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I'm in the same position with Instagram. Been sending them selfies with codes forever now with completely no response. My account had a large following and I ca

I'm in the same position with Instagram. Been sending them selfies with codes forever now with completely no response. My account had a large following and I can't even seem to start a new one with the same username. Process of account retrieval is like talking to plants - you kinda know they're there but they're actually not. It makes sense though - they have colonised enough internet by now not to care about a couple mere users. If you loose access to your account you're likely not to get it back. On the bright side though, I don't scroll that much anymore. Maybe they lost a couple $ on advertising by loosing a user but I have regained a small portion of my time I spent there. The only real drawback is that I kept in touch with some people via Instagram only. A situation like this makes you realise that an account in any of the FB owned companies can be taken away at any moment and you shouldn't get attached to it too much nor make it a single point of failure in your business / creative strategy. I'd advice to: - Keep a copy of your data (contacts, content posted etc.) and try to diversify as much as possible. - When using Facebook auth on 3rd party websites, make sure to have another method of authentication available to avoid getting locked out. - Try to get phone numbers of important contacts so in the worst case you can contact them via iMessage / Signal / Telegram. - If you have a large following, try to stream some of the traffic to other platforms too. If loosing one account means loosing your entire audience you're risking a lot. In short - have a backup.

zht 5y ago
also I'm sure many at HN know this but the same applies to the Google accounts
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  Yep got locked out of Google for no reason and it was impossible to get in touch with a human. Extremely rage-inducing. There needs to be far better consumer protection on a government level with big tech (mostly Google and Twitter/FB, not so much Amazon or Netflix or Apple). Some of this is just unacceptable. I was reading one case of a person who had their name/image associated with a convicted rapist on Google and they couldn't get hold of a human to have it fixed. This kind of thing just shouldn't be allowed and there needs to be large fines going out. The onus should not be on a small time individual to fork out tens of thousands of dollars on a lawsuit.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    > I was reading one case of a person who had their name/image associated with a convicted rapist on Google and they couldn't get hold of a human to have it fixed. Suing Google apparently does the trick in my country. Google fails to respond? Police shows up at their local office, arrests some executives and makes them 100% available for comment. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/business/global/top-google-executive-in-brazil-faces-arrest-over-video.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/business/global/top-googl... I wonder why the US doesn't do this. Tarnishing an innocent person's reputation by associating them with rape they didn't commit is obviously criminal. They MUST fix it. Doesn't matter how much it costs them either. They also get plenty of lawsuits over images in the search results. Lawsuits over celebrity nude photos have made the news before. They were removed. A local Facebook executive was also detained after the company failed to disclose the contents of encrypted WhatsApp messages to drug trafficking investigators. To me this was major proof that WhatsApp wasn't lying about its end-to-end encryption. > The onus should not be on a small time individual to fork out tens of thousands of dollars on a lawsuit. Agree. Government should always provide free lawyers really. Not just for murder cases. Otherwise, only the rich will ever go to court and seek justice.
  - curiousgal 5y ago
    > consumer protection Last I checked Facebook/Instagram/Gmail were free. If this had happened to someone with a paying Google Workspace account I'd understand but I hardly doubt willingly signing up to a free service grants you any extensive rights.
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      It's not really free when I'm paying via advertising revenue. It's just indirect payment. I don't see a fundamental difference between paying $20/year and contributing $20/year in ad revenue. Anyway the laws I was proposing wasn't so much for free account closure, it was more for things like false search results, impersonation, account hijacking. These amount to defamation and psychological abuse and these companies are allowing it to happen without providing any human customer service fix.
- pueblito 5y ago
  Am I being foolish using ‘Sign In with Apple’ on sites?
  - exolymph 5y ago
    Yes. Apple may be more trustworthy than Google, but you're still needlessly giving them opportunity to screw you (most likely by accident or through random error). Use a password manager and set up actual accounts.
  - thephyber 5y ago
    I don’t think any of us know how much risk we have due to automated rules created by these high scale tech companies with very small customer service departments.
  - crooked-v 5y ago
    Maybe, though by comparison to Google one of Apple's pretty well-known selling points is having actual support by real people available at all times.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    The Fappening allegedly occurred in part because of lack of rate limiting of Find My iPhone API auth. Take that as a grain of salt.
    - WorldMaker 5y ago
      It's also a reason to assume that they've corrected that by now, if you want possible silver lining.
throwawayboise 5y ago
I would say a better plan is to use maybe use social media as a convenience but don't become so invested that you can't just walk away. You should consider the accounts to be disposable, put in the minimum amount of personal info and don't use them as your authentication for anything else.

zht 5y ago

also I'm sure many at HN know this but the same applies to the Google accounts

fighterpilot 5y ago
Yep got locked out of Google for no reason and it was impossible to get in touch with a human. Extremely rage-inducing. There needs to be far better consumer protection on a government level with big tech (mostly Google and Twitter/FB, not so much Amazon or Netflix or Apple). Some of this is just unacceptable. I was reading one case of a person who had their name/image associated with a convicted rapist on Google and they couldn't get hold of a human to have it fixed. This kind of thing just shouldn't be allowed and there needs to be large fines going out. The onus should not be on a small time individual to fork out tens of thousands of dollars on a lawsuit.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  > I was reading one case of a person who had their name/image associated with a convicted rapist on Google and they couldn't get hold of a human to have it fixed. Suing Google apparently does the trick in my country. Google fails to respond? Police shows up at their local office, arrests some executives and makes them 100% available for comment. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/business/global/top-google-executive-in-brazil-faces-arrest-over-video.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/business/global/top-googl... I wonder why the US doesn't do this. Tarnishing an innocent person's reputation by associating them with rape they didn't commit is obviously criminal. They MUST fix it. Doesn't matter how much it costs them either. They also get plenty of lawsuits over images in the search results. Lawsuits over celebrity nude photos have made the news before. They were removed. A local Facebook executive was also detained after the company failed to disclose the contents of encrypted WhatsApp messages to drug trafficking investigators. To me this was major proof that WhatsApp wasn't lying about its end-to-end encryption. > The onus should not be on a small time individual to fork out tens of thousands of dollars on a lawsuit. Agree. Government should always provide free lawyers really. Not just for murder cases. Otherwise, only the rich will ever go to court and seek justice.
- curiousgal 5y ago
  > consumer protection Last I checked Facebook/Instagram/Gmail were free. If this had happened to someone with a paying Google Workspace account I'd understand but I hardly doubt willingly signing up to a free service grants you any extensive rights.
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    It's not really free when I'm paying via advertising revenue. It's just indirect payment. I don't see a fundamental difference between paying $20/year and contributing $20/year in ad revenue. Anyway the laws I was proposing wasn't so much for free account closure, it was more for things like false search results, impersonation, account hijacking. These amount to defamation and psychological abuse and these companies are allowing it to happen without providing any human customer service fix.
pueblito 5y ago
Am I being foolish using ‘Sign In with Apple’ on sites?
- exolymph 5y ago
  Yes. Apple may be more trustworthy than Google, but you're still needlessly giving them opportunity to screw you (most likely by accident or through random error). Use a password manager and set up actual accounts.
- thephyber 5y ago
  I don’t think any of us know how much risk we have due to automated rules created by these high scale tech companies with very small customer service departments.
- crooked-v 5y ago
  Maybe, though by comparison to Google one of Apple's pretty well-known selling points is having actual support by real people available at all times.
- atatatat 5y ago
  The Fappening allegedly occurred in part because of lack of rate limiting of Find My iPhone API auth. Take that as a grain of salt.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    It's also a reason to assume that they've corrected that by now, if you want possible silver lining.

throwawayboise 5y ago

I would say a better plan is to use maybe use social media as a convenience but don't become so invested that you can't just walk away. You should consider the accounts to be disposable, put in the minimum amount of personal info and don't use them as your authentication for anything else.