Zuckered

UPDATE: I got my account back. Still no explanation why it was disabled, and I doubt I'll ever see any. But that's Facebook for you...

(original post follows)

Well I haven't posted here for a long time (almost twelve years actually). The reason that this blog, like so many others, has been allowed to languish should be no surprise - it's something called Facebook. I've been using it since 2007 or 2008, and it has an undeniable pull; gradually my blogging faded into the background. This should be no surprise; as many have pointed out, social media platforms like Facebook appear to be addictive by design. But in some ways it's inferior to this old-school approach; for instance, you can't put in hyperlinked text in a Facebook post like you can here. Maybe they don't want you to; perhaps the kind of engagement it produces doesn't suit their business model for whatever reason. Social media seems to work best with shallower content; it's not meant for in-depth looks at issues. In fact, a few years back it was reported that this had gotten the folks at Facebook worried:

Overall sharing has remained "strong," according to Facebook. However, people have been less willing to post updates about their lives as their lists of friends grow, the people said...

 In other words, they want you to post pictures of your cat, family, etc, and what you're doing. In-depth analysis of real-world issues isn't what they're about, and they'd rather you focused on the shallow.

I'd like to say that's the reason I'm back here after all these years, however I'd be lying. The real reason has to do with this:

Yep, yesterday morning, with no warning whatsoever, I was advised that due to some unspecified violation of Facebook's "community standards" my account was disabled. It gave me the option to "disagree", and the alleged violation would be reexamined (hopefully by people rather than algorithms, though I wouldn't count on it) and they'll decide whether I'm worthy of having my account reactivated.

I've had one warning before. I had a comment removed, and in that case they at least gave the reason of sorts. The comment contained a reference to shooting, which made sense in the context of the primary post (a news article, like most of my posts) but was deemed inappropriate. At the time I was given the option to disagree, and say why from a list of possibilities (I selected the one about the judgment not taking into account context) but the comment was not reinstated. Fine, I can live with that.

This time, though, they just decided to shut down my entire account. And while they gave me the option to "disagree" they did not allow me to say why I disagreed (not that this would have helped, since they haven't given a specific reason why I'm supposedly in violation). So I'm not sure what it would be, though I have a few ideas. Their page on the matter does give a few things; the only one that might conceivably apply to my account is intellectual property. I quite frequently post links to paywalled articles with the Winnipeg Free Press and Globe and Mail, along with excerpts from the articles. So it's possible that someone there has decided that I post too much from the articles and that this is a copyright violation. But again, no warning, no blocking of a single post, and no explanation of whether this is in fact the reason or not. Meanwhile some of my friends quite frequently post about having been sent to "Facebook jail" for a period of time (knowing them, it's probably for risque jokes), but they're just suspended for a few days or a month and then allowed back, not permabanned with no warning.

Maybe the folks at Facebook take copyright violation more seriously than that (assuming, again, that that's what it was about). I guess it's also possible that my account was hacked and something truly horrific was posted there; I did have some login issues over the last couple of days. Thing is, though, I was able to access the account when I first got up yesterday and nothing of the sort was there, but a few minutes later I got the message that my account had been disabled. So that leaves a window of only a few minutes for the offending material to have been posted; that doesn't seem likely.

Or, maybe it's just that some algorithm at Facebook is acting up and saw something that wasn't there. Who knows? With luck, maybe I'll find out, but I'm not counting on that (even if they do decide to reinstate my account).

Even if I do get my account back, I plan to start posting more here. At least that's the idea; maybe the social media leech will start sucking my drive to blog again once it's available to me. Time will tell.