<story><title>Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”</title><url>https://twitter.com/hermaritz/status/1371383715381805061</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jonathanlydall</author><text>For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a &amp;quot;planned power outage&amp;quot;, or as Eskom (our state owned power utility) refers to it, &amp;quot;load shedding&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;Load shedding&amp;quot; is enacted whenever they have a power production capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so as to not let the power grid collapse.&lt;p&gt;This app aggregates information from various data sources and provides push notifications too. It is without a doubt the best source of this information and the app being unavailable significantly affects the day to day lives of a significant portion of the South African population who use it to plan around these power outages.&lt;p&gt;While the app also has a &amp;quot;chat&amp;quot; feature, it&amp;#x27;s really tangental to the primary purpose of the app and I expect that most users of the app, like myself, don&amp;#x27;t use that feature at all and only care about knowing when they will be without electricity.&lt;p&gt;In case you&amp;#x27;re wondering why they hell we have load shedding, it&amp;#x27;s because Eskom is grossly incompetent. Their incompetence is hugely exacerbated by nepitism and corruption where government has historically appointed people to Eskom management positions solely as &amp;quot;favours&amp;quot;, rather than on qualification for the job.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tremon</author><text>Load shedding is the correct technical term for it. It&amp;#x27;s not just a South African thing either, industrial consumers in Europe have the same stipulation in their power contracts: in case of emergency, the power company (network operator) may choose to suspend power delivery to protect the grid.&lt;p&gt;However, in the EU this 1) isn&amp;#x27;t a regular occurrence, and 2) the grid has a tiered system for load shedding. I can&amp;#x27;t find a reference for the tier classifications right now, but if I remember correctly: tier 1 consumers (the ones who will be disconnected first) are heavy industries with huge power draw, tier 2 are other commercial uses, tier 3 is residential, and tier 4 is critical infrastructure (emergency services).&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think I&amp;#x27;ve ever experienced a load shedding event that affected residential areas. There have been local blackouts but I don&amp;#x27;t recall any grid-wide emergency events.</text></comment>
<story><title>Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”</title><url>https://twitter.com/hermaritz/status/1371383715381805061</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jonathanlydall</author><text>For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a &amp;quot;planned power outage&amp;quot;, or as Eskom (our state owned power utility) refers to it, &amp;quot;load shedding&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;Load shedding&amp;quot; is enacted whenever they have a power production capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so as to not let the power grid collapse.&lt;p&gt;This app aggregates information from various data sources and provides push notifications too. It is without a doubt the best source of this information and the app being unavailable significantly affects the day to day lives of a significant portion of the South African population who use it to plan around these power outages.&lt;p&gt;While the app also has a &amp;quot;chat&amp;quot; feature, it&amp;#x27;s really tangental to the primary purpose of the app and I expect that most users of the app, like myself, don&amp;#x27;t use that feature at all and only care about knowing when they will be without electricity.&lt;p&gt;In case you&amp;#x27;re wondering why they hell we have load shedding, it&amp;#x27;s because Eskom is grossly incompetent. Their incompetence is hugely exacerbated by nepitism and corruption where government has historically appointed people to Eskom management positions solely as &amp;quot;favours&amp;quot;, rather than on qualification for the job.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>igitur</author><text>This app is also known for its humorous take the quite serious subject matter. The WHAT’S NEW section in the Google Play Store is known for sarcastic titbits with the fictional Jeff working hard to keep us up to date with the imminent darkness. The app&amp;#x27;s name itself, Eskom se Push, is wordplay on an extremely vulgar South African insult and feeds into the popular dislike of Eskom.</text></comment>