Have you ever tried to get on contact with the ‘Big Tech 4’ before?
Like actually reach out to a human and try to get a response from them, given the digital barricades that they have ring-fenced to protect them from their customers.
Odd that.
Having had to deal with Facebook on a regular basis, I can confirm that not only are they worse company to get in contact with, the humans there have zero control over Facebook itself.
That’s right, it’s alive, and doesn’t give a shit about you.
In short, Facebook sucks.
I’ve been on Facebook since the early 2000s’, when you had to pretend you were a uni student to get into this cool, and wonderful new forum for youth culture.
Twenty years later, my mom, aunts and conspiracy theorists are on the book of Face, and it’s about as ‘cool’ as being mean.
My use of Facebook these days is restricted to running a few social ‘groups’ that help provide some info-tainment to like-minded individuals across sport, comedy and the NFL.
It is by far the LEAST effective way to reach audiences, and if you’re looking to target people under the age of 30, you’re in the wrong place.
To ensure that we couldn’t get ‘cancelled’ by Facebook, we set up an ad spend account.
Reason being without one of these, you will NEVER be able in touch with any of the monkeys that work there, and will have no recourse to whatever damage they will do to your account.
Having been a little provocative with my postings and photos in the past, my feed of late has been tempered by too many bans, and the knowledge that the cool kids aren’ on here anymore.
With so many bots, and older folks on the app, there isn’t really any reason to be provocative anymore.
This doesn’t mean that your account is safe, as the algorithms at FB continually change and adapt, meaning that previous posts could suddenly enflame the system, and target you for being a naughty person.
This has happened to me many times, in fact so many, that at one point I had a 5 year ban from posting.
I would click on my feed to find out once again, that another round of bans had been added to the bill, and that I shouldn’t even bother sharing content on there.
No big loss.
Bad Ads
What really started to bother me on the Facebook feed was the relentless onslaught on horrible ads.
While some of these were from recognised brands, others were either scams, lies or paedo’s in speedos looking for action.
Horrendous stuff! Why would any brand want to be in this company.
Emboldened to clean my feed, I began reporting EVERY ad that Facebook sent my way.
With every ad I reported, I was assured by big blue that I ‘would never see this ad again.’
10 minutes later, there was the same ad again, in the same form that I reported.
Hmmm. Maybe they’re lying to us?
Turns out, Facebook isn’t very good at telling the truth.
Some of these ads I reported included very illegal activities and should never find their way to the eyeballs of the innocent.
Yet despite reporting some pretty horrendous stuff, this continued on my feed.
The more I reported, eventually all of the ads went away.
I was able to enjoy several years of ZERO ads on my Facebook page, which felt like a little victory given the PTSD I had from some of the garbage they put out.
But then of course they came back, and in 2019, it became apparent that Facebook was doubling down on ads, and not caring if you reported them.
Having previously sued Virgin Media for lying and breaking contracts, I informed Facebook that I didn’t want any ads from Virgin as we were in court.
They must have only heard ‘I want Virgin ads’, as I was subjected to multiple ads a day across all of their horrible products.
I can only imagine how hard it is for women who might report abuse or stalkers, and then have FB just try to set them up on their failing dating service.
Classy.
Recently, we ran into more trouble with Facebook, and the more I engaged with them, it became very clear that not only do they not care about their advertisers, but that employees have little to zero control over the system.
Having been banned every month in 2023 for various reasons, I was able to contact them through their buggy ‘Meta Business Suite’, which is a mine-field of horribleness.
One of the posts that had me banned was a Japanese war propaganda poster from the 1940s’ from a celebrated artist.
The poster illustrated a hyperbolic response to how nations react to drama, and a useful tool in seeing how what happened in the past is happening again.
Facebook quickly banned the photo, despite the fact that it was scheduled, and never made it to the feed of anyone.
Equivalent to a ‘dirty thought’, I was quickly banned for 30 days by Facebook for violating their terms of service, a ban that was even more bitter sweet when an ad appeared for Thai sex tourism.
If only I had tried to sell the sexual services of children instead of wanting to educate, silly me.
After to and fro with the Facebook team across far flung countries with poor wages, I was then slotted into the complaints queue of the tech giant, which is as feckless and ineffective as it sounds.
Each encounter with an ‘advisor’ made me once again tell them exactly what happened, and the significance of the backstory.
Given that some of these employees were from Malaysia and the Philippines, trying to use a Japanese war poster from WW2 might have been a little close too home.
Eventually Facebook came back with a decision. Yes, the poster from the 1940s, was indeed historical and not intended to inflame. But, they have no control over the computers of Facebook, and I would have to wait for 30 days regardless.
Wait, the humans at Facebook cannot correct the computers if it says ‘no’?
That’s right.
Even if they did try something, the system would reject it.
Ok-that seems really odd.
I was then sent a series of cut and paste emails from FB, trying to explain why they did what they did. Each email was very similar to each other, and the more I looked, the more I realised that no human had ever sent these.
I replied that it was illegal to use machines to pretend to be humans, which seemed to end the conversation.
This week my previous Facebook ban of 30 days ended, and to celebrate the anniversary, I was informed by Facebook that once again, I had been banned.
There was no explanation of the post that got me banned, nor any information other than I was in trouble.
Upon contacting Facebook once again, they had one of their Asian employees call me to detail the situation.
He couldn’t find any reason for a ban, nor an explanation as to why this was happening.
Very curious, but the team would get down to the matter.
Eventually they determined I had not done anything wrong, and that it might be a glitch or something.
Facebook then did something on my feed it has never done before, it apologised!
What? Big tech said sorry? No way!
My joy was short-lived however, as Facebook then informed me a few minutes later, that a month long ban was on.
No reason, no explanation, just a ban.
Another hour on the phone with an Asian rep, and they still had no idea. But I should get it back? Problem for them was, no one can change anything if the computer says no, and it as saying no.
So, I was once again facing a Facebook ban for no other reason than the algorithm didn’t like me.
Not the first time, just maybe digitally.
Today I was given the real conclusion in an email from Facebook.
You see it turns out all of those ads I reported via the Facebook portal?
Turns out if you report ads to Facebook, they will eventually use that against you.
Because I have reported so much abuse, hate crimes and illegal activity…I am the problem.
Once again, Facebook employees are powerless to stop it, even though they want to.
‘We don’t have any control over the system.’
We all knew that AI was coming, it’s good to know that companies like Facebook are so shit at it.
All in all it isn’t surprising from a company that has a long and storied history of lies and deception.
Remember when they allowed Cambridge Analytica to harvest all that voter data? Or how about when they admitted to letting Russians use Facebook to influence the 2016 election?
Let’s not forget about Myanmar, or the vast amount of blatant lies they spread over Covid, effectively splitting households over misinformation.
Facebook recently was forced to pay over $725M over the scandal that was a privacy nightmare. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65338916
Having settled a 2019 lawsuit over discrimination over minorities, numerous antitrust violations, admissions of political bias, as well as the massive mental health crisis it creates, why are people still using it?
Let’s also not forget the time when the BBC queried Facebook over the rise of child pornography, only for FB to use the content sent to them to report the BBC to the police.
Class acts kids.
https://inews.co.uk/news/technology/facebook-reports-bbc-police-flagging-sexualised-images-children-51271
With users already leaving Facebook in droves, it is possible that in our lifetime, the social site will be made up of more dead people than those who are alive.
They will probably still get banned though.
Do yourself a favour, and free yourself from Facebook.
Reddit is far more entertaining.