Yesterday, I logged onto my Facebook account and discovered it had been locked by Facebook. The message was somewhat cryptic, requiring me to prove that I was me, and then asking me to review my authorized applications to ensure that none of them were posting things in my name. Obviously, I was alarmed; I've seen other people's Facebook accounts get hacked, and I know that suddenly a bunch of weird stuff will appear on their timeline that appears to be posted by them, but isn't. And I've read that the victim can't even see the posts on their own timeline, only their Facebook friends can.
So I went through the steps to get my account re-authorized, and I tossed out all the apps that I had previously allowed to access my Facebook account, even though I had had no trouble with them previously. I asked my Facebook friends if anyone had seen anything weird posted that appeared to be from me. One person said he had seen something about 'Bieber porn' that had been posted from my account. Alarmed, I asked for more details and found out to my relief that he was mistaken; he had been asked if a 'Smoking Gun' link I had posted might be spam by Facebook. I notified Smoking Gun about that, by the way.
Then my account got locked again. I had to undo it once more.
So I had a chat with Facebook Security. Turns out, someone (they won't tell me who) is reporting all my links on Facebook as 'spam' and it's triggering an automatic lockdown of my account.
Last night, I found out who. I got a message from someone who is 'friends' with me on Facebook, but they do not like what I have to say. Rather than unfriending me, or simply changing the settings that make it so they just don't see what I post, they have decided that what really needs to happen is that I need to be shut up. It's not so much that they are offended personally by what I say - they do not want me to be saying to anyone, not just them. Wow.
So...I am about to turn my Facebook profile private again. It had been private previously, but someone on MT wanted to 'friend' me and it would not let them until I turned my profile public, which I did. No more, sorry. And, I am going to go through my Facebook profile and remove people who I feel might be offended by what I have to say. I'm sorry, I hate to do it, but I'm not going to have my Facebook account locked because someone wants to have me forced to shut up; nor am I going to stop saying whatever the hell I feel like saying.
If you find you are no longer on my 'friends' list, I sincerely apologize, it's nothing personal. But I used Facebook to keep in touch with my family, and I'm not going to jeopardize that because an adult who acts like a five-year-old is having a temper tantrum and trying to get Facebook to be the bully on his behalf.
So I went through the steps to get my account re-authorized, and I tossed out all the apps that I had previously allowed to access my Facebook account, even though I had had no trouble with them previously. I asked my Facebook friends if anyone had seen anything weird posted that appeared to be from me. One person said he had seen something about 'Bieber porn' that had been posted from my account. Alarmed, I asked for more details and found out to my relief that he was mistaken; he had been asked if a 'Smoking Gun' link I had posted might be spam by Facebook. I notified Smoking Gun about that, by the way.
Then my account got locked again. I had to undo it once more.
So I had a chat with Facebook Security. Turns out, someone (they won't tell me who) is reporting all my links on Facebook as 'spam' and it's triggering an automatic lockdown of my account.
Last night, I found out who. I got a message from someone who is 'friends' with me on Facebook, but they do not like what I have to say. Rather than unfriending me, or simply changing the settings that make it so they just don't see what I post, they have decided that what really needs to happen is that I need to be shut up. It's not so much that they are offended personally by what I say - they do not want me to be saying to anyone, not just them. Wow.
So...I am about to turn my Facebook profile private again. It had been private previously, but someone on MT wanted to 'friend' me and it would not let them until I turned my profile public, which I did. No more, sorry. And, I am going to go through my Facebook profile and remove people who I feel might be offended by what I have to say. I'm sorry, I hate to do it, but I'm not going to have my Facebook account locked because someone wants to have me forced to shut up; nor am I going to stop saying whatever the hell I feel like saying.
If you find you are no longer on my 'friends' list, I sincerely apologize, it's nothing personal. But I used Facebook to keep in touch with my family, and I'm not going to jeopardize that because an adult who acts like a five-year-old is having a temper tantrum and trying to get Facebook to be the bully on his behalf.