Posted October 28, 2019

Facebook Dumped Me and We are Never Ever Getting Back Together … Like Ever

Facebook says it's over. Forever. I had no idea things had gotten this bad. We went back and forth a few times, they ghosted me, I'm taking it pretty hard. It's a whole thing.

They're over there acting all smug and hanging with my friends. I'm on the outside. Not cool. Let's spill the tea.

Note to Casual Readers: There is about 20 minutes worth of reading here. This means lots of scrolling on your mobile device. If you are not interested in the progression of the story and only want to read the wrap up, skip on down there.

Our Shared History

I joined Facebook in 2007. Twelve years later they have decided I am no longer eligible to use their service. Let that sink in for a minute, 12 years! You needed an edu email address to register back then. I still had access to mine. Getting in felt kind of exclusive. I have no idea why they terminated my account. Facebook refuses to divulge any information. I have never received so much as a warning from them. Real mature, guys, real mature.

A Steady Decline in Activity

As I head into my late 30's, my entire online presence has taken a back seat to other priorities. Within the last few years especially, I have hardly posted anything to my own Facebook wall. Oops, I mean my Facebook timeline. Remember 12 years ago when it was your wall and not your timeline? Pepperidge Farm remembers. Anyway, this decline is what makes my termination so baffling. I have rarely posted anything political, never used Facebook for malicious trolling, and never intentionally broken any guidelines.

My privacy settings had been adjusted so that my account was mostly private. I prefer to keep my social media presence hidden from some religious zealots and terrible ex-employers in my past. My connections have been carefully sifted to weed out people that probably do not like me. I hope some salty individual did not report some random little comment I made. Even so, there was nothing worthy of report.

Retracing My Steps

The Strange Negotiations trailer I discussed the day I was terminated from Facebook.

On the morning of Tuesday, October 15, 2019 my friend Joel posted a link to a YouTube video on my timeline. He wanted to know if I had seen the trailer for Strange Negotiations, a film about the musician David Bazan. David Bazan left Christianity for atheism. He is well known for this transition within certain religious circles. The film is about his progression. We briefly discussed Dave and his music. It was nothing inflammatory. Our other friend named Joel added a few comments too. Then I went about work, ate lunch, took a walk, and came back to find that I had been forcefully logged out of Facebook on all platforms. Forever.

The things I had done in weeks leading up to that day were even less significant. I posted a meme about women who look like Han Solo in their fall attire. Then I went on a cruise to Bermuda. I did not post anything while on the cruise, but my sister-in-law and my wife tagged me in various pictures. The things I did before that were so small I cannot even recall any of them. My interactions mostly consisted of laughing reaction emojis on posts.

Shock and Horror

The deactivation message I was seeing on my screen had to be an error, right? Right??!? Systems bug out from time to time. I did a couple hard refreshes, tried a different browser, and decided to come back later. When I checked again about an hour later I was still seeing the same thing. Crap. Facebook is never down that long.

The message on my screen said:

Your Account Has Been Disabled

For more information, or if you think your account was disabled by mistake, please visit the Help Center.

Of course this was a mistake. There was a link to the Facebook Help Center. I visited the Help Center. It was not helpful.

Facebook Could Probably Care Less About You, but not Much Less

The Help Center link displayed the following content. It all feels rather irrelevant.

Your account was disabled for violating Section 3.1 of our Terms of Service. If you believe your account was disabled by mistake, please contact us.

Okay, let's dive into Section 3.1. My thoughts are in bold below.

3. Your commitments to Facebook and our community

We provide these services to you and others to help advance our mission. In exchange, we need you to make the following commitments:

1. Who can use Facebook
When people stand behind their opinions and actions, our community is safer and more accountable. For this reason, you must:

  • Use the same name that you use in everyday life.
    I am indeed John Michael Hedrick in real life. I usually just go by John but my middle name is still a valid part of my name.
  • Provide accurate information about yourself
    I used my real name, real mobile phone number, real email address, and real birthday. Everything seems in line here.
  • Create only one account (your own) and use your timeline for personal purposes.
    I have only one account. My timeline is only about me. All good here.
  • Not share your password, give access to your Facebook account to others, or transfer your account to anyone else (without our permission).
    I never share my login credentials for anything, and that includes Facebook. If others are accessing my account, they are doing it without my consent.

We try to make Facebook broadly available to everyone, but you cannot use Facebook if:

  • You are under 13 years old.
    I am very clearly not under 13 years old. Facebook has my birthday in the system. I have been on Facebook for 12 years. I would have had to get on Facebook at 1 year old to be under that age.
  • You are a convicted sex offender.
    I am not.
  • We've previously disabled your account for violations of our Terms or Policies.
    Facebook has not previously disabled my account.
  • You are prohibited from receiving our products, services, or software under applicable laws.
    I am not.

Facebook's Public Infrastructure is a Hot, Janky Mess

Seriously, the entirety of the help center feels like a house of cards. This section could use a heavy dose of QA.

I backtracked from the Terms of Service page to the Why was my account disabled? page. There is a link to contact Facebook there if you believe your account has been disabled by mistake. The link leads the following form. My form entries are in bold.

Disabled - Ineligible

Please provide the following information so we can look into your eligibility to use Facebook.

  • Full name
    John Michael Hedrick
  • Date of birth
    November 20, 1981
  • Additional info (Optional)
    I think I have been a member on facebook since 2007 or 2008. I have always used my own, real, personal information, my real name, etc. My account appears to have been disabled in error. I manage other facebook accounts for clients at work. Hopefully this has not confused your system into thinking that I am creating multiple accounts for myself.
  • Email address or mobile phone number listed on your account
    spam@weci2i.com

Some of you legal eagle types are going to hone in and fixate on the fact that I said I manage accounts for clients at work. This is true. I did not attempt to hide the fact from Facebook. I work as a developer in a marketing agency. Sometimes I have to work with existing client Facebook accounts to set up developer access, websites, and more. We have a policy to set these items up in the client account so that it is not tied to our agency. It has never occurred to me that this could be a violation worthy of a permanent ban.

Managing client accounts very well may be the source of my violation. I will expand that thought later. I have been doing this on and off for the last eight years. Additionally, the client accounts were not terminated, only mine. One would think this would have caught up with me sooner if that were the case. There are other published accounts where all parties were terminated equally.

Maybe using a role-based word like "spam" as my email address triggered something in the sytem. I doubt it. Facebook does not publish any guidelines regarding acceptable email addresses. I own a domain, control the email, and have the freedom to generate any address I wish. This is the one Facebook gets. Facebook has been okay with me using this email address since at least 2016.

Facebook auto replied with the following generic email. The whole situation descended into madness once things started happening via email.

Hi John,

We've received your report, and we'll review your ID and confirm that you're eligible to use Facebook.

If you haven't provided an ID that meets our requirements, please reply to this email and attach a copy of your ID. You can review what types of ID we accept and how to send your attachments over a secure connection in the Help Center:

https://www.facebook.com/help/148993491850191?ref=cr

Please note that we won't be able to take any action on this account without a copy of an ID that meets these requirements.

In the meantime, we encourage you to review our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities for more information:

http://www.facebook.com/terms.php/?ref=cr

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

Wait, what? Where did this stuff about acceptable forms of ID sneak into the conversation? Way to move the goalposts, Facebook. The link to acceptable forms of ID is broken. Cool.

I guess I could have searched for the working ID page. The situation was already starting to drag along. I was feeling snarky. I replied to the email instead.

Hello,
I tried to see the reference for acceptable ID formats but your page is broken. See my attached screen shot. I'd like to rejoin facebook, but I also value my privacy. I won't be submitting my ID until I see if the acceptable options are not an invasion of my privacy.

Facebook responded 4 days later. They are not in a hurry to help you. You are guilty until you fight tooth and nail for your innocence.

Hi,

We're currently unable to confirm who owns this account. To help us confirm you're the owner of this account, please reply to this email and attach a picture of your ID.

To view the types of ID we accept, please visit the Help Center:

https://www.facebook.com/help/159096464162185/?ref=cr

Keep in mind that we won't be able to assist you without a picture of an ID that meets the requirements detailed in the Help Center.

View updates from your Support Inbox: [LINK REDACTED FOR MY PRIVACY]

Thanks,

The Support Inbox link leads to an error page when viewed in a desktop browser.

Sorry, something went wrong.

We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we can.

Go Back

I initially quit in frustration. I tried again later from my phone and the link worked. I jumped on my laptop to write a response. The link was broken again. Cool story, guys. I had a little suspicion about the source of this error, so I switched my browser's user agent to identify as mobile Chrome. The link suddenly started working.

Let me emphasize that point again. You can only view the Support Inbox from a mobile browser! How would the average user know this if they were using a desktop computer? There is no context provided by Facebook.

I replied. I really did not feel like replying. My wife reminded me that my timeline is a virtual family history for both of our families. Extended family members still actively access and share pictures I took at important life events. I take nice pictures. This loss does affect other people.

My Pennsylvania state driver license is attached for verification purposes. I have blurred the license number because I am not comfortable having that information in your data center.

You will find that this picture shows my face, date of birth, and home address. Additionally, the exif information in the photo contains my lat/lon coordinates that match my home address since I took the photo at home. The photo is also tagged with the same device make and model that I primarily access the Facebook app using. Please re enable my account.

Then I received the final word in the matter. Facebook has been silent ever since. All I can do is reflect on what may have truly transpired behind the scenes.

Hi,

We've determined that you're ineligible to use Facebook. Your account has been removed for violating the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Section 3.1.

For more information about the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, please visit:

https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms?ref=cr

For safety and security reasons, we can't provide additional information as to why your account was disabled.

This decision is final.

Thanks,

Oof, sick burn, Facebook. This decision is final. It must feel nice to be the big, bad bully. I have been eligible to use your services and suffer through your ever-increasing advertising for the last 12 years. In terms of maturity, I am probably more eligible to use the service responsibly than ever before.

Seriously though, Facebook got the final word. I sent a follow up message, stating once again that I had not violated any terms of Section 3.1. I tried to open a second ticket. I reached out to them on Twitter. Complete radio silence.

Go Home Facebook, You're Drunk

My Facebook identity has always been my full name, John Michael Hedrick. That is what it says on my birth certificate and my passport and my social security card, too. That is who I am. People laugh at me all the time for including my middle name on Facebook. Something told me, "they want your middle name too, dude" the day I signed up. I have never gone back to remove it. It is almost a badge of honor at this point.

Real Talk

So now what?

If you have read this far, I hope you realize I am being a little dramatic on purpose. I am a big boy. I can accept the consequences of my actions. If this truly happened because I was serving work clients, I can accept that. On the other hand, that is a lot of digital life history lost. The penalty does not seem to fit the crime. I try to be a levelheaded individual. A stern warning feels like it would have been more appropriate for a first offense. I guess Facebook plays hardball with its older adopters.

Am I being crazy here? Think of all the times you have seen "hacked your account lololol!1!!!!1!1 luv u bff 4evaaaaaarrrrr!" on a friend's timeline. Those elite hackers are not having their access to Facebook eternally revoked.

I have considered leaving Facebook on my own terms. Taking a step back from Facebook on my own looks a lot different than Facebook forcefully rejecting me. I would have never fully terminated my own account.

We live in a time when Facebook could almost be considered a public utility. There is no true competition from other, lesser social networks in the United States. I could always join VK if I find myself jonesing for that Facebook-flavored social experience. Nobody I know is on that social network. It would be just as effective as having no Facebook. The same goes for any other clone.

In the end, this feels very personal.

Holier than Thou

I am going to strap on my tinfoil hat for a moment. Don't worry, I only need limited coverage. Within hours of typing the word "Christian" in public discussion I was also permanently removed from Facebook. Maybe this is more than coincidence. This is, admittedly, heavy speculation on my part. I am not trying to turn this situation into a holy war. I did not use the term in a way that anyone would misconstrue as proselytizing. I was merely discussing how another man who had once identified with a certain religion no longer identifies with that religion. I am not sure a machine would have read it correctly in context. I feel like the unfortunate victim of a machine learning algorithm run amok. Maybe Facebook thinks I am a religious radical and wants to disassociate their brand from me. I am leaning in that direction. It is the only connection I can make with the data I have on hand.

I have already discussed how my Facebook account details perfectly match my real life details. I have to rule this option out as a possibility, which leaves one other item from section 3.1 - managing client accounts.

I have not accessed a client account in several weeks, if not months. Maybe Facebook is playing catchup on historically logged data. They collect mountains of telemetry and other data. A lag in processing time would not be totally out of the question. Engage your critical thinking skills and reason through this one with me. Facebook has built provisions for multi-user systems. Numerous situations exist in which a device and internet connection need to be shared. Families may share one or more devices, public libraries provide computer access, and coworkers share computers. In all cases there is likelihood that multiple people will log into their individual Facebook accounts using the same browser. We know Facebook has built tooling specific to these scenarios.

A single-user, system-level account can still be considered multi-user in the context of Facebook. This is true because all users share the same system login and browser(s), yet have individual Facebook accounts. When a user logs out of Facebook on a multi-user system, the user will be presented with a section devoted to quick access to other logins. Facebook is blind to the physical human interacting with the device. There is no accurate way to determine if a uniquely different human has indeed logged in to each account. Therefore, managing multiple accounts should look no different than a system with multiple legitimate users. This leads me back around to the religious words I used in my final comments. Facebook has not mentioned the content of my posts as a violation, but they also refuse to give me better detail about my termination. Their communication is poor, at best. I am being generous.

The Long Arm of the Open Graph

If the only crime Facebook perpetrated against me was cutting my access to their service, I could walk away silently. Facebook is so much more ingrained in my life than I realized. Because I thought I was using the service within acceptable terms, I never thought to have backup measures in place. Shame on me. Some of my social connections are exclusive to the Facebook medium. Now I am forever cut off from those connections. I feel you silently judging me for that.

When you get cut off from Facebook, you lose access to Facebook Messenger too. This was something I had never considered, especially after Facebook made such an effort to separate Messenger from the main mobile app. I was a member of a huge group chat, one that consisted of an entire floor of men from my college dorm. The members spanned many years of attendance, including years after I graduated. Some of those contacts are close and others are not. I can never participate in that group again. I obviously cannot ask the entire group to move to another platform to accommodate me.

My wife's side of the family is spread out geographically with varying degrees of mobile reception. We used Facebook Messenger to maintain a group chat for the family. It is the only way we can all reach each other at certain times. I am cut off from that now too.

On a lesser note, Spotify is no longer able to identify me as an individual. I am just a number without a name or photo. Facebook is so heavily integrated into their service that your profile does not contain its own personal identifiers. I can no longer discover facebook friends and learn about their musical preferences via Spotify. That was a feature I enjoyed and utilized often.

My mobile games are no longer socially aware. I am excluded from perks only available to players with linked Facebook accounts. I should probably spend less time playing games, but it was not up to Facebook to enforce that in my life.

I have completely lost access to some services that integrate Facebook as a login measure. Perhaps this is one of the greatest dangers we willingly accept when Facebook can terminate our accounts at will. I will have to work through each affected service to see what account recovery options are available. This is many measures beyond inconvenient. I would even call it criminal. If you are going to run a public login API, you better have a strong review process behind your account system. Valid users should never find themselves denied from numerous unrelated systems. Something has gone horribly wrong here.

I managed several Facebook pages and app connections through my developer account. The developer access is gone now too. Thankfully, I don't need those things. This would be bad if I had built extensive communities around those apps.

Final Thoughts and Scary Revelations

As others before me have said, losing my Facebook account is not the end of the physical world, but it has come close to being the end of my online world. In the blink of an eye my digital social presence was silenced and suppressed. I feel socially cut off from the world. I remember what life was like before I could know all these curated things people say about themselves. I can be a socially awkward individual. Facebook was like digital small talk for me. Suddenly my corner of life is a little more lonely than it used to be. My wife still scrolls endlessly, commenting and laughing all the while. Feelings of digital FOMO well up within me every time. I guess maybe Facebook is working exactly as it is designed in that scenario.

Somewhere in my story there is a cautionary tale about putting all your eggs in one basket. Facebook can and will turn you off at their discretion. Emphasis on their discretion. You will feel like a junky giving up a habit cold turkey. You will feel isolated and cut off. I used to recommend the social network to others, providing they could use a measure of self control. My recommendation changed the day I was terminated without cause. Use with caution. Avoid like the plague before you get hooked. Do not, under any circumstances, integrate Facebook login anywhere else outside Facebook. You will be sorry. Well, you might be sorry. But you probably will be.

Build something better.

Invest in yourself.

I have been sitting on this situation for almost two weeks. That passage of time gives way to a vast array of emotions, ranging from anger to acceptance. I have backups of every photo or video I ever put on Facebook. Thankfully I am a digital hoarder and nothing of real value is lost. I am almost ready to walk away from the situation entirely. I have one scary, nagging thought remaining...

My personal information was exposed in the 2017 Equifax data breech. I have come to accept that my most personally identifying pieces of information are basically part of the public record. That is an unsettling reality that I am forced to accept. What if someone, armed with my data leaked in the Equifax breech, has attempted a forced takeover of my Facebook identity? I cannot understand why Facebook is unable to connect my real world identity to my Facebook identity. All the relevant data points should match. I have been pondering the possibility that the information does not match because my "real" identity is changing under my nose. I can only cross my fingers and hope that I am not the target of identity theft as well.

Declare Facebook Ineligible in Your Life

Consider the following, for which Facebook probably would have banned you on any single point. Your password leaked in a breech and your account was accessed by a hacker? Have a ban!

The End?

Hey Facebook, if by some miracle you happened to read this, call me? I um...uh...I thought we had a good time together. I was hoping I could see you again. Ignore the other 1,337 texts and voicemails I left you. I was hurt when I said those things. I would accept an email as a first step. It's right here on the page. The address matches the one on my account. Hit me up.

Post Mortem Q&A (ish)

Couldn't you just create a new account?
I could, but why would I want to? I just lost 12 years of data. I have no desire to rebuild. Facebook cannot identify my primary account with my real world ID. Should this situation ever come up again I would be even less able to prove my identity. I will not continue creating and losing accounts.

But I have friends who use two or more accounts with the exact same picture and information!
I have friends like that too. They never receive bans. Shrug.

What about husband and wife combined accounts? They would have names that don't match an ID too.
I hope KarlNJill Dillybean never have to submit ID. Good luck with that name fusion soup, kids.

Would you come back if Facebook activated your account again?
Of course I would. That is half of the reason I am putting this information out into the interwebs. Sometimes the only course of appropriate action is a bit of public shaming. This isn't the first time Facebook has been taken to task for misidentifying legitimate people. Other, more famous individuals have been reinstated merely because they are famous. I am a nobody. I do not expect to ever get access again.

How can I help?
Share this post! It's marked up so that it should display nicely on your socials. Spread the word.

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