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What I Learned When Facebook Disabled My Account (2012)

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Re: What I Learned When Facebook Disabled My Account (2012)

#21
post #12
post #8

On the one hand, I cannot help but feel for this person - Facebook, without an explanation, did significant damage to this person's career. At least that's the way he paints it (though he mentions a rule in his mailbox that deleted mail from facebook automatically, so there might have been a warning and all that - we'll never know). On the other hand, well, that is precisely what some people warned us of - give a sin…

> The only solution I can think of is for lots and lots of people to pool their money and start a non-profit Facebook. See https://diasporafoundation.org/ Not that they've actually made any sort of dent in the problem - as you say, the network effect is just too strong.

Sometimes the only way to win is not to play at all. If you want to contact me on Facebook about that... well, I never had an account, and I am surviving... somehow.

BTW https://mastodon.social is making some headway. I see a lot of security people have switched to it.

Re: What I Learned When Facebook Disabled My Account (2012)

#22
Big companies don't owe you anything by hosting the files for you, because you are the product. Something similar happened to me in 2012 but with a Gmail account[1]. So, I built an app to backup my emails.

The whole ordeal, in hindsight, was the best thing that could happen to me, it taught me a good lesson on data sovereignty in the internet world and opened up a small passive income stream.

[1] https://thehorcrux.com/why-i-built-horcrux-app/

Re: What I Learned When Facebook Disabled My Account (2012)

#23
post #9

I know the article is old, but the author showed a severe lack of common sense. Facebook is NOT a backup. If you only keep stuff in your Facebook account, then it is as 'at risk' as if you only kept on the hard-drive of your ageing laptop that you bought on discount in Walmart/ASDA ten years ago. This oft quoted adage also applies: 'If you are not paying for the product, then you are the product'. The author seemed t…

Fair enough, still though, you'd think someone at facebook would have returned his photos and videos if he had requested, just to be nice. We are moving to a cloud based world, and I'd hate for it to be a world where people rely widely on cloud based services and risk losing their vital documents if they get banned from a given service.

Re: What I Learned When Facebook Disabled My Account (2012)

#24
I learn to quit facebook very early days. I don't like the privacy violations or that big brother spying you feeling. Also account deletions are happening to everyone who talk against facebook. Crooked as google. Both really disappointing services all the way.

People, please use alternatives

Re: What I Learned When Facebook Disabled My Account (2012)

#25
post #9

I know the article is old, but the author showed a severe lack of common sense. Facebook is NOT a backup. If you only keep stuff in your Facebook account, then it is as 'at risk' as if you only kept on the hard-drive of your ageing laptop that you bought on discount in Walmart/ASDA ten years ago. This oft quoted adage also applies: 'If you are not paying for the product, then you are the product'. The author seemed t…

There is another option. Consider sites like Facebook to be public accommodations, and create new laws regulating acceptable behavior of digital public accommodations. Facebook is a significant part of our society. It is not clear why it should be free democratic oversight.

They'll just title themselves as a "private club", like other organizations that wanted to continue discriminating after public accommodations were enacted.

And in all fairness, FB originally started that way when you needed a university email address to join.

Re: What I Learned When Facebook Disabled My Account (2012)

#27
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another option. Consider sites like Facebook to be public accommodations, and create new laws regulating acceptable behavior of digital public accommodations. Facebook is a significant part of our society. It is not clear why it should be free democratic oversight.

They'll just title themselves as a "private club", like other organizations that wanted to continue discriminating after public accommodations were enacted. And in all fairness, FB originally started that way when you needed a university email address to join.

As long as we are updating the definition of public accommodation, we can also define the "private".

My point was more that it is not unreasonable to look to regulations to deal with Facebook. The regulations do not necessarily have to be "public accommodations", I just cited them as the most relevant legal concept I was aware of.

Re: What I Learned When Facebook Disabled My Account (2012)

#28

Big companies don't owe you anything by hosting the files for you, because you are the product. Something similar happened to me in 2012 but with a Gmail account[1]. So, I built an app to backup my emails. The whole ordeal, in hindsight, was the best thing that could happen to me, it taught me a good lesson on data sovereignty in the internet world and opened up a small passive income stream. [1] https://thehorcrux.c…

Yeah, I too was a victim of a random Gmail ban without warning or recourse, so I stopped using webmail ask together and keep all my mail local.

Re: What I Learned When Facebook Disabled My Account (2012)

#30

I learn to quit facebook very early days. I don't like the privacy violations or that big brother spying you feeling. Also account deletions are happening to everyone who talk against facebook. Crooked as google. Both really disappointing services all the way. People, please use alternatives

Alternatives to Facebook that's not made by Google?
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