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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"

#131

Post by randycupertino »

linsomniac wrote: post #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 hard…

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

There was a thread on reddit from an escort who was on a podcast talking about how she was banned from instagram and facebook (for promoting her escorting!) and the only way she was able to get her account back was to seduce some high-level meta employees via linkedin, date them and then convince them to reinstate her accounts.

edit- not sure if this is the same girl but here is a similar article about this scenario: https://www.newsweek.com/onlyfans-star-slept-meta-employees-...

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

#132

Post by randycupertino »

qingcharles wrote: post #127
United857 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not hackers but Meta employees/contractors who make money on the side by using their access to internal support tooling/channels. It's a fireable offense (it's only intended for actual friends/family) but still happens a lot.

There are plenty at Twitter and TikTok too. Sadly I can't find anyone to pay off at Google yet to fix my gmail (I have the username, password, and everything is forwarded to the recovery email I own, I just lost access to the phone number and they enabled 2FA without asking). Reddit also, I can't find anyone there to unban my friend's account that got locked (due to a server outage), even after speaking directly to s…

I'm permabanned IP-banned from reddit and it is so aggravating. Appeal is auto-rejected. :( Wish I knew someone there to help me out!

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

#133

Post by randycupertino »

pogue wrote: post #64
United857 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not hackers but Meta employees/contractors who make money on the side by using their access to internal support tooling/channels. It's a fireable offense (it's only intended for actual friends/family) but still happens a lot.

Do you have proof of this though? Otherwise, we're just speculating it's a likely possibility.

There's this woman who slept with meta employees to get her account back:

https://www.newsweek.com/onlyfans-star-slept-meta-employees-...

> "So, I stalked them on Instagram through my backup but still slutty account," she said. "I managed to find a couple (employees), not from that department but still people that worked at Instagram in LA."

> She said she allegedly met up "with a couple" employees in the L>os Angeles area, adding that they know about her podcast.

> "We met up and I f*ked a couple of them and I was able to get my account back two-three times," Kitty Lixo said, recommending others with locked accounts to continue reaching out to the platform for eventual ban reversal.

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

#134

Post by randycupertino »

qingcharles wrote: post #128
Terr_ wrote: post #104

I had a weird and painful experience like that with Reddit, where my account and 10+ years of content all vanished one morning for no reason... but its "appeals" webpage insists that my account is in good-standing , so therefore I can't submit any kind of request for help. A real hard wake-up call on the importance of owning your own online identity and content.

That's odd. You can't log into it at all, right? 99% of the time you can still log into a banned Reddit account and visit the internal appeals page. You are usually just "shadowbanned".

My reddit is IP and hardware device banned- when I create a new account it's banned within 24-hours. All from pissing off a "power mod" of a main bay area subreddit. So aggravating.

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

#135

Post by FireBeyond »

stult wrote: post #37
_-_-__-_-_- wrote: post #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 w…

The internet has been like this forever. In the 90s I was banned from hotmail for having an inappropriate email address because my last name is Cummings. No recourse for some idiotic regex filter.

Ahh, it's called the Scunthorpe problem! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem

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

#136

Post by Terr_ »

qingcharles wrote: post #128
Terr_ wrote: post #104

I had a weird and painful experience like that with Reddit, where my account and 10+ years of content all vanished one morning for no reason... but its "appeals" webpage insists that my account is in good-standing , so therefore I can't submit any kind of request for help. A real hard wake-up call on the importance of owning your own online identity and content.

That's odd. You can't log into it at all, right? 99% of the time you can still log into a banned Reddit account and visit the internal appeals page. You are usually just "shadowbanned".

I described the final state for brevity, but the slightly longer version is:

1. One morning my account was shadowbanned. Literally everything from any time in any subreddit, including truncating threads and taking other people's replies with it.

2. I logged in and used the appeals page... and it was eventually "granted" with an apologetic message!

3. But nothing changed, except that appeals page stopped working, as it claims the account is normal.

4. Mods can briefly approve what I post, but it doesn't stick. After a few minutes it becomes blocked again, with no audit-trail.

5. So... I dug up an old resume-feedback throwaway account from ~5 years ago to go asking for help...

6. Within a day, it got shadowbanned the same way.

7. For a few months, I did a monthly attempt to make a ticket via support.reddithelp.com, but never got any kind of response.

8. I guess I gave up trying to fight the faceless Kafkaesque system and slid into mild depression, as Reddit had been my primary social conduit after the pandemic.

Even if I go back and try to build up a presence again, without answers I'll be plagued by anxiety waiting for some mysterious stupid algorithm to stab me in the back and destroy everything again.

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

#137

Post by citizenpaul »

annoyingcyclist wrote: post #41
linsomniac wrote: post #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 hard…

I've been slowly migrating logins off of a @gmail.com email and onto an email at a domain that I own/control for this reason. It's tedious and feels a little like an overreaction (presumably the odds of this happening to individual users are pretty low). On the other hand, the thought of some faceless fraud algorithm deciding that I should no longer have access to the credentials I use to log in to my bank, investmen…

I did the exact same thing last year. Ive beem very happy with fsstmail.

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

#138

Post by afiori »

annoyingcyclist wrote: post #41
linsomniac wrote: post #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 hard…

I've been slowly migrating logins off of a @gmail.com email and onto an email at a domain that I own/control for this reason. It's tedious and feels a little like an overreaction (presumably the odds of this happening to individual users are pretty low). On the other hand, the thought of some faceless fraud algorithm deciding that I should no longer have access to the credentials I use to log in to my bank, investmen…

I too would like to make this move, but one of the considerations stopping me is the risk associated with payments

Google: anonymous inscrutable guillotine

Fastmail: payments fail and I do not notice for too long

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

#139

Post by casey2 »

linsomniac wrote: post #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 hard…

https://support.google.com/mail/contact/abuse

If they can't figure out the problem from there with you description then they are just incompetent and you shouldn't be doing business with incompetent companies no matter how large or popular they are.

You should bring everything you rely on in house as much as possible if not possible then on business that has an incentive to work with you. If you can't afford to then question if your product is really providing value. Why anybody with greater memory than a goldfish would build on top of a google service is beyond me (probably just people falling for ads or propaganda) it's no different then building on known vulnerable software.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 297 times (+ all the soft killed services without adequate support) , shame on me!

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

#140

Post by Razengan »

Apple's "iCloud Keychain" API lets Facebook and other apps track you across multiple devices and even device resets, because it's tied to your iCloud account. There's no way for a user to see or delete that secret data, except asking and trusting those apps to delete it.

This "exploit" has been there for years.

I only ever used throwaway accounts on Facebook, just to access some services that were only accessible via FB. At some point FB banned my account. I created a new one on the browser. Worked fine. When I signed into that account on my iPhone: instant ban. Delete FB app on iPhone, reinstall FB, try new account, same thing. Try a new iPhone, same iCloud account, new FB account: instant ban again.

They can not only track you across app reinstalls, device resets, but also across multiple devices. And Apple facilitates it.

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