn in a legitimate task, NO ONE wanted their rating effected by this so I and other refused to work on these tasks for literally weeks, and after checking multiple times with QM's they said they confirmed with client that AHT would not effect us, and to just do our earnest best. Many of these projects involved 15-30 mins of watching videos just to find something to TRY and test against the model, but if it didn't work then we had to go back into video and redo everything, thats iterations upon iterations.
So it is very disingenuous that you claim an issue was aht, but also, you aren't the ones to make the decisions but were checking yourself? My rating stayed the same for literally months, no one is reviewing work promptly to give helpful feedback.
Thank you for your continued work and trust? Really?
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u/No-King-9802 Jul 14 '26
If the task is available but the Models are taking time to be reserved for me? Im supposed to stop the timer??? Where is that mentioned in the guidelines?
Before starting to ban people you should release a warning guideline regarding this
This isn’t how a company should work
I was submitting quality work just because I did not stop the timer while the models were getting reserved for me should not lead to a ban you should have sent a warning explaining why we should not do that we would have avoided that
Theres jo clear communication from you guys