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Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users
71–80 of 240 posts
Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users
#72Too late now, but it's a good idea to keep your own backups of all your FB data. There is a well-hidden option under the settings to make and download a zip file with all your posts, comments, photos, everything. Worst case this can be used to rebuild your community elsewhere.
I am sure it would be nice to have but a backup of a community isn't worth much if you can't re-establish it with a "restore" function.
Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users
#73Universally 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.
I'd like to point out something my sibling commenters seem to be missing; nopenopenopeno never suggested that the _government_ run these services instead. They said that private companies were incapable of doing this, and that competition was not a suitable mechanism for achieving the necessary outcomes.
It is quite possible that neither the state nor private industry can do this, and that we need _something else_. I don't know what this is, it seems apparent to me that Mastodon-style, self hosted solutions are not tenable either, or perhaps their time has simply not come yet. But let us not limit our imagination to two broken options.
Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users
#74I've heard that Facebook doesn't actually hard-delete any information, so odds are that when support gets back to you sometime this year, they'll have admin tools that will allow them to reactivate the group.
Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users
#75Probably not the advice you're looking for, but looks like you have a blog also and am assuming that some/many of your subscribers also look at your blog. So, you may want to use your blog to spread the word about losing your page so that your subscribers know what's happening and you don't lose many of them. In addition, while you should keep looking at ways to recover your FB page, but you may want to take this opp…
Thank you for the advice!
The problem with this is that, even though the Facebook Page was simply mirroring the content on the blog, most of the interactions with actual bands and fans was via the Facebook page, not the blog. I don't really know if the blogpage itself has the same readership; if anything it's the other way round: I'm worried that with the Facebook page gone, people won't know to find the blog. And with the page deleted, I have no visible way of informing my subscribers either.
I did create a 'backup' page on Facebook (here: https://www.facebook.com/Metalised-Life-112985154608128) and announced the hack to people on the 'main' page, but the main page was taken down before people subscribed to the backup. Annoyingly, this announcement was part of the same post announcing the 'best of 2021 metal albums', which got many upvotes and replies from the bands and fans involved, but it's almost as if nobody noticed the part about the hack and the 'backup' page in the post...
Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users
#76Sometimes 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?
What regular support team?
Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Imagine your DMV experiences but applied to this. Then again, based on stories like this, private seems to be even worse. Even the DMV has human interaction possible after demoralizing wait times unlike shouting into blackholes that is FAANG support
Tangent, but using the DMV as a horror-cliche anchor is very state-specific. I have experience with DMVs in six states. Five of those have always been perfectly fine, nothing to complain about. If I'm competent enough to get my paperwork right, it is just a 15 minute process. New York and California even take appointments, no waiting. I got my license way back when in Tennessee, and they were incompetent jerks, and t…
> Tangent, but using the DMV as a horror-cliche anchor is very state-specific.
And very America-focused. Never had any issues at all with our local equivalent.
Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Imagine your DMV experiences but applied to this. Then again, based on stories like this, private seems to be even worse. Even the DMV has human interaction possible after demoralizing wait times unlike shouting into blackholes that is FAANG support
Tangent, but using the DMV as a horror-cliche anchor is very state-specific. I have experience with DMVs in six states. Five of those have always been perfectly fine, nothing to complain about. If I'm competent enough to get my paperwork right, it is just a 15 minute process. New York and California even take appointments, no waiting. I got my license way back when in Tennessee, and they were incompetent jerks, and t…
The Massachusetts RMV used to be horrendous, but they've cleaned themselves up a lot. I've had little issue getting things done over the past decade or so. Now that they've instituted appointments because of covid, it's even quicker. I hope they never go back. The only thing that is still really broken is their phone system. It's so hard to get anybody on the phone, it's really not worth even trying.
Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users
#79How did they hack you? Did you click on a link in a message which installed some keylogger on your computer? Or did you have an easy to guess password? Did you have two factor authentication?
Re: Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page of 50k users
#80I've heard that Facebook doesn't actually hard-delete any information, so odds are that when support gets back to you sometime this year, they'll have admin tools that will allow them to reactivate the group.
I don't think this is an ability Facebook support has. Engineering could probably do it, but I doubt you're going to be able to get this issue on their radar.