[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my...
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: Hacker claimed ownership and then deleted my Facebook Page
of 50k users
As an update to [0] and [1], the scammers have now completely
deleted my page of 50k subscribers. I am devastated. 10+ years of
building a heavy metal community, gone like a puff of smoke, just
like that. And Facebook still hasn't replied to a single message. I
hate to imagine what would have happened if I was an actual
business... I am reaching out to the HN community one last time.
If anyone has any advice or can help me talk to an actual human
being at Facebook and restore my page and ownership, _please_ get
in touch! (or if not, at least vote / comment your own
frustrations or horror stories below, to help get my story be seen
by such a person, if you think this post deserves it...)
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29706571 [1]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29876423
Author : metalised
Score : 443 points
Date : 2022-01-27 16:09 UTC (6 hours ago)
| dmortin wrote:
| How 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?
| Jolter wrote:
| While interesting to know, for a curious observer, it's not
| exactly relevant to solving the OP's problem.
| metalised wrote:
| Hi dmortin, I have no way of knowing for sure, but I think it
| was none of that.
|
| I think they simply 'claimed' the page, and because it's was a
| community page with no 'business' associated with it in the
| account, they managed to use Facebook's automated 'claim this
| page for your business' processes to their advantage. Which
| obviously is a scam, but a hard one to contest when there's no
| human you can get hold of at Facebook to point it out.
|
| My previous posts (see the older HN links on my post above)
| have some more details about the chronology of the "hack" (if
| that's even the right word for it) and how the scammers tried
| to capitalise on it.
|
| Obviously I've changed all my passwords just in case though...
| dosethree wrote:
| if it was done through your account id imagine you'd be able
| to see it in your activity log? the distinction is critical
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| You can do this on Reddit. No matter how successful and busy a
| subreddit may be without the presence of moderators, you can
| request ownership of a subreddit if the moderators have not been
| active in some time.
|
| I found this out when someone did it to me. I had an account that
| I only used for moderation duties. I didn't need to post on it.
| My community was doing just fine.
|
| Well, Reddit transferred it to someone else and they turned it
| into an SEO spam generator.
| Laforet wrote:
| The reverse can also happen with people hoarding subreddits and
| refuse to hand them over to more eager people. Even when it is
| clear their interest have moved on, reddit admins will refuse
| usurpation requests because "the moderator is active".
| vertis wrote:
| Sometimes 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 that is manned because
| they have to respond to legal requests of various types.
|
| You can potentially request all your data (and data about the
| hack) and let them know why, maybe reach out asking how you can
| get law enforcement involved and who you should contact after
| you've made a police report. It's not a threat, but it get it on
| somebodies radar. If you express how devastated you are there is
| potential for them to help. They also have a lot more latitude
| than any kind of helpdesk (especially at the scale of Facebook,
| and the users/customers facebook has).
|
| They're also well connected with-in an organization because they
| have to sign-off on all kinds of projects and risks.
|
| I think `patio11` has amazing advice is a similar vein[1].
|
| [1]:
| https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1162561822248992768?lang=...
| (I think he has a longer version/reference, but I can't find it)
| KerrickStaley wrote:
| The patio11 blog post you're looking for is
| https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r...
| toastedwedge wrote:
| This is fascinating. It certainly makes sense; in a way, I
| came to this conclusion on my own without having been
| formally schooled. I guess it comes from observations.
|
| Wouldn't mind a few extra tips and perspectives though, so
| definitely going on my reading list for the weekend! Thanks
| for mentioning it.
| vertis wrote:
| Thank you!
| stronglikedan wrote:
| He's too easy on them (depending on jurisdiction, I suppose).
| That's an awful lot of work they put you through, and you
| deserve compensation for it. Not just breaking even either.
| Get a consumer protection lawyer. They'll not only zero the
| debt, but get you a settlement for the hassle. Of course,
| this requires playing a bit dim, so they are comfortable
| enough to think they're getting away with the illegal
| harassment bits.
| jsmith99 wrote:
| Surely involving the legal team would mean the regular support
| team could no longer be involved?
| whatshisface wrote:
| Only if the regular support team was involved to begin with.
| vertis wrote:
| The OP indicated he hadn't been able to get any sort of
| response from Facebook at all. I wouldn't consider this as
| first line of enquiry, it's more for if you can't get any
| help through regular channels.
|
| I think it's worth pointing out that I'm not suggesting legal
| threats, which probably wouldn't work anyway with Facebooks
| size and terms of use. Just talking to their legal team won't
| necessarily invoke the "no-one else can now talk to them".
|
| That's why asking questions like how law enforcement could
| engage to catch the hacker might be useful. It's not
| combative, it speaks more to anger at the hacker than at
| Facebook, but at the same time a human becomes aware of the
| problem.
|
| The corporate lawyers that I've worked with spend a lot of
| time thinking about how things can go badly for a company.
| That means they're keen to mitigate risks, and they have
| latitude to actually do things. They have KPIs/OKRs that
| align with the current problem.
|
| At the end of the day they potentially get to feel good about
| sorting this problem out as well.
| megablast wrote:
| > regular support team
|
| Sorry, what do you mean?? The non existing team??
| a13n wrote:
| What regular support team?
| [deleted]
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| Universally 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.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Social media is in no way on the same level as healthcare, are
| you kidding me?
|
| You do not need Facebook to survive, nor do you need Facebook
| to participate in your community.
|
| Unreal. Just... unreal.
| adventured wrote:
| Facebook pages are no more important today than the yellow
| pages were yesterday, or classified ads, or newspapers. Very
| little of which was publicly operated.
|
| If your local newspaper blockaded you out of their advertising
| section 50 years ago (eg they dislike you), it could have been
| devastating too. There are a lot of scenarios like that. You
| can't get around those potential problems by saying everything
| should be run under National Socialism; instead of dealing with
| Verizon you'll be dealing with a board of vicious bureaucrats
| with direct political power - they can have you shot or
| imprisoned at will in a more developed Socialist system - that
| will eventually want bribed to let you continue to exist.
| Jolter wrote:
| The yellow pages were absolutely run by state-owned telecom
| operators, less than 25 years ago, all over Europe.
| emteycz wrote:
| Only because of the communist past. Most states privatized
| these operators and the yellow pages continued to be
| published by them as private companies without any need for
| regulation.
| Jolter wrote:
| Ah, yes, the famously communist France. (Pages Jaunes are
| operated by Orange, previously state monopoly France
| Telecom.)
|
| Just as you say, these monopolies are all deregulated and
| sold off. But they were all developed and operated by
| monopolies for many decades, successfully.
|
| Your attempt to call non-communist things communist is a
| bit annoying. You could benefit from using the same
| terminology as the rest of the world when you discuss
| politics. It would help your arguments.
|
| Anyway, I was pointing out that the paragraph I responded
| to was a falsehood: "Facebook pages are no more important
| today than the yellow pages were yesterday, or classified
| ads, or newspapers. Very little of which was publicly
| operated."
| emteycz wrote:
| You picked one example where it doesn't fit while there
| are at least 8 EU countries that did exactly what I said.
| BTW yes here in Central/Eastern EU we deem France very
| very leftist, just few small steps away from full-on
| socialism.
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| Famously communist UK as well. BT (British Telecom) was
| the state owned telecom provider that also ran the phone
| books.
|
| And famously communist Germany with Deutsche Telekom
| (Formerly part of the national post system, privatised in
| 1995) that also made telephone books. Also worth noting
| that the German government still has a significant stake
| in Deutsche Telekom.
|
| Oh and famously communist Netherlands with KPN the state
| run post and telecoms provider.
|
| And famously communist Spain with Telefonica being
| previously majority owned by the state (under Franco no
| less).
|
| I mean most of European telecoms seem to have been state
| owned until the early 90s.
| emteycz wrote:
| I never said only communist states could own/owned
| telecoms. A lot of these changes - even in the west -
| came to be after communism in Europe has fallen.
| emteycz wrote:
| Facebook page is not necessary communication. That's telephone
| and mobile networks. Healthcare is successfully managed by
| private companies all around the world - even in Europe (the
| funding is organized by law but still the hospitals are private
| companies and half of EU countries have private health
| insurance companies). The horrors of publicly managed social
| media were already tested here in Europe too and we never want
| to go back.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| Social media is just a basic telecom utility service. Most of
| societal communication takes place on it. It's fundamental
| enough that most individuals, businesses, celebrities, and
| government officials participate in it. I don't understand
| the distinction you're making - to me it seems fairly
| fundamental and it also seems like social media depends on
| network effects, which justifies regulating the biggest ones.
| adventured wrote:
| > Social media is just a basic telecom utility service.
|
| No it's not, not even close. Facebook is very different
| from TikTok, Pinterest, Twitter, Reddit and Snapchat.
| They're quite obviously not some manner of the equivalent
| of an universal pipe or utility.
|
| If your premise were correct, you'd be able to swap them
| out for eachother; you'd be able to just run TikTok on
| Facebook and nobody would care about the difference.
| Instead, none of them fulfills that premise of basic
| utility, none of them makes all of the other social media
| platforms possible or irrelevant (Facebook can't do what
| Pinterest does; Facebook can't actually do what TikTok
| does, even if it would like to; and everybody would notice
| if all the other social networks vanished, precisely
| because Facebook can't do what they do).
|
| Facebook is less important thank people have been hyping it
| to be (for their own ideological agenda reasons). TikTok
| has more than demonstrated that, and the thriving nature of
| all the rest of the social media landscape has also nicely
| demonstrated that. In fact the only real problem is that
| Facebook owns Instagram, otherwise it'd be out there as
| another separate mega platform. Facebook also can't do what
| Instagram does, which is why they had to buy them and are
| terrified of having to spin it off (another case where
| Facebook is clearly not a utility).
|
| Just because Facebook can potentially store the same bits
| that Instagram does, doesn't mean it can provide the same
| service (first of all, you can't get users to go along with
| that for all sorts of reasons). Those are two very
| different things. Otherwise Google would have successfully
| built a juggernaut social platform, instead of failing
| repeatedly at it.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Most individuals and celebrities also eat sushi, but that
| doesn't make sushi a "fundamental right".
| [deleted]
| scarface74 wrote:
| Social media is not a "necessity". He could have used his
| Facebook page to steer his community to his own hosted site and
| forum.
|
| Do you really trust giving more power to the government?
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Plenty of absolutely horrible kafkaesque experiences with the
| state. This is definitely not exclusively a "private company"
| problem.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| I think it's a 'large bureaucracies in general' problem,
| there seems to be a critical mass in any kind of organisation
| beyond which dealing with them in any capacity becomes like
| pulling teeth. I don't think public services are necessarily
| flawed because it's the state providing them, I think it's
| more that the state is also an enormous bureaucratic
| organisation and subject to the same issues. When the state
| creates groups that are enpowered to cut through the internal
| politicking it can be very effective, for example the gov.uk
| site that's been praised a lot on HN.
|
| Just look at rail in the UK, it was the butt of contemporary
| comedy when it was nationalised and it's still a dog's
| breakfast thirty years after privatisation. It's not the
| ownership that's the problem, it's the nature of the
| organisations responsible for providing that particular
| service. I think the public/private dichotomy is a bit of a
| false one when it comes to quality of service a lot of the
| time.
| cousin_it wrote:
| It's not about private companies. I have an account at a
| private bank and am not afraid of something like this happening
| at all. Because to the bank I'm not just an abstract "username
| and password": the account is tied to my real world identity,
| so in the last resort I'll prove to the bank that I'm me using
| state provided means. I'm getting more and more convinced that
| online accounts important to people's livelihood (like gmail
| where you have tons of important stuff) should work the same
| way, as a contract tied to your real world identity, and in
| doubt resolve things by webcam call or personal appointment.
| iypx wrote:
| This only works if you fit that stereotypical definition of
| what a "normal" person looks like or does. As soon as you
| deviate even a little from the norm, suddenly you got
| problems.
|
| I had to do two interviews with a bank to open an account in
| UK because their automated systems were giving them "errors",
| apparently, when they're trying to check me. Normal people
| have to complete an online form (5 minutes) and will receive
| everything through post.
|
| A year later I had to phone paypal support four times as it
| wouldn't accept neither of my two cards. On my 4th try I
| finally managed to get an actual English guy to answer my
| phone, who finally managed to understand every word I was
| saying without having me to spell anything letter by letter..
|
| Last week I wanted to buy a plane ticket. I had no problems
| doing that until now (I had an old laptop with windows 7).
| Now, since running Linux, I open the website, as soon as I
| click search to find a flight, suddenly captcha! Every 3-5
| minutes a new captcha...
|
| This is a nightmare!
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| All of these things work well for the rich, but the number of
| unbanked working Americans is astronomical. They cash their
| checks for fees. Try visiting the customer service counter at
| a rural Walmart in the U.S. on a Friday and you will see what
| I mean. The line snakes back to the rear of the store.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Exactly how does commerce happen without banks at any
| scale? Banking has been around a lot longer than social
| media.
| throwaway946513 wrote:
| The unbanked Americans are people who either are unable
| to open an account, or have been denied opening accounts.
| To cash their checks, keep their income, etc..., they
| have to pay much more in fees.
|
| Historically (in the U.S.) it was rooted in racism
| post-U.S. civil war. Now, less so. The history is still
| there, and the inability of poor people to obtain an
| account still exist. It excludes people from getting
| mortgages, loans, investing, etc. Cash App has become a
| digital bank for many of the unbanked. Before Cash App,
| decades ago, we had the U.S. Postal Service providing
| some banking services to Americans. (No, the USPS
| attempting to help Americans in this manner is not new,
| we've done it before)
| astura wrote:
| I know a few "unbanked" people.
|
| Some know don't have a bank account because they simply
| don't trust banks. They want to have access to 100% of
| their money 100% of the time.
|
| Some don't have a bank account because they don't have
| income (adult dependents)
|
| One didn't have a bank account because she was a minor
| and there was no adult around willing or able to open one
| for her to use.
|
| When I was a kid I knew of a few adults who had bank
| accounts closed on them for check kiting, including my
| parents - I know of this because I overheard people
| talking about it quite a lot. I don't know what ended up
| happening after that, if they were able to open a new
| account or what. I know you probably wouldn't be able to
| open a new account nowadays with Chexsystem and the like.
| Of course, check kiting also isn't a thing anymore
| either.
| zxcvbn4038 wrote:
| I don't blame them, places like Citibank and Chase exist
| to dip into your account as frequently as possible. Do
| you think it really costs $45 to handle a bounced check?
| It's a completely automated process, costs them a
| fraction of a cent if you agreed to electronic documents,
| the rest is pure gravy.
|
| However if your in the US and having trouble with the
| banks I'd recommend looking for "millennial" banking
| which is usually zero fee, but you can't write paper
| checks and they are remote only.
|
| My wife was paying almost a thousand a month in fees at a
| regular bank, after I moved her to one of the millennial
| banks she really prospered. She can't overdraw the
| account anymore - and it's not really an issue since the
| bank is no longer taking half her paycheck.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I call BS. Anyone with proper ID and payroll income can
| open a bank account. Most big employers (e.g. mine) will
| even require it -- payroll is made by direct deposit.
|
| There may be minimum balance requirements and/or fees but
| if you shop around a bit (look especially at local credit
| unions) they are not onerous and are almost certainly
| lower than what check-cashing services will charge. They
| do demand a bit more management and responsibility
| compared to a wad of cash in one's pocket, but that's the
| way life is.
| iypx wrote:
| By "proper ID" you mean the right kind of country ID, I
| assume?
|
| Cause I've been denied by two banks, the third bank even
| had two countries blacklisted.. that's right, on their
| official website they wrote: "we are currently unable to
| accept government issued IDs from X and Y" or something
| along those lines.
| bduerst wrote:
| That's the history, but you're missing the context of
| today. Many "unbanked" americans are immigrants
| voluntarily trying to avoid reporting and stay off the
| grid.
|
| The solution lay in busting bias and fixing immigration
| laws though, not banking.
| elliekelly wrote:
| The bank doesn't do that for you. The bank does that because
| regulators require them to as a condition of being in the
| banking business.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Banks would have ceased to exist centuries ago if they
| couldn't be trusted to do this in general. Regulations have
| very little to do with it.
| Shared404 wrote:
| To be fair, until comparatively recently, bank runs were
| a real and problematic thing.
| bserge wrote:
| [deleted]
| astura wrote:
| I mean... banks are the worst in this case.
|
| Banks are known to irreversibly close accounts if they think
| you triggered some random algorithm, you have the same name
| as a terrorist, you have the wrong job, they don't like how
| you're using your account, or any other completely random
| reason. The decision is final they'll usually even refuse to
| tell you why they closed your accounts.
|
| I had a bank (BMO Harris) close an account because the only
| transactions I had for about a year or so was "received
| directly deposited paycheck -> transfer entire amount to
| other bank account." At least they actually told me the
| reason.
| pchangr wrote:
| That is until the bank happens to be 100% online.. they can't
| verify your identity so they close your account and you can't
| access your account nor contact the bank because you don't
| have an account so you try to create an account to inquiry
| about your other account and they tell you you already have
| an account so they can't open you an account and now you're
| stuck with no way to contact the bank and no funds and noone
| able to help you. This is an extremely common scenario with
| banks in Germany.
| 650REDHAIR wrote:
| I see you haven't been a victim of identity theft yet.
|
| It doesn't take much to hijack a bank account and eventually
| you will regain access, but it isn't as simple as you might
| imagine and a fair amount of damage can be done in a short
| period of time.
| bduerst wrote:
| Most banks/CUs/payment processors automatically have
| insurance for these types of bad actors, even if it takes
| months to claw back your identity. Credit reporting
| typically takes much longer to fix but GP was referring to
| their bank.
| bko wrote:
| You're assuming that public organizations would run a more
| secure responsive network. My interactions with public
| institutions makes me doubt this assumption, especially for
| something as vast and complicated as facebook's network.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| But I can go to a desk and, talk to someone, and, eventually,
| possibly after a very long time, someone will act. With
| canned response AI private corps I don't have this. Also, at
| least where I live, if you make more of a stink at the office
| of the public org in question, you get helped faster and
| often better.
| bko wrote:
| > But I can go to a desk and, talk to someone, and,
| eventually, possibly after a very long time, someone will
| act.
|
| Ever tried to get a pothole filled?
| [deleted]
| pchangr wrote:
| Case in point:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30053549
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| Public institutions governed by a democratic state not bought
| by private companies would absolutely do a better job.
| Realize we don't have any public institutions in the United
| States. Our entire government works for multinational
| corporations, not the people living here.
| scarface74 wrote:
| There is nothing "democratic" about the US government.
| Between gerrymandering and the Constitutionally architected
| 2 Senators per state, the US is very much ruled by the
| minority.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| And yet when you need free money for elder or disabled
| care, you get to call my girlfriend and she has to
| personally walk you through managing the right documents
| and getting all the info you need to get literally
| thousands of tax funded dollars a month until you die.
|
| Where the fuck is facebook's phone number?
| scarface74 wrote:
| Now try the same thing in a state that opposed the ACA or
| during the prior administration when it tried to
| purposefully cripple people accessing it.
|
| We saw the same thing with the consumer protection bureau
| when it was run by someone who supported payday loans
| during the last administration.
|
| I'm not trying to get overly political. But whether
| government "works" is completely dependent on which party
| is in charge and whether they champion parts of
| government that you need.
|
| Just to be fair, government didn't work too well under
| the Democratic administration during the eviction
| moratorium for landlords.
|
| How much easier do you think it is to get a gun license
| in a red state or register to vote in a blue state?
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| That was my point. Was that not clear?
| scarface74 wrote:
| You are attributing to the multinational corporations. I
| am saying because of the makeup of the government -
| mandated by the Constitution - the government will
| statistically not be representative of the people. That
| being said, why would I want the government to have more
| power?
|
| Has government control of communications ever ended up
| working out well?
| comrh wrote:
| You have legal recourse at least to file a FOIA request and
| _force_ them to respond.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Until it gets held up by an administration that doesn't
| want you to have the information and supported by judges
| appointed by the administration.
| itsAtruism wrote:
| ygjb wrote:
| I will point out that in Canada, many of our telecoms were
| run by privately operated, publicly owned organizations
| (Crown Corporations) that operated at arms length. Until they
| were sold for pennies on the dollar by governments looking to
| score a quick win for "fiscal responsibility" and "small
| government", these organizations operated with a high degree
| of public scrutiny, and had the goal of offering low cost,
| reliable services.
|
| By most accounts the quality of service in relation to the
| price has been awful in most places in Canada, and the few
| places that still have Crown Corp delivered telecoms are
| among the happiest customers in that sector.
|
| This same scenario has played out across multiple sectors
| including oil & gas, electricity and hydroelectric services,
| and here in BC, transportation services (BC Ferries).
|
| Everyone likes to take a dump on public run services, but
| practically speaking, they have more oversight and
| accountability than privately run services.
| [deleted]
| scarface74 wrote:
| So just imagine what happens when the government controls
| the communications. What happens when "they" get into power
| and start censoring and controlling communications that you
| don't agree with?
|
| In this case "they" are the party with policies that you
| don't agree with. There was a study in the US that the
| government fails to pass policies that 80%+ of the
| population agrees with.
|
| One easy example is making cannabis legal federally. People
| who vote Republican and Democrat both support it by an
| overwhelming majority. But it couldn't pass.
| ygjb wrote:
| Some of us still live in functioning democracies. Also,
| it's worth pointing out that relying on privately owned
| or publicly traded corporations is not an effective
| strategy for preserving freedom; those businesses will
| only do that as long as they can justify it to their
| shareholders (private or public), and are subject to
| whatever laws apply in the jurisdictions they reside in
| (kind of the reason alot of 'western' companies prefer to
| either not do business, or conduct business via arms
| length entities in countries like Russia, China, and
| other places).
| scarface74 wrote:
| So the US has the highest incarceration rate of any
| western country. The police routinely stop and harass
| minorities for no other reason than the color of their
| skin, the judicial system routinely hands out harsher
| punishment for the same crime when the defendant is
| minority, etc.
|
| Even when you take race out of the equation, when you
| look at the congressional make up in the US and compare
| it to the party more people actually voted for, it's just
| the opposite. The last president didn't win the popular
| vote.
|
| Private corporations don't have the power of the state to
| coerce me to do anything. The government does. Why would
| I want to give the government more power? We see both
| dudes trying to control communications.
|
| Apple is definitely not working with China at arms
| length. Neither is Microsoft. Google still makes the
| little hardware it does in China.
|
| As far as functioning government you mean Europe where
| laws were passed like the GDPR that only led to cookie
| warnings on every web page?
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| @ygjb a few points:
|
| > The right to bear arms supercedes the right to live in
| safe communities (and as a former infantry man, I can
| assert that more weapons in the hands of untrained
| civilians does not make communities more safe).
|
| True, they need training. In 1966 the city of Orlando
| trained women to shot and the number of rape incidents
| dropped 90%.
|
| > The right to an health care (abortion) is superceded by
| so called "religious freedoms".
|
| That's not health care, that's killing another human
| being. Your freedom ends where the life of another human
| being begins.
|
| > The right to vote is superceded by politicians who
| rewrite election laws and electoral districts to choose
| their constituents.
|
| Are you referring to forbidding criminals to vote and
| democrats paying what's due for them so they can vote
| (presumably left)? I can't say I feel too strongly about
| that because voting is pretty useless. Rich people will
| anyway buy the government whether that's right or left.
|
| > Freedom to discriminate is beginning to supercede the
| right to freedom from discrimination.
|
| This is a massive problem, I agree. Positive
| discrimination and allowing companies to favor women and
| minorities (excluding asians, they're doing good enough
| on their own) is pure racism / sexism.
| scarface74 wrote:
| I'm going to avoid the political side of abortion. But
| does that also mean that fathers should be forced to pay
| child support from conception? Should they be counted in
| the census? But do you really think these same
| politicians care about life that are "pro life". But who
| are opposed to any government policies that protect life
| after they are born like - universal healthcare, police
| reform, paid parental leave, etc?
|
| The "War on Crime" and the "War on Drugs" made people
| criminals as they targeted minorities until the opioid
| epidemic started affecting "rural America" and then drugs
| became a "disease".
|
| But he is also referring to gerrymandering and having two
| ballot boxes in cities like Houston to make it harder to
| vote. In GA they wanted to cut out early voting on
| Sundays because Black churches would encourage people to
| vote after they left church and transport them there in
| church busses.
| ygjb wrote:
| I don't know what to tell you. The people of the United
| States have continuously ceded power to their government,
| and the corporations that wield influence over it, while
| being spoonfed lies about what freedom actually means by
| government and media.
|
| The right to bear arms supercedes the right to live in
| safe communities (and as a former infantry man, I can
| assert that more weapons in the hands of untrained
| civilians does not make communities more safe).
|
| The right to an health care (abortion) is superceded by
| so called "religious freedoms".
|
| The right to vote is superceded by politicians who
| rewrite election laws and electoral districts to choose
| their constituents.
|
| Freedom to discriminate is beginning to supercede the
| right to freedom from discrimination.
|
| These problems aren't unique to the United States, and in
| Canada we have our own issues.
|
| > Private corporations don't have the power of the state
| to coerce me to do anything.
|
| * blinks in private law enforcement, the radical
| expansion of surveillance by private corporations, and
| lack of accountability of tech companies *
|
| Uh, yeah, that's by design, but on a global basis, the
| design is breaking. There are more and more exceptionally
| wealthy individuals and corporations that are wielding
| power and working in domains that have typically been the
| purview of states and governments.
|
| We need stronger regulation of corporations globally, and
| strong treaties that unify global regulation and
| information sharing of how that regulation occurs, or we
| will continue to cede freedom and governance to the whims
| of corporations that will wield significant influence
| over elected officials. One thing going for unelected
| government, they generally DGAF about the whims of
| corporations, and we have seen what some countries are
| willing to do in order to preserve influence over
| corporations (I would love to hear an honest, unbiased
| tell all from Jack Ma for example).
| scarface74 wrote:
| And this is my point. Because of the makeup of the US
| government - by the constitution - the red states have
| more influence on the government than their populations
| should allow. You add on gerrymandering, it gets worse.
|
| It's a structural issue. The majority of _people_ in the
| US are for universal healthcare, freedom of choice, more
| gun control, etc. The majority of _states_ oppose those
| things.
|
| We already have to deal with tyranny of the minority in
| our own country, why would we want other countries
| involved too?
|
| None of the issues you raised have anything to do with
| private companies.
|
| No one is forcing me to use any of the Big Tech
| companies' services. They can't force me not to state my
| opinion like the federal government can - there are laws
| in some states where abortion providers must tell their
| patients things that are untrue. Other states have laws
| forbidding doctors from asking patients about whether
| they have guns in their house.
|
| As far as myself, I have a lot greater chance being
| treated fairly in tech (where I have been working for 25
| years) than if I as minority get pulled over by the
| police (the government).
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| > Some of us still live in functioning democracies.
|
| Where I am now I need to show a QR code to buy food and
| there is a curfew at 10pm. None of these measures had
| been discussed in the latest elections and they even
| violate existing laws.
|
| I don't know how you can call most of the world a
| functioning democracy.
| ygjb wrote:
| Yep, vaccine passports suck, and I say that as a
| supporter of them. I am not going to argue the merits or
| flaws of them with a throwaway account, but they have not
| been found to violate laws, and no jurisdiction in Canada
| that I am aware of has had to use exception powers (not
| withstanding clause, or reasonable limits under Section 1
| of the Charter).
|
| As for not being discussed in the latest elections, "if
| we are elected, we will implement vaccine passports" was
| largely the premise for the last Federal election in
| Canada, and while they didn't win in a landslide,
| Canadians voted in a government to implement them.
|
| I don't think "most of the world" is a functioning
| democracy, but in Canada, our democracy is functioning,
| if continuing to be undermined by our political parties.
| Democracy around the world is at risk, and spreading
| misinformation about actual election outcomes and
| unpopular, but legal policies doesn't really help.
| bbarnett wrote:
| FYI, corps like Bell Canada, Telus, BCttel were not
| government owned, department or crown corp.
|
| They were just highly protected by government regulation.
| The only ones allowed to do certain things, along with
| mandated Canadian ownership requirements. They had a
| defacto monopoly.
| ygjb wrote:
| Yeah, I am talking about Crown Corporations like MTS,
| Petro-Canada, BC Ferries, and such that were taken
| private, not the telecoms protectionism that is currently
| screwing over consumers in Canada, they are quite
| different.
|
| I don't object to open markets, but I also think there is
| a space for crown corporations with a mandate to operate
| competitively (which strong oversight) for the benefit of
| Canadians (or citizens of $your_nation)
| bbarnett wrote:
| There is. I found Petro Canada to be a fascinating use
| case too.
|
| Inject yourself into an absurd market, with price fixing,
| to force competition.
|
| And in the long term, it profited us quite well,
| including as we sold it off.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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
| _jal wrote:
| 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 that's because Tennessee's
| entrenched political class goes out of its way to make sure
| government services suck.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| California used to be bad, but the appointments have
| really helped.
|
| Also, the people who actually work at the DMV are pretty
| helpful, but they are way overworked. Once again, this is
| in California.
| oauea wrote:
| > 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| assuming "our" is non-American, but non-American is a
| really large place. ;-) care to narrow it down?
| technothrasher wrote:
| 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.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| The United States government, as well as the provincial
| state governments within it, are governed more by corporate
| boards than by the citizens who think they are
| participating in a democracy. This is not a secret. There
| is no such thing as a public institution in the United
| States.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I love to doodoo on dmv / dot experience out of habit and
| cultural inertia, but in reality, my local Service Ontario
| is GREAT. Most of the time line ups are manageable; but
| most importantly, I get to talk to somebody who is
| obligated and typically willing to help me out and point me
| in right direction. Worst case scenario, I can come again
| and talk to another person.
|
| It is THAT final resort that's not even an option with so
| many large companies. Sure there are people who will t fall
| through cracks, legitimate horror stories, but at least
| there's an option and obligation and intent.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I never said the human interaction part of the experience
| was bad. I specifically stated the wait times. Since
| everyone wants to share personal anecdotes, then in my
| neck of the woods in Texas, the state has moved from
| small regionally located DMV offices in favor of
| centralized extremely large megastore types of places
| that they push people to visit. Even when making an
| appointment online, you still wait an incredibly long
| amount of time in this massive incubator of a holding
| area. The last time I visited was before COVID, and I was
| already concerned about the petri dish level of
| experiment that was the waiting area.
|
| The DMV trope exists for reasons. Sadly, you may not be
| able to relate, but it doesn't diminish the validity for
| those that do. (sadly, here, being used ironically)
| throwaway946513 wrote:
| Missouri resident here. DOR (Department of Revenue is also
| the DMV in Missouri) wait times while long recently,
| haven't been anywhere as terrible as everyone makes it out
| to be. Appointments are available (can truly only speak for
| my local office, which is in the largest city in the state)
| and my wait time never exceeded fifteen minutes.
| Additionally, to process said paperwork only took five
| minutes when I was at the counter.
|
| Each of the people at the DMV have been helpful for me when
| I got custom plates, titled a car, renewed my license, etc.
| Only one time did I have to make a trip home to get missing
| documentation due to extenuating circumstances.
| hffftz wrote:
| nkrisc wrote:
| Nothing is secure, so it's not about that. It's about
| _accountability_.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| I would say it's another one of those things like private
| health insurance and no public option. It's not failing, it's
| working exactly as intended for our domestic oligarchy.
|
| Much like having two parties that are mostly the same on major
| foreign and economic policy, having the digital plaza be
| managed by mostly a few big companies that are all politically
| aligned, and cozy with the government is a great way to pretend
| to have free and open discourse when the reality is we have no
| idea what's happening behind the scenes and it's all a-okay
| according to some because they're "private businesses".
|
| While it's true that the first amendment only applies to the US
| government, the concept of free speech predates the US
| constitution by about 2200 years and is still important.
| maxbond wrote:
| 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.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| I appreciate your comment and I don't mind putting my cards
| on the table: I am a Marxist. I believe in democratic
| institutions by the people and for the people. Capitalist
| states will never suffice. Social democracy is good, but
| unsustainable. Soviet Communism was a failure, but a single
| failure. Capitalism is a necessary step in human progress,
| but it cannot last. Libertarian solutions, as you propose,
| are no more idealistic than mine, but I don't put my faith in
| them because ultimately we are social beings. We all live in
| a society, and we must attend to it as such. We need
| institutions by the people and for the people, and the great
| leaps in technological developments made by capitalist state
| funded programs in the past century (private companies did
| very little in comparison) give us a chance to reimagine a
| new future, but that can only happen by acknowledging the old
| one is dying, and already dead for for an increasing
| proportion of the working class.
|
| My only issue with Mastadon is that regular busy working
| people with families to raise on depressingly low wages
| cannot justify the effort to participate. If if can't work
| for all of our society, it can't work for our society.
| Period. So, if we can figure out how to make it work for
| everybody, then it sounds like the answer to me. I suggest we
| start by fighting for a national universal healthcare program
| to undermine the first of the private interests that control
| our public goods. It will also incentivize development of
| democratic institutions of the working class and save
| millions of lives.
| im3w1l wrote:
| > My only issue with Mastadon is that regular busy working
| people with families to raise on depressingly low wages
| cannot justify the effort to participate. If if can't work
| for all of our society, it can't work for our society.
| Period.
|
| That's assuming it doesn't get simpler and cheaper over
| time. I don't think being hard to use is inherent rather it
| is because the technology is not yet mature.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| We disagree a lot but I really like your post.
|
| Capitalism is a natural behaviour which emerge in human
| interactions. As you say, we're social animals and we
| interact with one another.
|
| The problem lies with the "capitalist" states which are not
| capitalism but crony capitalism, aka just socialism with
| extra steps. When a state with regulatory monopoly and a
| monopoly of violence exists, you can't have pure
| capitalism. Big businesses will just corrupt the government
| and you'll end up in a system where the top dogs can keep
| everyone else poor and under control - while still
| believing their democratic vote is worth anything.
|
| I don't think Marxism is a solution, for the simple reason
| that human beings are not perfect: they are corruptible and
| as soon as you end up having an institution with the power
| to do something for a large number of people, you'll have
| power and corruption. Marxism is great in theory, but in
| practice it just devolves to the same system we live in
| where top dogs eat small dogs.
|
| The shift we really need is decentralisation. No
| centralised governments. People trading with people and
| exchanging services and goods with no third parties
| stealing a part. Healthcare and protection (and private
| protection agencies offering different sets of laws) being
| sold and insured like any other services. Voluntary charity
| to help those in needs instead of mandatory taxes.
|
| We need to have the smallest entities possible so that
| there won't be someone far away deciding what you can and
| cannot do. In a world without taxes, big companies won't
| have ways of avoiding taxes and shift them to the upper
| middle class, they won't have someone to corrupt to prevent
| innovation.
|
| The answer for social networks is, again, decentralisation.
| The systems we have now (eg. mastodon) are still immature
| but, unless Facebook pay some government to introduce even
| more laws to comply with (GDPR comes to mind), a good
| decentralised competitors is going to come up, eventually.
|
| Everyone should have their own server with their own data
| and communicate with other users on their own servers.
| kylebyproxy wrote:
| > as soon as you end up having an institution with the
| power to do something for a large number of people,
| you'll have power and corruption
|
| Honest question: What would lead you to this conclusion?
|
| I hear this sentiment often, but I've never understood
| how anyone could think so little of other people and
| (evidently) themselves.
|
| It sounds like you're saying you can't even trust
| yourself to resist corruption in a position of power,
| which strikes me as pure cynicism.
|
| Moreover, you seem to have made the assumption that
| factoring corruption out of government at a structural
| level is impossible. If that's the case, I think you're
| being unimaginative.
| dsego wrote:
| I don't think it can work, it seems to naturally devolve
| into feudalism.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTN64g9lA2g
| thethrowaway87 wrote:
| Are you an anarchist? That sounds a lot like the ancap
| proposal, and I think this was one of the best pitches
| I've read for it. Respectful but also pretty convincing.
| cheschire wrote:
| "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
|
| How do you create a self-reinforcing decentralized system
| that actively prevents centralization, to the point where
| no individual nor stand-alone complex can rise up?
|
| We have so much fiction produced talking about the
| capacity for life to find a way around limitations,
| artificial or natural. I cannot imagine anything other
| than utopian fantasy where full decentralization succeeds
| long term.
| ajb wrote:
| Absolutely.
|
| As engineers, we don't reduce the world to a choice between
| two mechanisms, to be battled over with no hope of
| improvement. We are not divided into mongoites and
| postgresists, we are interested in new solutions and
| improvements.
|
| We should think of institutional design in the same way.
| _How_ do institutions work? What are the options and how do
| they fit together? How do they affect the affordances and
| limitations of each?
|
| Politics should be limited to goals, it is a crap way to
| decide about methods.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| Yes! But analyzing private companies is little use because
| ultimately they are authoritarian. That will somehow have
| to change.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Non profit organisations could fill that gap. If proper
| financed directly by its users, otherwise they will go down
| the same path, if they get their money directly or indirectly
| from advertisement.
| dokem wrote:
| Construction is private and buildings don't fall down and are
| incredibly safe. Food production is private and people don't
| get spoiled or poisonous products. I think this is reductive.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Both have regulations written in blood, though. Lives have
| been lost which is why rules exist in these fields.
| adventured wrote:
| The argument by the parent is clearly not against
| regulations in a market economy, they didn't say anything
| implying that. The argument is against the necessity of
| government ownership and operation.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Yeah that's a fair point.
| chrisBob wrote:
| Construction and food are great examples of how the
| government keeps us safe. Building codes and food regulations
| are wonderful things.
| throwaway946513 wrote:
| > People don't get spoiled or poisoned products.
|
| I'm quite sure that this still happens only to lesser
| extents. Compare European food regulations to U.S. food
| regulations. American food while not explicitly killing
| people outright still has some ghosts in its past that are
| present in today's foods. See the Coca-Cola, Sugar companies,
| and 'fat-free' corporate lobbying of the FDA, as well as the
| huge advertising for terrible food has affected Americans.
|
| The U.S. has food deserts, where fresh produce and food is
| either too expensive or impossible to find with substitutes
| being boxed goods laden with sugar and grains from the whale
| of corporations like General Mills and Kellogs.
| scarface74 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfside_condominium_collapse
| karlzt wrote:
| Consider putting it on Telegram, as you may know Telegram is
| growing faster than ever before.
| new_guy wrote:
| Facebook is a cancer, take this as a sign to start your own
| social network. There's lots of 'off-the-shelf' scripts you can
| use (see codecanyon.net)
|
| You can rebuild your community in no time and make it better than
| it was.
| leke wrote:
| Do you think there could be a universal social database that
| companies could build their platforms on?
|
| People could control what they share based on a parent
| dashboard and changes would automatically cascade to platforms
| you added.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Very HN response. "My FB community got destroyed. Can anyone
| else?" "FB bad. Build your own."
|
| Sorry OP. I don't know anyone who can help. It seems to me like
| FB would be able to reactivate the group if you can get a hold
| of someone. I don't think they purged their DB of your group.
| barbazoo wrote:
| It's not very empathetic that's right but it's still true.
| People have to stop building their livelihoods or passion
| projects on these platforms, if they want to have any control
| over them at least.
| drstewart wrote:
| If you want a society where people do those kinds of
| things, maybe you should build your own society that fits
| your criteria.
|
| I know it's not very empathetic to say but it's still true.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I rather try to educate the people I know about the
| consequences of relying on companies like Meta for things
| like that hoping it doesn't happen to them. That's all we
| can do. And I guess contributing to the technology that
| enables alternatives.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| But saying build it yourself isnt educating. It's akin to
| saying, "You should have known better". Sure. They should
| have. They probably did. But when someone is asking for
| help and you say you should have made a different
| decision 10 years ago to prevent this you are not
| educating.
| barbazoo wrote:
| There are plenty of alternatives out there to build a
| community, sell things, etc. The bit about contributing
| was aimed at people like us who work in software.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Sure. If you want to make sure some big company doesnt
| control your group then you should build your own platform.
| But could this person do that? Maybe. Does this person have
| the capability to do that? Maybe. Most people wouldnt. I'm
| a swe and I wouldnt really know how to start my own
| website, get traction, and grow a community. But I know how
| to make a facebook group.
|
| I guess its the right advice if you want to ensure nothing
| bad can happen but the likelihood of someone actually doing
| that for a project they do in their spare time is tiny.
| It's like saying, "You should only communicate with these
| people via telegraph because thats the only way you can be
| sure that no one can prevent you from doing so."
|
| It's a solution. It's not incorrect. But it isnt a good
| solution for the vast majority of individuals.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I'm not saying people should build their own platforms.
| There are plenty of managed forums, shops etc out there
| for people to use. We should help our friends and family
| by steering them towards those instead of relying solely
| on FB and IG for instance.
| jrgoff wrote:
| Building your own carries it's own set of risks. I can't
| afford the infosec, IT, devops, etc. that a large tech
| company has. Sure if I build my own and get hacked, I may
| have more ability to directly effect the situation, but I
| will likely have to spend much more of my time wrangling
| tech and may end up being more likely to be hacked overall.
| barbazoo wrote:
| As I said in other places, I was more thinking of managed
| forums, shops, etc.
| basscomm wrote:
| This is good advice if you're technically savvy enough to be
| able to set up and maintain a website. If you're in the tech
| bubble long enough, though, it's easy to forget that most
| people aren't and don't want to be. You send them to a link to
| a bunch of scripts they can use to build a website and either
| their eyes will glaze over or they'll ask you to do it for them
| (or both).
|
| I'm no fan of Facebook, and I absolutely believe that more
| people should make their own websites and communities on the
| Internet, but I'm realistic enough to know that most people
| just won't bother.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Best communities right now are old fashion, self-hosted forums.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I'm sorry this happened to you. I can't imagine what you are
| going through.
|
| Obviously keep trying to reach Facebook. Whether you are
| successful or not, you need to get your community off of Facebook
| and onto something you can control, whether that is a forum or
| chat community.
|
| Start trying to get in contact with other major members. Start
| giving out a URL to track community updates. Setup Discord[1] or
| Matrix or something for two way communication.
|
| If you need some hosting or a domain, drop me a line and I'll see
| if I can help get you sorted.
|
| [1] - Discord is only marginally better than Facebook and you
| risk the same problem here. Treat it like a temporary fix, not a
| solution.
| yumraj wrote:
| Probably 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 opportunity to create
| a more traditional forum of your own.
|
| You may want to look at AVSForum.com, Home-Barista.com and others
| for ideas on how to structure very successful traditional
| review/forum sites and while it may be more effort initially as
| you'll have to build it yourself, in the long run it may be more
| fruitful for you.
|
| Either ways, Good Luck!!
| metalised wrote:
| 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...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Reach out to bands who know you personally and ask them if
| they'll help spread the word about the new community. You can
| coordinate to do so on a particular date.
|
| Reddit has a couple of popular metal subreddits, etc.
| metalised wrote:
| Update: I updated my blog to reflect the discussion taking place
| here: https://metalised.wordpress.com/2022/01/27/metalised-
| faceboo...
|
| Thank you everyone for your support and vivid discussion. I hope
| this manages to reach the right eyeballs eventually!
|
| ----
|
| Further update: I can't edit the post itself anymore, but someone
| from Meta reached out! Thank you so much, kind stranger, and
| thank you HN! You rock!
| karlzt wrote:
| Consider putting it on Telegram, as you may know Telegram is
| growing faster than ever before.
| dn3500 wrote:
| Too 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.
| Jolter wrote:
| How would you rebuild a community - start a new Page on
| Facebook and re-invite all you previous followers?
| tyingq wrote:
| Probably difficult as FB used to allow a lot more leeway on
| how FB groups and their posts were shared. The road to xx,xxx
| group members is a lot harder than it once was.
| kristiandupont wrote:
| 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.
| ViViDboarder wrote:
| Yikes! Clearly this is post of a bigger scam with that
| "Verification" message. Wild that they do nothing about it.
|
| There must be some Facebook engineers on here, so hopefully this
| gets some visibility.
| metalised wrote:
| I'm fairly sure the way they managed to claim ownership in the
| first place was by 'claiming the page for their business',
| because no business account was associated with the page.
|
| In my case there was no 'business manager' associated with the
| page because it was a community page. But it's not a stretch of
| the imagination to imagine there are many 'business' pages out
| there, which are still managed via a personal account only, and
| can be 'plucked away' from their owners by a scammer the same
| way!
|
| I would have thought Facebook would at least have some sort of
| semi-automated "dispute" process for when someone claims your
| page at the very least!
| rmason wrote:
| I went through something similar and this brings up some very bad
| memories. Facebook is way too lenient about taking away control
| of pages. Saddens me to know years later that things still have
| not changed.
|
| You're going to have to reach someone who works at Facebook.
| Going through official channels can be an exercise in extreme
| frustration. It shouldn't be that way at all but it hasn't been a
| priority for them to do better.
| mxuribe wrote:
| I'm sorry that this happened to you. What i am about to propose
| is not a solution for you for now unfortunately. But maybe
| something to help for the future...Have you considered starting a
| new presence for yourself and your community on the fediverse
| (e.g. mastodon, pleroma, diaspora, friendica, etc.)?? This will
| take work and time of course and maybe not all members will
| follow you over, but if you start a new community on one of the
| existing fediverse instances - or even better and more resilient,
| start your own instance - then facebook or other entities will
| not be able to let this happen to you/your community again.
| (Granted you can of course get hacked in your new world,
| encounter negativity, etc...But you will likely be in better
| position to do something more for yourself than what FB is/isn't
| doing.)
|
| Step 1: Research the topic of the fediverse, and specifically
| find options for you to sign up for accounts...Yes, plural
| acounts...so you can get a flavor for the differnce in apps,
| instances, existing communities and so on. "Try" before you
| "buy". See also site like: https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse
|
| During this step, if you can still access the legacy FB
| community/page as a participant, inform your peers that you're
| trying this fediverse thing out, and if they're interested in
| experimenting with you. The more that can go along for the ride,
| the merrier!
|
| Step 2: Sign up for a couple of different accounts, join some
| existing communities. No need to be shady nor too secretive, be
| honest with folks that you're testing the waters...and of course
| be respectful; that helps new members. Get familiar with using
| the tech (since there are nuances and differences to how
| conventional social media typically operates, new vocabularies,
| etiquette)... Do not research about setting up your own
| instance...just get comfy being a regular user, and understanding
| the rhythms of the fediverse. And, if some members from the
| legacy FB page did in fact join you in this experiment, ask them
| what they think so far.
|
| Step 3: Decide which community to stay with in the fediverse
| (maybe re-create your "true"/"final" account), and then start
| inviting community members from legacy FB page. I should clarify
| that like FB, you are not restricted to only 1 community...you
| can join as many places as you wish.
|
| Optional Step 4: After some time, if you're really into the
| fediverse, want more freedom, etc...Research setting up your
| instance/community...or look for providers that you pay for
| managing the infrastructure for you. Nothing is free - you either
| invest time/money managing system yourself or pay someone else to
| do it for you.
|
| Good luck, and again, sorry that this happened to you in the
| first place!
| metalised wrote:
| There is no "legacy FB page" to join as a participant. That's
| the problem. The hackers deleted the page.
|
| I mentioned it to another poster here, but essentially I tried
| to inform my subscribers about the hack before the page was
| deleted, as part of a high-profile post (the end of year best
| metal albums post, which is the yearly highlight of the page,
| and always gets a lot of visibility).
|
| Unfortunately, not many people seemed to notice or act on the
| 'hack' stuff in the post, even though the post itself did
| actually get a lot of votes and 'thank you' replies from bands.
| But only a handful of people subscribed to the 'backup' page
| that I mentioned in that post.
|
| Unless I manage to get the page restored somehow, the best I
| can hope for is that next year, anyone who "actively" looks for
| the end of year list and notices the page is gone, _might_
| decide to google 'metalised', end up on my blog, see what
| happened, and subscribe to the backup page ... but that already
| feels like it would be too much effort for the average facebook
| user, even if they _did_ get value from that community. To be
| honest, it 's more like the commenter below says. If my Heavy
| Metal community A disappears overnight, chances are people will
| simply jump over to Heavy Metal community B rather than start
| looking for 'fediverse' stuff (I don't even know what that is,
| to be honest, and I doubt many of my subscribers would either).
| Jolter wrote:
| I think you have too high hopes for the possibility to get non
| tech-geek users to try the Fediverse. If Heavy Metal Community
| A on Facebook disappears overnight, I think the users will
| simply join Heavy Metal Community B (on Facebook).
| mxuribe wrote:
| You might be correct. I do not know the community in question
| nor the desire of the community leader here nor their
| background for interest in what i suggested. But i figured, i
| just provide a proposal, that's all.
|
| And, separately, while the fediverse is vastly dwarfed in
| participation numbers by convenional social media...at last
| count there are several millions of users engaged within the
| fediverse...Now, that number fluctuate wildly depending on
| sources from single digit millions of users to double digit
| millions of users, etc...But there are still quite a large
| number of people nowadays on the fediverse. I happen to know
| many users (that i ineract with constantly) on the fediverse
| who are most definitely not tech-geeks. I win nothing if this
| community leader listens to me or not...again, i was just
| proposing a suggestion.
| jbkiv wrote:
| So sorry metalised, not much you can do and no legal
| recourse/appeal as you have agreed to the TOS. FB will not help
| much either.
|
| The a lesson to be learned here. Zinga learned that with
| Farmville in other circumstances. If you can, don't build on the
| top of some other companies, a FB, an Instagram, Pinterest, or a
| Gmail/Maps. Rug pulls do not happen solely in crypto.
|
| There are exceptions of course: build something good on the top
| of salesforce and if you get traction (=paying customers) they
| will buy you.
|
| More and more posts on HN are written to show how evil those
| companies are (Amazon to their third party merchants, Google or
| Facebook to their users), but you have choices in life, simply
| build a different model. The lesson is: don't build your whole
| business with faceless companies, even worse if you don't pay for
| the services. What do you expect in return?
| LambdaTrain wrote:
| Not a response as a solution to Op: is there any recommended
| open-source project that can be used to self-host a comminity
| server?
|
| I would expect that as a host I just need to focus on configuring
| and maintaining instead of learning to build a website, for
| example, it sounds like hosting vpn using Wireguard.
|
| On the other hand, I wonder if that really makes it better off
| than to use fb/discord, since if fb/discord is vulnerable to
| hack, so is my own hosted one.
| schleck8 wrote:
| Yeah, a bunch of options.
|
| Mastodon is a safe bet
|
| There is also Pleroma, GNU social and Diaspora
|
| https://alternativeto.net/category/social/social-network/?pl...
| Giorgi wrote:
| sorry dude, its gone. It is not deleted though, it is merged with
| larger page they are building. I know because something similar
| happened to me ( I allowed it to happen out of curiosity. )
| metalised wrote:
| what exactly happened to yours then, if I may ask?
| Giorgi wrote:
| scammer PM'ed me, asking if I would sell, asked to get low
| level access to check audience, I know it was a scam but got
| really curious, because it was really low role access so I
| thought "what kind of damage can he do really" to myself.
|
| It was small page so I went with it, granted role (I will not
| go into specifics for obvious reasons) and waited... as soon
| as he got the role, he (or maybe someone helping him) claimed
| my page from another account and confirmed with this newly
| granted role by me, quickly removed me and merged it into
| bigger page.
|
| As I was looking at it I actually managed to click "Cancel"
| button several times when he was sending claims and made it
| as troublesome as possible but eh.
|
| It is a loophole that Facebook has not closed yet, I tried to
| inform them but tools are really rare for that.
| throwway1922 wrote:
| Did you have 2FA? If yes, contact https://krebsonsecurity.com/
| quda wrote:
| beeboop wrote:
| Plot twist: OP is the hacker trying to get control over a
| recently deleted community :)
|
| Just kidding
| xtracto wrote:
| I thought something among the lines. This would be a very good
| publicity stunt. I did not know about that
| metalised.wordpress.com wordpress page and I am an avid Heavy
| Metal listener. My first thought is, shit, I'm going to help
| this guy buy re-promoting his page. But then it landed on me...
| how good of a PR tactic this would be.
| metalised wrote:
| Hi my metal brother,
|
| I have nothing to gain from a PR stunt. As you can see from
| my website, it's a small blog, not a mainstream professional
| website. But it means a lot to me sentimentally, because it's
| something I have been working on for 11 years, and a small
| (well, 56k small) community of metalheads was built around
| it. The last few years the only content was the end of year
| lists, but this was very popular on Facebook.
|
| I think the main reason it became valued among metalheads is
| because it's not a "mainstream" list, of the kind promoted by
| the music industry, every year the same people... I go to
| great lengths to find out great music. Often enough, a band
| which I think deserves to be on the top 20 list may be
| relatively unknown in mainstream media, and both the bands
| and fans seem to find value in this and thank me for it.
|
| Check out the end-of-year list for 2021. You may find
| something you like. I particularly recommend the top ranked
| album on that list, Thy Catafalque!
| metalised wrote:
| You joke, but this is a real concern for me ... even if I do
| get a person replying here, presumably the hacker used dodgy
| means of getting access in the first place! how can I
| definitively prove what I'm saying is true?
|
| My main hope is that it will be clear from the page's history
| that I've been involved from the very start, and the new
| "owner's" actions will look as suspicious to a real human as
| they do to me!
|
| In the meantime, I've updated my blog to mention this
| discussion, proving at least the blog part of my ownership :)
|
| https://metalised.wordpress.com/2022/01/27/metalised-faceboo...
|
| (hopefully, this, and the fact that the now deleted page used
| to point to this page for the last 10 years should be enough!)
| Datenstrom wrote:
| Not at all the same, and only a minor annoyance but a new twitter
| account i made a few days ago just disappeared completely with no
| notice or reason. I think it maybe got flagged as a bot not sure.
| I made it, added my real name, a picture, and followed a bunch of
| people I knew. Then "account not found" like two days latter but
| I was able to remake the same exact account. Feel a bit
| gaslighted. did I just imagine making it lol?
| pjc50 wrote:
| They're very insistent on you adding a phone number.
| beeboop wrote:
| It's basically required. I've had them shut down two accounts
| with zero activity on them and refuse to let me back in
| without a phone number
| jzawodn wrote:
| Ask for your money back?
| saltmeister wrote:
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Do you know how you got hacked? I mean did you have 2FA? phone
| number? Did they manage to get around a plain old password that
| was weak enough to brute force? I'm surprised that facebook
| wouldn't be like "you tried 10 times, go away and try again in 24
| hours".
| yob22 wrote:
| beeskneecaps wrote:
| I'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.
| londons_explore wrote:
| 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.
| metalised wrote:
| I hope so!
|
| (both what you say, and that Facebook support actually gets
| back to me sometime this year!)
| aliher1911 wrote:
| Keeping the data for European users after deletion would be in
| breach of GDPR, so Facebook does delete data after some grace
| period. It doesn't necessarily mean physically removing files,
| but you can do other things like storing data at rest encrypted
| with with an account unique key and then removing the key when
| account is deleted.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| Same thing happened to a friend of mine with an anime page. She
| never got it back.
| echelon wrote:
| Your best bet is to get ahold of actual Facebook engineers, and
| this is a good place to do it. Take this issue to Twitter as
| well. It looks like your previous posts didn't make it to the
| front page, but with any luck this time you'll get some real
| traction.
|
| The suggestion in a previous thread about buying an Oculus to get
| priority customer support is also not a bad one.
|
| Do you have any snapshots of your membership base? Maybe you can
| reach out and start anew. Check your email, as it'll typically
| have a lot of names and accounts. Also see if archive.org and
| archive.is have snapshots.
|
| If and when you do get your community back, I'd highly suggest
| starting an internet forum and directing some or all of your
| community there.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >Your best bet is to get ahold of actual Facebook engineers,
|
| Isn't this exactly what the OP is asking HN to help them do?
| It's not like they asked "what do I do?", they specifically
| asked for help doing what you've not helfpully posted they do.
| [deleted]
| kingcharles wrote:
| I had an issue with Cash App recently and support just put me
| in a death-spiral so I looked up the phone numbers of some
| execs and texted them. At first they were helpful in escalating
| the issue, but then they terminated my account for contacting
| their employees outside the online support channel lol.
| nsenifty wrote:
| Facebook engineers wouldn't be able to help unless they can
| personally vouch for the person affected for privacy and
| security reasons.
| jpablo wrote:
| Didn't Facebook had an internal employees only support system
| that was quick to respond a was encouraged to be used on
| friend and family issues?
| nsenifty wrote:
| Yes, but limited to family or friends that you could
| personally vouch for.
| tonypags wrote:
| Any chance you can share the topic of the FB group? I'm curious
| to know if it was politically motivated (even non-political
| topics can have their own, internal politics, too). Maybe someone
| is trying to silence you?
| philk10 wrote:
| it was about Heavy Metal
| metalised wrote:
| It is the facebook page for my blog,
| https://metalised.wordpress.com which largely exists for the
| end-of-year best metal album reviews these days.
|
| These reviews get cross-posted on the facebook page, and tend
| to be very popular, both by fans and featured bands alike.
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| These big companies don't much care about people who don't fit
| into their plans.
|
| At one point I was 4 years into a Blogger blog when someone
| decided to create Google+, insisting that everyone needed to
| supply their _real name_. When I signed up for G+ with my blogger
| alias, they shut down access to the blog until I complied. Since
| I was (miracle!) 'free to export' 4 years of blogposts, I did
| ... and _each and every one_ of the exported posts had a Google
| link embedded in it.
|
| In short: to 'free' automated services - despite any cozy
| feelings of 'belonging' we feel - we are insects. 'Community'
| isn't in their vocabulary.
| kordlessagain wrote:
| Thousands of years later, we're still realizing impermanence is a
| thing, yet keep on keeping on trying to ignore that fact.
| beeboop wrote:
| This isn't a very kind response
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The OP's community didn't die by itself, it was killed.
| Impermanence is a very real thing, but when somebody goes and
| explicitly terminates something, focusing on the impermanence
| is wrong on all accounts.
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