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Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users

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Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users

#31

Post by nsenifty »

echelon wrote: post #12

Your best bet is to get ahold of actual Facebook engineers, and this is a good place to do it. Take this issue to Twitter as well. It looks like your previous posts didn't make it to the front page, but with any luck this time you'll get some real traction. The suggestion in a previous thread about buying an Oculus to get priority customer support is also not a bad one. Do you have any snapshots of your membership ba…

Facebook engineers wouldn't be able to help unless they can personally vouch for the person affected for privacy and security reasons.

Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users

#32

Post by comrh »

bko wrote: post #10
nopenopenopeno wrote: post #5

Universally necessary services like communication, healthcare, and social media (the digital plaza) can never be justly managed by private companies. It is an inherent structural contradiction that has failed and will continue to fail our society until we are willing to organize resistance beyond the realm of consumer choice.

You're assuming that public organizations would run a more secure responsive network. My interactions with public institutions makes me doubt this assumption, especially for something as vast and complicated as facebook's network.

You have legal recourse at least to file a FOIA request and force them to respond.

Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users

#33

Post by mxuribe »

I'm sorry that this happened to you. What i am about to propose is not a solution for you for now unfortunately. But maybe something to help for the future...Have you considered starting a new presence for yourself and your community on the fediverse (e.g. mastodon, pleroma, diaspora, friendica, etc.)?? This will take work and time of course and maybe not all members will follow you over, but if you start a new community on one of the existing fediverse instances - or even better and more resilient, start your own instance - then facebook or other entities will not be able to let this happen to you/your community again. (Granted you can of course get hacked in your new world, encounter negativity, etc...But you will likely be in better position to do something more for yourself than what FB is/isn't doing.)

Step 1: Research the topic of the fediverse, and specifically find options for you to sign up for accounts...Yes, plural acounts...so you can get a flavor for the differnce in apps, instances, existing communities and so on. "Try" before you "buy". See also site like: https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse

During this step, if you can still access the legacy FB community/page as a participant, inform your peers that you're trying this fediverse thing out, and if they're interested in experimenting with you. The more that can go along for the ride, the merrier!

Step 2: Sign up for a couple of different accounts, join some existing communities. No need to be shady nor too secretive, be honest with folks that you're testing the waters...and of course be respectful; that helps new members. Get familiar with using the tech (since there are nuances and differences to how conventional social media typically operates, new vocabularies, etiquette)... Do not research about setting up your own instance...just get comfy being a regular user, and understanding the rhythms of the fediverse. And, if some members from the legacy FB page did in fact join you in this experiment, ask them what they think so far.

Step 3: Decide which community to stay with in the fediverse (maybe re-create your "true"/"final" account), and then start inviting community members from legacy FB page. I should clarify that like FB, you are not restricted to only 1 community...you can join as many places as you wish.

Optional Step 4: After some time, if you're really into the fediverse, want more freedom, etc...Research setting up your instance/community...or look for providers that you pay for managing the infrastructure for you. Nothing is free - you either invest time/money managing system yourself or pay someone else to do it for you.

Good luck, and again, sorry that this happened to you in the first place!

Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users

#34

Post by itsAtruism »

bko wrote: post #10
nopenopenopeno wrote: post #5

Universally necessary services like communication, healthcare, and social media (the digital plaza) can never be justly managed by private companies. It is an inherent structural contradiction that has failed and will continue to fail our society until we are willing to organize resistance beyond the realm of consumer choice.

You're assuming that public organizations would run a more secure responsive network. My interactions with public institutions makes me doubt this assumption, especially for something as vast and complicated as facebook's network.

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users

#35

Post by ygjb »

bko wrote: post #10
nopenopenopeno wrote: post #5

Universally necessary services like communication, healthcare, and social media (the digital plaza) can never be justly managed by private companies. It is an inherent structural contradiction that has failed and will continue to fail our society until we are willing to organize resistance beyond the realm of consumer choice.

You're assuming that public organizations would run a more secure responsive network. My interactions with public institutions makes me doubt this assumption, especially for something as vast and complicated as facebook's network.

I will point out that in Canada, many of our telecoms were run by privately operated, publicly owned organizations (Crown Corporations) that operated at arms length. Until they were sold for pennies on the dollar by governments looking to score a quick win for "fiscal responsibility" and "small government", these organizations operated with a high degree of public scrutiny, and had the goal of offering low cost, reliable services.

By most accounts the quality of service in relation to the price has been awful in most places in Canada, and the few places that still have Crown Corp delivered telecoms are among the happiest customers in that sector.

This same scenario has played out across multiple sectors including oil & gas, electricity and hydroelectric services, and here in BC, transportation services (BC Ferries).

Everyone likes to take a dump on public run services, but practically speaking, they have more oversight and accountability than privately run services.

Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users

#36

Post by barbazoo »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #20
new_guy wrote: post #6

Facebook is a cancer, take this as a sign to start your own social network. There's lots of 'off-the-shelf' scripts you can use (see codecanyon.net) You can rebuild your community in no time and make it better than it was.

Very HN response. "My FB community got destroyed. Can anyone else?" "FB bad. Build your own." Sorry OP. I don't know anyone who can help. It seems to me like FB would be able to reactivate the group if you can get a hold of someone. I don't think they purged their DB of your group.

It's not very empathetic that's right but it's still true. People have to stop building their livelihoods or passion projects on these platforms, if they want to have any control over them at least.

Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users

#37

Post by pchangr »

cousin_it wrote: post #28
nopenopenopeno wrote: post #5

Universally necessary services like communication, healthcare, and social media (the digital plaza) can never be justly managed by private companies. It is an inherent structural contradiction that has failed and will continue to fail our society until we are willing to organize resistance beyond the realm of consumer choice.

It's not about private companies. I have an account at a private bank and am not afraid of something like this happening at all. Because to the bank I'm not just an abstract "username and password": the account is tied to my real world identity, so in the last resort I'll prove to the bank that I'm me using state provided means. I'm getting more and more convinced that online accounts important to people's livelihood…

That is until the bank happens to be 100% online.. they can’t verify your identity so they close your account and you can’t access your account nor contact the bank because you don’t have an account so you try to create an account to inquiry about your other account and they tell you you already have an account so they can’t open you an account and now you’re stuck with no way to contact the bank and no funds and noone able to help you. This is an extremely common scenario with banks in Germany.

Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users

#38

Post by 650REDHAIR »

cousin_it wrote: post #28
nopenopenopeno wrote: post #5

Universally necessary services like communication, healthcare, and social media (the digital plaza) can never be justly managed by private companies. It is an inherent structural contradiction that has failed and will continue to fail our society until we are willing to organize resistance beyond the realm of consumer choice.

It's not about private companies. I have an account at a private bank and am not afraid of something like this happening at all. Because to the bank I'm not just an abstract "username and password": the account is tied to my real world identity, so in the last resort I'll prove to the bank that I'm me using state provided means. I'm getting more and more convinced that online accounts important to people's livelihood…

I see you haven't been a victim of identity theft yet.

It doesn't take much to hijack a bank account and eventually you will regain access, but it isn't as simple as you might imagine and a fair amount of damage can be done in a short period of time.

Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users

#39

Post by pchangr »

tluyben2 wrote: post #23
bko wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that public organizations would run a more secure responsive network. My interactions with public institutions makes me doubt this assumption, especially for something as vast and complicated as facebook's network.

But I can go to a desk and, talk to someone, and, eventually, possibly after a very long time, someone will act. With canned response AI private corps I don’t have this. Also, at least where I live, if you make more of a stink at the office of the public org in question, you get helped faster and often better.

Case in point:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30053549

Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users

#40

Post by jsmith99 »

vertis wrote: post #16

Sometimes company legal teams can be the most accessible way to draw attention to something like this, and I don't mean in a combative way. They're very risk conscious, they see a '10+ years of building a heavy metal community, gone like a puff of smoke' in terms of risks, both of bad publicity but also if you were to somehow litigate because of the damage to your business or project. Often they have an email address…

Surely involving the legal team would mean the regular support team could no longer be involved?
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