Facebook Users Angry After Accounts Locked for No Reason (bbc.com) 91
The BBC reported Friday that "Facebook users around the world have been waking up to find themselves locked out of their accounts for no apparent reason."
The message many received reads: "Your Facebook account was disabled because it did not follow our Community Standards. This decision can't be reversed." [It appeared in a popup window with the title, "We Cannot Review the Decision to Disable Your Account."]
One user told the BBC there was no warning or explanation given.
While the message appeared on April 1st (April Fool's Day), the lockouts were real, confirmed on Twitter by Facebook's policy communications director Andy Stone. Later Friday he tweeted that "Earlier today, a technical issue caused a small number of people to have trouble accessing Facebook. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience."
Numerous Twitter users then replied, complaining that their own accounts had been — and remained — disabled. "This happened to my father a couple of weeks ago and we are desperate to get his account back," one Twitter user told the Facebook communications official — while trying to explain the glitch's impact. "He has stage 4 cancer and uses the account to update his friends on his progress."
One user told the BBC there was no warning or explanation given.
While the message appeared on April 1st (April Fool's Day), the lockouts were real, confirmed on Twitter by Facebook's policy communications director Andy Stone. Later Friday he tweeted that "Earlier today, a technical issue caused a small number of people to have trouble accessing Facebook. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience."
Numerous Twitter users then replied, complaining that their own accounts had been — and remained — disabled. "This happened to my father a couple of weeks ago and we are desperate to get his account back," one Twitter user told the Facebook communications official — while trying to explain the glitch's impact. "He has stage 4 cancer and uses the account to update his friends on his progress."
Losers (Score:5, Funny)
If you aren't posting stuff to FB that'll get you banned, you're missing out on the fun.
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What did they *do*? Call someone by their actual gender?
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These days my accounts are increasingly reported and suspended because of supporting Ukraine and condemning Russia. Like, violence can flow one way, and thought of payback is improper. To complicate the matter, Russian set of reviewers is obviously biased, would you appeal. Not sure, banned accounts experience similar grounds.
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That's because the Marxist founded post-modern feminists and their alphabet soup allies have "determined" that gender means the social construct, and "sex" means the biological distinction. The word '"gender" is now the hostage of the gender politics advocates and their Marxist founders, who live to control the ignorant through changing definitions.
Sex, in this new regime, is easily determined in nearly all cases. There are edge cases, such as people with Klinefelder's Syndrome who have XXY chromosomes.
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You're confusing two very different branches of Feminism. There are three:
* First Wave: The Classic Liberal/Libertarian branch. You know the gist: right to vote, right to not be beaten up, right to refuse sex and to not be raped by their husbands, right to work without their husband or eldest son needing to give her permission etc. Believes in the biology of the time it was developed, up to the knowledge available around 1920 or so.
Nowadays every conservative is a first wave feminist, to the point most don'
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Because all things ultimately stem from three things only - the genes, the chemical signals (including those from the microbiome), and the neurological structure of the brain. And these are facts of biology. There is nothing else. Even the mind is of a biological origin. There is no soul, there is no spirit, there is nothing paranormal, there's only what is physically present and that determines everything. Including your thoughts and feelings. It's all mechanics.
Uh, no. You can't pick your own pronoun. Gen
Re: Losers (Score:2)
âoeBecause all things ultimately stem from three things only - the genes, the chemical signals (including those from the microbiome), and the neurological structure of the brain. And these are facts of biology. There is nothing else. Even the mind is of a biological origin. There is no soul, there is no spirit, there is nothing paranormal, there's only what is physically present and that determines everything. Including your thoughts and feelings. It's all mechanics.â
well then why accept biology a
Lucky bastards (Score:5, Funny)
I guess I should check and see if I won too...darn, nope, account still works.
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"This is the joke you were looking for."
In solution terms, I set a timer for 5 minutes per day if Facebook. Killed the engagement, though I was reminded to use the five minutes today. First time in weeks. I was not engaged. Nor amused. But I can still hope to be locked out?
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Re:I was banned for nudity... (Score:4, Funny)
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I sound a bit unhinged, says an anonymous coward with a psychiatry degree from Facebook University. Please. Your photo at least had flesh in it.
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Nope, there's nothing else going on. The image literally had zero nudity or anything else that would go against "community standards"
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Odd choice to include explicit sexual fantasies in your whine about how you think the nudity you posted wasn't nude-enough to get banned, or whatever.
Usually when people want to lie and blame things on other people they make attempt to sound innocent.
Re: I was banned for nudity... (Score:1)
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Oh, I see, you work for facebook so you gotta act like it's me with the problem. That's laughable. It's far easier to attack my character than to get to any facts, not that your boss, Zuckerturd, would let you do that anyway.
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Oh, I see, you work for facebook .
Derp derp derp derp derp. Derp derp derp derp derp. Derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp.
Lurn us hoe too rgue.
A good chance to say "bye bye" to Facebook? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Quit your whining (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Quit your whining (Score:4, Interesting)
I "banned" myself from Facebook and didn't look back. The only trouble I had was trying to look at a news article that a TV station only posted on Facebook, but being a Mickey Mouse outfit that would use FB instead of an actual server to distribute their content, I probally didn't miss anything.
Re: Quit your whining (Score:1)
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I don’t have a personal Facebook account, but I created a Business account two weeks ago to access some administrative pages related to the WhatsApp integration we’re building for our client’s app. I got caught up in this stuff. Others thankfully still have access, otherwise this would have become a blocker for the development team I lead.
I’m right there with you in thinking this is a good time for a clean break. For me, it’s simply a reminder of why I’ve avoided them lik
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Yeah because my VR hardware not working and my games library being unavailable is a "favour".
Kid, not everyone who has a Facebook account does so they can post shit on their walls.
Re: Quit your whining (Score:3)
I'm a happy 3rd generation Vive/Index owner and happily deleted my FB account a couple years ago without regret.
Re: Quit your whining (Score:2)
maybe heâ(TM)s poor but feels the need to keep up appearances?
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Why would I be poor if I can afford to own several generation of VR headsets?
Maybe you're a judgmental arsehole? I think that's far more likely.
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Did you know the FB commitment when deciding to purchase an Oculus instead of a competitor?
No, because they bait and switched the requirements. Mind you even if I did it's irrelevant, the question isn't about hardware but about software availability. If I had an Index I would still have a Facebook account, I would still own games I bought on the Oculus store, because the reality is that exclusives is a thing which exists.
I don't ever post anything on Facebook. It's a toxic social media site.
I do however happily buy games on Facebook, look up events on Facebook, and send my dear mother in Australi
Problem is not the lock out (Score:5, Interesting)
But instead the "non reviewable".
People are OK with the risk of a false 'conviction'. And others will accept that risk. But nobody likes being told "NO APPEAL." Even if an appeal never ever reverses the conviction, the appeals process itself gives people confidence in the system.
No appeal is among other things, (1) a refusal to admit the company makes mistakes, (2) A dismissal of the thing these people value as not being worth appealing[it's just Facebook, who cares?] that you yourself are offering and claiming as valuable, and (3) an insult to those punished as they must be guilty as scum.
Yes, appeals process are expensive and may not be worth it. It exists because the absence of it is an incredibly bad idea. It means you are offering crap rather than something of value, are too arrogant to be trusted, and most importantly you despise your constituents.
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99% of people have not been kicked out of water parks or social networks. Only those that lack the social skills most of us have get kicked out of places.
Anyone that constantly complains about others not being able to 'take it' , about them whining, and 'crying to momma' is not someone anyone else wants to be with.
Most importantly, all you seem do be doing is literally whining about others whining.
You clearly lack the social skills that others have. Crying to momma means you broke the rules and do not
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Well put. I'm going to share this.
By share I mean the way we shared things before social media.
Re: Problem is not the lock out (Score:2)
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Life is perfectly fair. Unfairness requires sentience. Oh, and if you imagine that there's such a concept as bowing to Bernie Sanders, you never understood a word he said.
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The problem with the "no appeal" thing is that it is quite Kafka-esque. Now, if this was a Valve Anti-Cheat ban where there is a forum for people to post, just to be made fun of because they got VAC banned, that's one thing, but FB has no real rules to follow other than the vague "community standards". Hell, even with World of Warcraft, it takes a lot of doing to get a ban, even though it is in Blizzard's best interest to ban people, so they make new accounts and re-buy their stuff.
Cult of Dusty (Score:2)
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Will the imposter please consider himself cordially invited to eat shit and die?
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Re: Make another one (Score:2)
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Discord has this option, and any server that requires it, I either don't join, or leave after they start requiring it.
No. Discord isn't getting my phone number. And no. I don't do Discord on my phone either.
No one should 'need' my phone number for anything, least of all authentication.
I've also seen this happen more and more where companies want a copy of your passport to confirm 'it's you'. That's actually extremely illegal in a lot of countries.. So yeah.
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If you have an established social media account with hundreds of connections, it can be really difficult to rebuild that.
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That isn't as easy as it sounds. It isn't just them asking for a mobile phone number, which will be cross-referenced across mobile providers, so one of the throwaway services isn't going to work. You could buy a burner phone and a SIM, but even a cheap feature phone and a plan is going to run you around two C-notes. The days of buying a 30 day card for $20 and a $15 Nokia candy bar phone, which was an option even just a few years ago, are long gone.
Even if you pass the phone number test, FB is able to co
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You could buy a burner phone and a SIM, but even a cheap feature phone and a plan is going to run you around two C-notes.
I hate to break it on you, but Amazon is still selling 20 dollar flip phones [amazon.com].
Playing God (Score:3)
This is yet another reason why people are leaving Facebook and going to other services.
It seems the privacy bruhaha has died down a bit lately, but people are realizing having one person control all is a very bad idea.
Ya, but ... (Score:4, Funny)
Facebook Users Angry After Accounts Locked for No Reason
Isn't doing stuff "for no reason" basically SOP for Facebook?
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The similarities between Facebook and the film War Games is disturbing. Partly because the software is responding in a similar way, but mostly because the guys in the war room are responding in a similar way.
I wonder if I can get out facebook this way (Score:3)
I have been under some external pressure to have a facebook account that I don't particularly want or use that often.
I wonder if I tell them that I got locked out and don't know why, if that would make them leave me alone about it.
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Really, this was a major White House initiative once. Just Say No!
Impossible to get a real person to help fix it (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem with social media is that when something goes wrong with your account, it's pretty much impossible to get a real person to look at the problem and fix it. You're at the mercy of the same automated tools that banned your account in the first place.
This has happened with several friends on Twitter. Their account gets suspended for something ridiculous and it can take MONTHS, if ever, to get a person to review it. And if that person is an asshole and decides to leave the account suspended, they're pretty much screwed.
People depend on these accounts to communicate with their friends and family. It shouldn't take so little for them to become suspended and so much to get them back.
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With that understood, how did your friends come to have their accounts on Twitter suspended? Were they, perhaps, persona non grata for a reason we're not hearing here? I find it hard to believe that Twitter, for example, wants to just walk away from money. What are you not telling us?
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You're
Your.
how did... Twitter suspended?
I don't know about that person's friends, but in my case on twitter I didn't post anything controversial or challenging at all, but they pretended there was some problem, and in order to fix it I would have to give them a phone number. Each privacy-rapist is different, but in the case of twitter, they use fake suspensions to extract valuable personal information. They're not always walking away from money when they do a bogus suspension.
Maybe his friends all use ad-blockers? Maybe they were posting lin
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Meanwhile actual fraudsters get to keep peddling their scams on FB with no consequence. I use FB because of its marketplace (it's the best online option for local selling in my area) and come across this crap in buy/sell groups frequently. That free $100 Lowe's Gift Card phishing scam? Yeah I reported the jerk, and FB helpfully sent me a message that no action was taken. And now they're banning people who did nothing wrong. While letting the spammers run wild. Terrible company.
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The problem is that people don't realize that they are the product, not the customers. It might not be unwise to go to other services, where one might shell out money for stuff, just so that the barrier legally for a ban without hope of recourse is a lot higher. Many ways to do this:
Slack comes to mind. It is pretty hard to get a ban from Slack directly, especially if one is using a server that is paid for.
For a low common denominator, email and GPG. There are services like Hushmail and Protonmail which
Re: Impossible to get a real person to help fix it (Score:2)
Protonmail
I am a proton mail customer but if their Reddit channel is anything to go by, they can be a tad zealous with the banhammer even on paid accounts
I've seen a few posts complaining that the user was using email to complain about treatment at another company and the other company just reported them as criminals to proton. True? Who knows. But there's been more than one post like that.
I'm the rock the boat type and I've not yet received a ban from proton so that's the only data point I can add.
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That is good to know. I've not seen any real screaming about bans, although there are a lot of people who will consider ProtonMail something to be abused.
I'm more concerned about places that ban because of what one has to say, provided it is protected 1A speech (i.e. not criminal stuff.) Unpopular is being confounded with unlawful, so one can get a ban on some social network sites, just for an unpopular opinion, just due to a knee-jerk reaction. From what I see, if one person on a FB friends list starts
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People depend on these accounts to communicate with their friends and family. It shouldn't take so little for them to become suspended and so much to get them back.
Not passing judgement, people are free to do as they would like, even use Facebook as far as I am concerned â¦. I am sure it is fun for some people, but why would they depend on Facebook to communicate? It is just a website. Sure, a popular one, but they do not have a monopoly on communication. Email, chat, text messaging, there are l
Re: Impossible to get a real person to help fix it (Score:2)
but why would they depend on Facebook to communicate? It is just a website
Because people are ignorant. Facebook had the good (business) sense to call their chat app "Facebook Messenger", which the naive ignorant proles just abbreviate to "Messenger".
Then they released an app called... "Messenger" and loaded it with pointless wank including the bullshit basketball video chat thing.
Suddenly it's not a website anymore. It's *the* way of communicating. Everyone is using it and it takes a fucking enormous amount of pushing to break that inertia.
Surprised?? (Score:1)
The relationship between FB and its users reminds me of the unhealthy relationship between Germany and Putin's Russia (or its gas, at least).
I *do* realize that there are vital user groups (cancer support groups, just to name one of so many) who critically depend on FB. Time to move on, and to help folks move on if they have a hard time doing so themselves. Not that I hold out any hope ...
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So exactly like Russia and Germany.
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It might be wise for user groups like that to make a jump to a less Draconian platform. Google Groups comes to mind, if not moving to some forum based software, perhaps even WordPress based.
The problem with FB is that everything is in one place. The app has groups, messaging file storage, photo albums, everything accessible by one app. It tends to be hard to tell users to head out to another app or website, especially if the users are mainly on smartphones, than it is to just use the group. However, it
Interesting (Score:3)
I thought several of my co-workers became surprisingly productive on Friday...
Lots of glitches, no support (Score:2)
One time a glitch renamed my performance groups page to the name of the theater we were going to be in for a single show. Support said that they wouldn't change it back because it would be misleading to people who had liked the page.
Facebook is trash and the sooner people move on, the better
What a weird cancer (Score:1)
"This happened to my father a couple of weeks ago and we are desperate to get his account back," one Twitter user told the Facebook communications official — while trying to explain the glitch's impact. "He has stage 4 cancer and uses the account to update his friends on his progress."
What kind of cancer stops you from using email like a normal human? Can he only communicate through Oculus??
We Cannot Review"? (Score:2)
That's a strange way of saying "We Won't Review". And why is it capitalised like a title?
Also while being blocked from Facebook for community standards is one thing, I'm keen to see the ever-loving fuck sued out of Meta when they block someone without recourse who actually has an Oculus headset and games library they are no longer able to access. Community standards cutting off hardware you bought and the single player games you play by yourself? Good luck explaining that to the judge.
Don't step in it (Score:2)
If you do not step in poop then you will not have to clean poop from your foot.
LOL! (Score:1)
So ask for your money back (Score:2)
Big Tech not evil? (Score:3)
Big Tech companies talk a lot about not being evil, morality, inclusivity. But then when their customers need assistance, it's almost impossible for them to talk to a human being. Often such companies haven't even got an email address to write to, and when they do have a reachable contact it often spits out automatically generated replies. This speaks a lot about the true nature of such companies. And how it's not a good idea to rely on them for important matters.
Facebook uses Twitter? (Score:1)
Happened to me in the summer (Score:1)
I got a 1 month ban, protested it, and at the end of the 1 month got a notice that too much time had passed and that they could not reverse it. This was in August 2021. I am guilty of posting based memes and making fun of the woke.
The horror of having no distractions (Score:2)
And actually getting work done, or actually talking to someone. What a tragedy!