Tag Archives: Facebook

Why we can’t be friends (Social media justice: part 2)

It’s official.

I’m now an outcast from modern society, a pariah of current culture, a man without a profile.

I’ve been permanently banned from Facebook.

And I’m okay with that.

In my last post, I shared how I received notice from Facebook that my account was suspended, for reasons that were a mystery to me. I was given 30 days to appeal, a process that must begin with me uploading my state ID to Facebook. This is something I would not do.

Since then, things have gotten more interesting, in an alarming sort of way.

I began to receive emailed receipts for ads placed on Facebook. There were two simple reasons why I could not have placed these ads:

  1. I had been locked out of my account for more than three weeks.
  2. The descriptions of the ads were in a language I don’t understand. (In fact, I can’t even tell what language it is.)

This shed some light on the situation. It appears that somebody in a foreign land had hijacked my account and done something with it to get me expelled from the platform. The brilliant minds at Facebook swung into action and barred the true owner of the account while apparently allowing the pirates to access the account freely and, as a bonus perk, to also run fraudulent ads on it. They weren’t getting any ad revenue from the rightful owner, so why not?

I found generic email addresses for Facebook departments online. I also found one reference to a phone number, but this was explained as the number that tells you not to try calling Facebook when you dial it. It seems that Facebook wants to hear from you in only one way, and that is the way that begins with you giving them more personal data about yourself. This personal data could easily end up in the hands of the new owners of your account, but even if it doesn’t, the prying eyes of Facebook would still have it.

I sent emails to all the Facebook addresses I found. In them, I explained the situation. I did not ask for my account to be reinstated. Now, I was sure I wanted it deleted, and the sooner the better. That was my best hope for making it useless to criminals. I don’t expect that any of the emails were ever read, but you’ve got to try.

I tried to log into my account again. Not surprisingly, I still couldn’t. When I click the button to close the app, I was warned that I had only one day left to appeal before my account was permanently disabled. I’m sure this was meant as some sort of threat, but I saw it as my only hope. I hoped it wasn’t an idle threat.

I’ve stopped getting the ad receipts. My account is beyond the appeal period. If that’s the end of it, I’m grateful to be done with Facebook. My only regret is that last Christmas I bought my boys an Oculus VR headset. It ran off my Facebook account; Oculus has alerted me that we will lose all the games we bought for it. The consolation is it wasn’t a huge hit with the boys and we didn’t spend a ton on games. And when I think back, it wouldn’t be the first time money spent on gifts for the kids was wasted.

In conclusion, I will not be accepting any more Facebook friends.

I’ve no more friends to play with.
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Social media justice

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.

Looking for a special friend, sailor?

Another hooker is after me.

I’m not sure she’s a bona fide hooker; I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt.

This is not in real life, of course. This is even more real than that because it’s on Facebook.

About once a quarter I get a Facebook friend request from someone I’ve never met. I’m not talking about one of those where the name might almost sound familiar if you close your eyes and repeat it slowly. These are total strangers, always women.

Because I’m the kind of guy who never turns my back on anyone without being sure she is not someone I used to know, I click the link that takes me to her wall, or whatever FB calls the place where you keep your naked selfie. This is followed by a sigh, as I think, “Oh my! I’m sure I’d remember her.”

But I don’t remember her. I don’t remember anybody like her. I’m not alone, because she only has seven friends – all lonely looking males. They don’t remember her either, but they so badly wish they did. Plus, it’s a nice photo to come back to when the loneliness scrapes bottom.

I know she means me no good. She is only some invention, created to lure me to the dark side of FB, if there is a side darker than the shallow political memes and associated insightful commentary.

Therefore, I’m sorry, lovely young lady who really knows her camera angles, or creepy dude who stole her photo and attached it to a fictional name on Facebook – I cannot be your friend. Your seven admirers will check in on you regularly, I’m sure.

I'm deleting your friend request.

I’m deleting your friend request.

I don’t know what the end goal of this proposed acquaintance is, but it disturbs me in a couple of ways. First, my oldest son is becoming aware of social media. He is also realizing there are parts on women that make his pupils dilate for reasons he can’t understand. The Internet and his own wide eyes can easily lead a boy astray. I’m trying to stop him from going astray, but it will be harder to keep the Facebook Hookers and their ilk at bay as he gets older.

I hope there are still a few years between us and this danger. In the meantime, these nefarious friend requests disturb me because they are the most common requests I get anymore. The world has run out of real people who want to be my friend, even in an unreal way. I’ve long ago given up on my ability to make friends in three dimensions, but now it seems I’m nothing special in two dimensions either. That’s okay though; I flourish amongst one-dimensional people.

This is the world we live in. I’ll be busy protecting my children from the pitfalls of social media. So if you are a 22-year-old woman, or are pretending to be, it may take me a while to get around to remembering you from our 1980s college days.