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When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

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Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#11

It's not just Meta. All big tech companies (including Amazon, if you are a vendor) have gotten infamous for basically only getting a human to intervene with automated moderation or outsourced lowest-effort moderation if one raises a big-enough stink on social media or manages to secure a court judgement, but even that isn't foolproof these days. Twitter has recently gotten under fire for ignoring German court orders.

Yep. It's why the only way most people get their hacked YouTube channels back is by begging the Team YouTube account on Twitter for help, and hoping enough people bother the staff there that something actually gets fixed.

If you're a popular creator that doesn't have much of a social media following, friends at Google or lots of lawyer money, RIP any chance of getting your channel back before/after it gets banned due to the hackers.

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#12
Google, especially Google Corp, is very much that way too. One of my users is currently getting a fair bit of spam because a spammer figured out that if they send a message with envelope sender @google.com, rcpt @gmail.com, google.com MX will accept it, then bounce it with NoSuchUser and gmail will accept it. I spent an hour yesterday looking for a way to contact Google about it, but couldn't find anything. Made harder because most things assume you are talking about gmail or youtube, not google.com itself.

It's pretty shameful that these large companies have no real way to contact them.

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#13

It's important to have your own website, so you can post updates there. Use Meta to let people know that there is an update on the site.

100%. These large social media companies are very capricious about what counts as breaking their rules, will kill your reach at the drop of a hat and will fold under the slightest bit of pressure from someone richer/better connected than you if the latter has any issue with your work or existence at all.

Gotta own your own platform to make sure you have a backup when that happens, and have at least some control over your own audience.

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#14
post #10
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having your own site on someone else's corporate service is no less of a risk of being shut out of your account. Free speech is only as free as the service you are using thinks it is.

Web hosting is, or can be a commodity. An organization that gets dropped by its web host can just get another.

Sure, but as long as you own you domain name you're a DNS update away of moving it elsewhere.

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#15

Google, especially Google Corp, is very much that way too. One of my users is currently getting a fair bit of spam because a spammer figured out that if they send a message with envelope sender @google.com, rcpt @gmail.com, google.com MX will accept it, then bounce it with NoSuchUser and gmail will accept it. I spent an hour yesterday looking for a way to contact Google about it, but couldn't find anything. Made hard…

I've been having the same issue

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#16
I lost my facebook account about five years ago--total outright account ban. No recourse at all. It happened to a group of about 10 people that had been administrators of a local non-profit's facebook page and who had managed groups for the organization in the past. Our non-profit was non-denominational and helped local teens with after school type programs. We never knew why our personal accounts were banned. Best we could figure was that we used a tagline in the past in some facebook comments and posts that later got co-opted and spread by a "white power" group in the USA. We were located in Canada.

At the time, some people recommended buying an Occulus device and calling their support because they were able to recover accounts and they had human support. We tried appealing to the company on social media, but we didn't have any luck.

I had to rebuild my social media profile and our organizations profiles and I lost 14 years of Messenger conversations, posts, and photos. These memories were just gone. It sucked. For the non-profit, it meant lost donations and lost connections for our alumni. Keep your own content off-platform.

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#17

I lost my facebook account about five years ago--total outright account ban. No recourse at all. It happened to a group of about 10 people that had been administrators of a local non-profit's facebook page and who had managed groups for the organization in the past. Our non-profit was non-denominational and helped local teens with after school type programs. We never knew why our personal accounts were banned. Best w…

I registered an instagram account to share my art, and was banned entirely, immediately, before I could even upload an avatar, with zero explanation. I emailed several times, did the license scan thing, and even messaged support from my personal account, and I still have never gotten any sort of explanation.

shrug This and that other thread today about Slack just seems to be what happens when you're determined to remove as many humans from your processes as possible.

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#18

Google, especially Google Corp, is very much that way too. One of my users is currently getting a fair bit of spam because a spammer figured out that if they send a message with envelope sender @google.com, rcpt @gmail.com, google.com MX will accept it, then bounce it with NoSuchUser and gmail will accept it. I spent an hour yesterday looking for a way to contact Google about it, but couldn't find anything. Made hard…

This has been going for months already, it will most likely never be fixed.

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#19

Content is one thing. But it gets me really concerned about these kind of appeal processes when it comes to more critical things like your identity or proof of personhood. It is not hard to imagine getting a black mark in some invisible proprietary profile that determines if you can access Uber Eats, LinkedIn, etc. and have no recourse to fix it or get another chance.

I'm thinking of people who bought an Occulus Rift, which Meta then purchased and then forced people to associate a facebook account with it which they could then ban causing you to lose access to the hardware (and any games you purchased). A strong incentive to use the facebook account as little as possible since making a throwaway facebook account is now such a PITA. Infuriating since it was a bait and switch on an expensive piece of hardware. I guess the only winning move was to sell the device to some other sucker the moment the facebook purchase of Occulus was announced.

Don't worry this requirement was removed. Now you just need a Meta account which is totally different!

Re: When Knowing Someone at Meta Is the Only Way to Break Out of "Content Jail"

#20
post #8

It's important to have your own website, so you can post updates there. Use Meta to let people know that there is an update on the site.

Having your own site on someone else's corporate service is no less of a risk of being shut out of your account. Free speech is only as free as the service you are using thinks it is.

I think there's only that risk if you're using a website building service like Wix. If you build your own site and then send it up to a dumb host, you can just send it up to another dumb host when the first one pisses you off. Hopefully, you're at least managing your own DNS records too, and like that service.
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