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Why I’m sitting at home crying on a Saturday afternoon
- late2part 11y agoI'm sorry to hear you don't agree with the Facbeook's policies. I agree with most of what you wrote, including the right to privacy. The Facebook is an advertising channel, and they make money by targeting ads. So, it's not surprising they want to know more about you. Solution: Don't use the Facebook.
- thothamon 11y agoI don't know. It feels like she's about as interested in suffering publicly for the cameras as she is in fixing the problem. If she really just wants her Facebook profile closed (as she says), that can probably be done with back-channel methods: no need for crying at all. I don't think Facebook's failure to 100% accommodate all of the OP's demands is really a story. I'm sure Facebook has many problems, but this story is more about the author's problems than Facebook's.
- danellis 11y agoIt hasn't been called "The Facebook" in ten years.
- recursive 11y agoNo. It still is. Just look at the comment you responded to.
- powera 11y agoI'm sorry she had a bad experience (and if the situation was triggered by something she posted that's horrible), but from a security point of view, if the automatic security questions can't be answered and you can't provide an "official government ID", the only way that you should be able to get access back to your account is "from a favor from someone on the inside that knows that you are you". If there's any way that she can just say she's herself and skip the security procedures on a regular basis, then they aren't security and anyone else can just do the same thing to skip the procedures, so they might as well not even have them.
- powera 11y agoalso: "de-anonymizing refugees usually precedes murder on a grand scale" - that's an aggressively outrageous claim. "Bad things happen in the world" does not mean "if we ignore the world, nothing bad can happen". And I can't even argue with someone who disagrees. EDIT: to people down-voting, how is her claim at all reasonable? there are lots of refugees that have been murdered in nameless graves. if anything, the whole "say her name" would suggest that people on facebook would be less likely to be murdered by a dictatorial state. but apparently since she doesn't want to be nice to facebook, they are literally acting as a conspirator to mass murder.
- 5ilv3r 11y agoNo that's pretty fair.
- panic 11y agoShe's not saying that Facebook shouldn't have security procedures. She's saying that Facebook's security procedures aren't designed properly and that they don't work for her. Plenty of identity providers (she cites Apple's policies in particular) have more reasonable ways of recovering your account.
- danellis 11y agoShe's saying they're not secure, but quite the opposite is true: they're too secure.
- jordanthoms 11y agoApple's had major problems with account hijacks, including accounts of celebrities. There's no easy answers here.
- gull 11y ago> the only way that you should be Well, your friends could vet for you too.
- iandanforth 11y ago
- rdl 11y agoI don't get why Facebook doesn't do account recovery via email. The photo ID your friends thing is ducking annoying; I have a hard time passing it. I have the 2SV thing set on my account, so haven't seen the ID challenge in a long time.
- MichaelGG 11y agoDoesn't FB see itself against email and would prefer to be the replacement? FB doesn't even allow reporting security issues without signing up. I found a rather strong phishing attempt going on and had no way to report it. Oh well. They might also have data that shows people often get email compromised at the same time. Or that picking out faces works better (faster recovery?)
- awakeasleep 11y agoI'd like to see a wiki documenting the harm that comes from Facebook, sort of like how https://reddit.com/r/gunsarecool https://reddit.com/r/gunsarecool documents mass shootings. Violet Blue is lucky because she has a platform and her problems will get notice. Everyone else just deals with their life quietly, and we the public don't get a good grasp of the problem.
- sigmar 11y agoThat's a nice thought, but the facebook problems she mentions (harassment/trolling/doxing) are only exacerbated with more publicity.
- hugh4 11y ago> Everyone else just deals with their life quietly And it works out great for most of us. Want to deal with facebook? Use facebook. Don't want to deal with facebook? Don't use facebook. Not that tricky.
- MichaelGG 11y agoNah, it's beneficial for people to publicly complain about things like this. So long the claims are true or reasonable it's good to pressure companies into changing bad policies. Only thing I'd question is that she's had to "bury" a lot of people due to FB and that there's such a dangerous threat to her safety from this. It could be true (especially in years past or in shitty countries) just seems extraordinary and should have citations. I'd be surprised if FB tricked users into revealing personal information, got them killed, and wasn't sued like crazy.
- rdl 11y agoI respect her (disclaimer: I know her IRL from conferences and stuff) for not doing the "hey, I know a Facebook employee" solution; that is almost always my first response to problems with services, but doesn't scale, and doesn't help the actually vulnerable people who don't know people.
- 5ilv3r 11y agoFuck facebook. If you do not agree with the platform................................
- phaemon 11y agoThat was weird. I stopped using Facebook a few years ago (don't remember when), because something trivial about the site annoyed me (don't remember what). The author seems to have written many accounts of what a terrible company Facebook is, how LGBT people are treated appallingly by them, how they're starting in on refugees and how they're ruining privacy for everyone. And then jumped through every possible hoop in order to keep using their website! Is she just confused about how boycotts work?
- hasenj 11y agoMaybe she thinks using Facebook is a basic human right or something. I say if you hate a website just don't use it. It's really simple.
- 5ilv3r 11y agoPublic shaming _has_ proven to be very effective
- trhway 11y agoa lot of people are gullible, naive, insufficiently informed, etc... This is why along with basic "buyer beware" policy most developed societies have strong consumer protection laws in place too. Facebook is just preying on such people as there are no laws to protect them from it.
- morganvachon 11y ago> And then jumped through every possible hoop in order to keep using their website! I don't think you read the entire article. Her goal at this point is to delete her account[1], which she cannot do until she regains control of the account. She's at a stalemate right now. [1]"But now I just want out. I want my account deleted. I want the bullshit, inaccurate pages Facebook creates about me without my consent gone, too, but that’s just a bitter little joke for the ages, isn’t it? Facebook is just going to do whatever the fuck it wants to me. And to you."
- phaemon 11y ago
- unclebucknasty 11y agoDrama. Begging to be repeatedly victimized, then publicly crying about it when there is an easy solution.
- wutbrodo 11y ago> facebook’s account security is apparently based on its users knowing what every one of of its friends looks like (do you?) This isn't central to the post or anything, but uh, is this really that uncommon...?
- bhrgunatha 11y agoPeople accept friends requests on Facebook and social media sites from people they don't know all the time. Some seem to treat it like a game - how many friends they can collect. Others because of peer pressure or not wanting to miss out on work related opportunities and a whole host of other reasons. Social media relationships are not equivalent as your offline friends, relatives and acquaintances.
- wutbrodo 11y agoThanks for being mature enough to actually answer my question, as opposed to those who just downvoted. I can honestly say I wasn't aware of that mode of usage. It seems alittle counterproductive, though I suppose you can always depend on Facebooks feed ranking to not show you posts from all the randos.
- ikeboy 11y agoShe's hardly the model of anti censorship: In July 2008, Blue sought restraining orders against online critics David Burch (aka Ben Burch) and Nina Alter to prohibit them from e-mailing her, editing her Wikipedia page, or writing unkindly about her online. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Blue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Blue
- scrollaway 11y agoThat's pretty shitty but how does it relate?
- ikeboy 11y agoPart of the article was railing against Facebook for censorship.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoA government or private company censors, private individuals libel and slander (in this example).
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mirimir 11y agoIt's sad :( Mirimir might like a Facebook account, but then he doesn't have a phone or government ID. So he's just shit outta luck. He could maybe get some usable fake ID. But Facebook isn't so easy to trick with online mobile numbers. But then, who needs Facebook? Edit: I'm agreeing with the author that Facebook can't be trusted to keep disclosed information private. My point here is that the only reliable strategy is to avoid providing true identity. And Facebook makes that virtually impossible.
- jonesb6 11y ago"This is reality. This is not theory. This is not assertions on Hacker News about how you must have something to hide if you want to keep something private. This is not about a man in a position of power and influence, who has industry privilege and respect for his wealth and status, at Google or Facebook saying that anonymity, or multiple online identities, demotes a 'lack of credibility’. We don’t care of you believe we’re credible, we just don’t want your willful ignorance to ruin our lives or get us killed. This isn’t about telling us that someone must have been targeting LGBT people that one time – because, wouldn’t you know, you seem to have a new reason every year. This isn’t about how many people were in your company’s Pride contingent, and it damn well isn’t about jerking around a group of drag queens – who cope with the suffering done by outing every day, and for fuck’s sake we’ve buried too many people we love – for one of your little press appeasement moments. This isn’t about YOUR beliefs, or what you think is best for us. This is about you making us live in fear. This is about the fact that you have had a chance to make it right repeatedly, and when faced with one kid saying no please don’t publish my birth name – you looked away, again. https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=10204701697172621 https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=1020470... " I normally avoid tumblr like the plague, but I chose to read this post. I encourage anyone who reads this to view the full post to get complete context. I thought it was raising some good points about Facebook's poor UX for account recovery.. until I got to this paragraph. I feel that while there may be many valid points to this article it is shrouded in certain biases and stigmas that dilute the overall positive message it was trying to make in the first place.
- MichaelGG 11y agoThat link is strange. Person is using Facebook. They then voluntarily send Facebook their birth certificate and are bewildered and upset that Facebook used that info and corrected (read: edited) their profile? I really dislike Facebook but come on, you signed up for this. If you don't like Facebook's policies (and you shouldn't), then don't use it. What gives anyone the right to use someone else's service, then dictate how that service should work? And even supposing we create some new privacy law, how would that even work? The right to identify with any name? That can't be signed away at all?
- MichaelGG 11y agoI've no idea why she's put up with FB for long. I've none of the issues she has with Facebook, I just hate it on privacy reasons. So... I don't use it. But if she's gotta use it just submit fake ID. Scan your license or passport, and edit information. This works fine and there is nothing wrong with it. Complaining about their security policies... Eh I'm gonna guess that FB engineers probably want to protect user accounts as that's in their interest. It doesn't help them to lock users out for no reason. FB is a private company, and, as much as I dislike them, they can do whatever they want, including requiring ID to login. Though, I'd imagine you could file a lawsuit to force them to delete your info, if they refuse to do so without ID. But that'd probably leak your ID in the process.
- danellis 11y ago> FB is a private company Facebook is a public company. I'm surprised anyone reading HN would have missed their rather high profile IPO.
- baby 11y agopublic means government owned
- danellis 11y agoPublic company.
- asuffield 11y agoSorry, this is incorrect. There are several very similar sounding terms here, which do not mean the same thing. A "public company" or "publicly traded company" is a company traded on the stock exchange. A "state company", or "publicly owned company", or "public sector company" is a company owned by a government and not traded at all. The terms here are a regrettable accident of history, which often confuses people.
- MichaelGG 11y agoIt's not public as in a utility or other government run or specially regulated utility or something. Their management and decisions regarding most of their features are private. I don't think it changes the point of my comment at all.
- rch 11y agoI thought the obvious problems with forcing the issue with real names online was well known at this point, and that pseudonymous participation was generally accepted. Is this really an accurate interpretation of FB policy?
- dates 11y agofriends and i have successfully evaded facebook's idiotic (read: trans-exclusionary) "real" name policy by photoshopping the text of legal documents on a few occasions. a laborious option! but worth considering.
- dredmorbius 11y agoIn my most recent review of random ID-generating tools (all I wanted were plausible and random names and details), I found that many will now "generate" documents -- state drivers licenses, passports, etc. -- which could presumably be submitted. Mind: that likely puts you solidly into fraud category.
- marincounty 11y agoWell, in this case, Facebook indirectly gave Violet Blue a lot of new media exposure? I had no clue to her existence until now. I don't like Facebook, but in this case, I'm glad FB didn't cave in and give Violet Blue her account back--just because 'She has a friend at FB'. I don't like inside special favors.
- wanorris 11y ago1. Violet Blue has been a reasonably widely published journalist for many years now. Her bylines include CNet and the SF Chronicle, and she's written or edited a couple of dozen books. She writes both about sexuality and technology, and sometimes about the ways in which they overlap. 2. Your reading comprehension has failed you. Several different people at Facebook offered to do her inside special favors and she chose to decline that because she doesn't like that kind of thing either.
- baby 11y ago> Facebook’s account security is apparently based on its users knowing what every one of of its friends looks like (do you?) … Well yeah. You're supposed to be able to recognise your friends in that test if it's really your account. I don't see what is the problem? I've passed these tests several time, you are presented with 6 different pictures for each friend (so it's hard to fail) and you can re-pass the test several times with different friends if you fail the first times. I stopped reading after that. Why would I read about someone ranting about her fake facebook account being locked?
- jonesb6 11y agoTo be fair it went on several tangents. I find it an interesting phenomenon that posters here who show support for the author/article gloss over the 80% that is a tangent about LGBT issues, migrant issues, sexism issues, and act as if this is a serious article and not just another tumblr rant.. I mean look at the title for crying out loud. I think I'm going to drop in a <insert social justice issue here> to all my posts so I get more upvotes and less criticism from now on.
- MichaelGG 11y agoUnited we stand against Facebook?
- asuffield 11y agoIt works well for the way a lot of people use facebook, and very poorly for the way some people use facebook. There's a baked in assumption that you only "friend" people who you can identify from their photos. (This one isn't a fake account, it's a "professional" account, so she's "friends" with a lot of people that she only emails for work purposes and has never met) For a hilarious example of how this can fail, a guy I used to work with has a facebook account for his pet bird. It is friends with the pet birds of lots of other people. I was present on the occasion when he forgot the password to this account, and spent quite some time trying to guess the names of birds from their photos. Facebook has a fallback authentication mechanism of showing them some government-issued ID (which could have worked for Violet Blue, and not for my colleague's bird).
- Camillo 11y agoWhy doesn't Facebook use the social graph to verify identity? Have the user contact their Facebook friends and let those friends vouch for them. Weighing friends by length of friendship, frequency of interaction, etc. so that you cannot verify your account using sockpuppets.
- Spooky23 11y agoI'm sitting on my couch shaking my head because I fell for the bait and wasted five minutes of my life reading a few paragraphs of attention seeking nonsense. Know what would help this person with whatever problem that they are having? Getting to the point.
- jtoll 11y agoWhether you sympathize with her plight or think she's ridiculous, one important issue remains for all Facebook users. Even if you quit using Facebook, there's no assurance that Facebook will stop collecting data on you, and there's no assurance that Facebook will purge data pertaining to you from their database and website. In fact, it appears that your absence does nothing to curtail their data collection, nor their fictional representation of you. That is extremely problematic. Ideally ending one's account would end the data collection and the data profile. Failing that, at a minimum, one's personal data should no longer be displayed. Unfortunately Facebook's "security" policy seems indifferent to the real-life well-being and personal security of their current and former users.
- techdragon 11y agoHaving a profile you can "claim" is a feature, just look at IMDB actor profiles if you want a more understandable example that's not reliant on Facebook's creepy surveillance. It's not creepy to Facebook that they gather the info ergo they see no reason to not create the absentee profile since to them the profile is "look we've already done all this work for you" type bait for the few remaining internet users not on Facebook.
- jtoll 11y agoThe entirety of your assertion is specious, but there's little value in debating it. The simple fact is that when a user closes their account, they should, at a minimum, be offered the ability to hide their profile from display. Ideally, they would be offered the ability to delete the entirety of their profile data. Facebook, as a company, is effectively stalking every man, woman, and child on the face of this planet. That is not a feature, no matter how much twisted double-speak you employ to justify their actions.
- mattkrea 11y agoI understand this is far from the point of this piece but interesting bit anyway I think.. I don't agree with some of what she says (I've gone through this account recovery process without issue since it's been in place for quite a while--I deleted my account 2 or 3 years ago). Twitter I expect to be a place where I am following strangers. Facebook on the other hand.. I am very much surprised to see that she could not identify people that she has 'friended' (the 'all black people look alike' Facebook bug aside). Why click 'friend' if you don't actually know the person? Again, I understand that is not the whole point of the article but it is worth mentioning that Facebook has been pulling this stuff for years and for her to get ticked off about this stuff now seems a bit ridiculous.
- PhantomGremlin 11y agoWhy click 'friend' if you don't actually know the person? Perhaps someone is a relative in another country? Someone who you've never seen in person, or maybe you met for a few minutes, 30 years ago. That's the situation with me. I created a Facebook account years ago but never used it. I recently logged in again to contact a particular individual. I had 13 friend requests pending. Which I accepted, even though I didn't "know" the people. Those people were my cousins in another country, and their spouses, and their children, etc. Other members of my extended family interact with them, even though I don't. So should I refuse their friend requests? No. Facebook is for more than friends that you can identify. It's a way to keep in (loose?) contact with distant relatives. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons why people "friend" people they don't "actually know". The real world isn't as simple as you suggest.
- icewater0 11y agoWhen the crying person gets this all resolved, perhaps the crying person will want to consider alternatives to Facebook, such as diaspora*.
- jeremysmyth 11y agoDespite all the best will in the world on the behalf of the developers and users of Diaspora and other platforms designed to replace Facebook, there is no alternative to Facebook until everyone moves there.
- dredmorbius 11y ago"The alternative" is almost certain not to be an alternative Web-based service, but a set of protocols allowing for interactions between independent and independently hosted systems. Diaspora was a valient effort, but sadly, appears quite doomed (I was an early fan and user).
- alexschleber 11y agoFrom everything I've seen/read during the security research phase for my project, trusting in the computational/security integrity of endless P2P nodes is not a road I want to go down. There really is nothing _a priori_ wrong with the centralized system, PROVIDED said system/operator makes strong Privacy / Data Sovereignity guarantees from the word go.
- dredmorbius 11y agoFair point. It's not necesarily the case that you'd see extensively P2P nodes. But again, a distributed protocol based system would allow for local supernodes, competently administered, to exist. There's also the issue that client nodes, under any model, also require security updates and practices. The universal P2P model really isn't far from that, and certain auto-updating models seem arguably preferable to present offerings.