It began with an email. I thought it was a scam so I ignored it.
I could not have violated Facebook’s community standards. I hadn’t posted anything in months. Certainly, silence could not be against community standards.
Out of curiosity, I clicked to open the Facebook app. Maybe silence is against community standards.
It was true. My Facebook account had been suspended, just as the mysterious email had foretold.
I went back to the email: I had 30 days to appeal the suspension. After that my account would be deleted permanently.
Let’s see how this works, I thought, switching back to the app. I clicked the button to appeal. The app wanted my phone number. I was a little reluctant, but I finally decided I could offer that much to get to the bottom of this mystery.
The next screen asked me to upload a photo of my ID (e.g. license, passport, etc.).
Whoa. My identity is pretty important to me, and when it comes right down to it, Facebook is not. I started becoming disillusioned with FB the moment after I originally signed up. That disillusionment has grown over the years, as FB has become a tool to turn my deepest thoughts and shallowest curiosities into advertising to be thrown back into my face. Then there’s the issue of a corporation passing judgment on whose ideas are valid and whose aren’t.
Yes, there is a pleasant side to FB, and I do look at it sometimes to see what my friends are up to, and to understand what type of embarrassing secrets people now willingly share with the world in return for validation or sympathy.
I figure there are about 10 days left until I get deleted from the official registry of world people, and I think I’m OK with that. I would like to know what standard I violated by doing nothing (maybe I didn’t reach my quota of “Likes” in the past decade – I couldn’t argue with that), but I think I can live not knowing.
Here’s the interesting part.
Since my account got suspended, I have been receiving FB notifications like never before. Suddenly, I’m getting them in my email, and my entire phone screen is filled with them. I rarely got notifications when I was an upstanding citizen. Weird, huh?
It’s almost like FB is trying hard to lure me back. “Look at all this fun stuff you’re missing by not uploading your official state ID to us!”
They really want me to upload that ID. I’m sure it’s for my own good.
Even so, I think I’ll play out this game of chicken to the end. Maybe they’ll realize I’m calling their bluff and drop the charges. Probably not, in which case I might have to learn to present myself as a flesh and blood person again. I wonder if I’m up to it.
Waiting to hear if my profile will be released or executed.
Snoozing on the Sofa 
Aside from how WP has changed for the worse, they seem to be having operational problems lately. I received almost no email notifications on my last post despite getting more than usual likes and comments. Your experience is even nuttier.
Social Media does have a habit of disappointing, doesn’t it?
FB is brutal now censorship. My friend got flagged because she said I was no spring chicken while joking with me.
I got flagged yesterday because a friend showed a pic of a giant spider and I said that’s a no spider, a burn down your house spider.
It’s so bad.
Freedom is gone. If you speak the truth you’re shut down.
Add in Canada is now communist.
We’ll, I never got flagged. I went straight to expelled. I must be one of the hard cases. Canada may be headed in the wrong direction on freedom of speech, but so is everybody.
You a badass. Lol
You’re right freedom is gone everywhere.
How odd! I would also refuse to offer my ID, and yet I am not at all banished or accused of anything inappropriate. Weird.
You’ve been lucky. The machine hasn’t pointed its finger at you yet. Continued good luck to you.
Scott,I have tried more than once to “comment” on your WordPress posts. Because I am no longer a paying patron of WordPress, my comments seem to be rejected. Considering your Scamming offer from FB, it would not surprise me if WP sent me a request to submit a scan of “VOIDed” check. Not to rejoin WP. Just to allow me to make comments on your posts. Ed KaiserEdLaughing@yahoo.com
What? There’s life after WP? You’re dangerous, Ed. No wonder they’re trying to keep you away from the inmates.
Hmmm… facebook app?
Have you tried logging in by going to facebook(dot)com to see if you get different results?
I don’t know much about Facebook any more – I haven’t logged into my account in over six years.
If what you say about being “silent” is true… my account must be closed already — for years.
Yeah, all the iterations of FB are in agreement that I’m a bad seed. There’s no hope for my kind.
Before I left facebook for good, I was doing 6 month vacations (for 3 years). I gave everyone alternative ways to contact me – no one took my leaving to heart.
Ahh well… so much is life
I don’t miss it any more
I’ve posted so seldom in the last several years, I don’t think anyone will miss me.
Great works of literature have been banished, too. Consider yourself in good company. When we had bookstores they use to feature banned books, Maybe we need a website for banned social media post.
That’s the funny part: I don’t think they’re banning anything I’ve said (cause I haven’t said anything); they’re just banning me as an individual. They don’t like the cut of my jib.
I wouldn’t give that info. Looks like identity theft to me. That being said, it’s hard to keep track of some things without Facebook, at least in these parts. Lots of people are using it exclusively to announce deaths, important meetings and reunions. As much good has come from it as bad, at least in my case.
Who would have thought that not having Facebook would be equivalent to going off the grid? I might have to miss some important meetings. Poor me 😦
You have a point. Then again, I find it incredibly annoying that I have a friend who isn’t on Facebook who relies on me for info gleaned from the site.
My wife hasn’t been kicked off FB, and she’s used to me being incredibly annoying, so nothing will really change.
I figured.
Hey Snoozin. Sorry about your FB troubles. I got kicked off a FB group for putting links to my blog because they don’t allow people to sell things. Last I checked, I hadn’t made any $$$ off my WP site, but I still got voted off the island. Continue playing chicken with them, see what happens. Hubby and I had a small business that went out of business 12 years ago. I still get calls from Google threatening to cancel my Google listing if I don’t contact them immediately. I WANT it cancelled, but somehow, it’s still out there. Our business phone was one of our cells, which we still have, and now and then people call wanting to order food from us. Guess Google swerved first.
I stopped linking to my posts on FB many years ago because nobody was seeing them (because FB wanted me to pay to boost the posts). I haven’t done much on FB since then. Not worth giving my personal info to keep it. Oh well.
I got my family and friends to look at my WP via FB by tagging them in the comments. It was a pain, and in the end, not worth it. I also sent email with a link to my tech-challenged aunts who wanted access but couldn’t figure out how to “follow.” My blog has been more of a flog, a lot of work for 300 or so readers. That’s why you don’t see me publishing much on WP anymore. I’m saving my material for submission to contests, magazines with a bigger readership, and eventually, maybe a book.
You can’t hold a blog in your hand like you can a book. And no tech glitch can wipe it out. Definitely the way to go.