Meetup.com Is A Failed Platform

And this failure is such a shame as Meetup.com offered up so much potential. Just look at these reviews:

I asked them to explain this poor performance and they closed the chat without responding.

This is my final post on Meetup.com as of this time next week Life Drawing Wales on meetup will be gone. I am closing the group and my account. I cannot stomach giving them any more money and the subscription is due 21st of December.

Email to the Trust and Safety Team 9/12/22:

You really are pieces of work. You don't answer questions and you don't investigate complaints I make (limited investigation does not sound very thorough) and you lie to my members. Here is my response to your email of last night and I demand answers! My notes are in italics:

Yes, You sent this to my members but it is a lie:

'Life Drawing & Models - Cardiff, South Wales & South West is now a private group.

This means that the organizer of Life Drawing & Models - Cardiff, South Wales & South West changed the group’s content visibility setting.'

I did nothing of the sort. You set the group to private. 

Trust and Safety then sent this to me:

We have a general policy of keeping all abuse reports and resolutions confidential, as such, I won't be able to provide you with information on the report of this image that was in your group.

So you won't even say whether the complaint came from within the group or from outside of the group, which was the question I posed? 

In regards to the groups that you have provided the URL's for: Our team is constantly working to ensure all groups and members follow our Community Guidelines, however, due the large number of groups on Meetup, at times we do rely on members reporting groups and accounts to ensure our platform remains a safe and friendly environment. With this in mind, we will conduct a limited inquiry into these groups and take appropriate action on our end.

This implies that the groups with similar nude photos and sexualised imagery will not be fully investigated and I am positive will remain live. Where is the level playing field here?

Please note, your group’s cover photo is a publicly accessible image. When you created your Meetup account and group, you agreed to our Terms of Services. Per our Community Guidelines, publicly accessible images must be appropriate for all ages. We ask that you please remove your group’s current cover photo and replace it with one that is relevant towards your group and aligns with our Community Guidelines.

Again, please tell me why this non-sexualised image that is appropriate for both Facebook and Instagram falls so foul of your guidelines?

Additionally, your group contains mature interests. Groups containing mature/adult content must have their visibility set to “Private”, so we have made that change for your group.

I wholly disagree that life drawing is mature interest. Please explain how so? Life drawing is taught in schools in the UK and indeed we accept any age with parental consent and parents accompanying those under 16's. 

To help provide some additional context about the type of publicly accessible images we allow, below are some examples of nude imagery that may be acceptable:

• Nude cartoons (not photorealistic)

• Abstract Nude Art (not photorealistic)

• Scientific or anatomical diagrams

• Nude Art (not photorealistic)

I know that sketches made at our sessions are Nude Art (not photorealistic) and so the group should not be set to private. Please explain WHY you have set the group to private given that the photo that you took down is now gone and there is a new banner image?

That’s it… No more Meetup.com stuff…