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From your link: To recover an old account: - Go to the profile of the account you'd like to recover. Sad part is that there is no link to recover, even if

From your link: To recover an old account: - Go to the profile of the account you'd like to recover. Sad part is that there is no link to recover, even if I knew my Facebookuser ID which most people don’t, my mapped URL name didnt help either. Most innocent victims of VoIP phone numbers (like me) are basically S.O.O.L.

dredmorbius 5y ago
OK, that's specific and actionable: process and workflow which simply don't work. I've encountered this myself, with other firms (as I don't use Facebook). Your earlier gripes were pretty broad and vague. In particular, they didn't show much consideration for how an entity the size of FB (or even considerably smaller) might deal with the fact that distinguishing justified vs. unjustified account lockouts might be problematic. A few months back, gwd posted this: In superhero comic books and movies, the real superpower is certainty. The good guys always know who the bad guys are; it's just a matter of defeating them. In the real world, we have plenty of power to defeat the bad guys; it's just not always clear who the bad guys are. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26619006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26619006 It's really easy to adjudicate locked-out accounts if you know for certain who's naughty and who's nice. It's a lot harder when you can't determine that easily, and many of the naughty profiles act like the nice ones. Play with different mixes of good-faith and bad-faith actors, and the problem gets even more complicated. See the discussions of airport security testing, where the target being sought is 1 in millions or more, and the inconveniences of false positives (detained innocent passengers) and the consequences of a false negative (a hijacking or terrorist attack) are severe. That's what account-recovery teams are dealing with. (It's also a large part of much other present interactions, including commerce, credit, and a whole bunch else.) It's easy to dismiss behaviour as ridiculous with a shallow understanding. And despite my absolute lack of sympathy for Facebook, their scope and scale of the problem they're dealing with is impressive, and worth thinking through.
- egberts1 5y ago
  Thank you for identifying and hoepfully getting those corner-cases. I look forward to seeing that recovery steps on Facebook … somehow.
- egberts1 5y ago
  later on, i just bumped into a much related Apple story: https://merecivilian.com/apple-broke-up-with-me/ https://merecivilian.com/apple-broke-up-with-me/ “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” - Willaim Blackston
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    I also saw that, and yes, it's a real problem. I've had several run-ins with Google myself. One key reason I've de-Googled myself to the maximum extent possible.

dredmorbius 5y ago

OK, that's specific and actionable: process and workflow which simply don't work. I've encountered this myself, with other firms (as I don't use Facebook). Your earlier gripes were pretty broad and vague. In particular, they didn't show much consideration for how an entity the size of FB (or even considerably smaller) might deal with the fact that distinguishing justified vs. unjustified account lockouts might be problematic. A few months back, gwd posted this: In superhero comic books and movies, the real superpower is certainty. The good guys always know who the bad guys are; it's just a matter of defeating them. In the real world, we have plenty of power to defeat the bad guys; it's just not always clear who the bad guys are. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26619006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26619006 It's really easy to adjudicate locked-out accounts if you know for certain who's naughty and who's nice. It's a lot harder when you can't determine that easily, and many of the naughty profiles act like the nice ones. Play with different mixes of good-faith and bad-faith actors, and the problem gets even more complicated. See the discussions of airport security testing, where the target being sought is 1 in millions or more, and the inconveniences of false positives (detained innocent passengers) and the consequences of a false negative (a hijacking or terrorist attack) are severe. That's what account-recovery teams are dealing with. (It's also a large part of much other present interactions, including commerce, credit, and a whole bunch else.) It's easy to dismiss behaviour as ridiculous with a shallow understanding. And despite my absolute lack of sympathy for Facebook, their scope and scale of the problem they're dealing with is impressive, and worth thinking through.

egberts1 5y ago
Thank you for identifying and hoepfully getting those corner-cases. I look forward to seeing that recovery steps on Facebook … somehow.
egberts1 5y ago
later on, i just bumped into a much related Apple story: https://merecivilian.com/apple-broke-up-with-me/ https://merecivilian.com/apple-broke-up-with-me/ “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” - Willaim Blackston
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  I also saw that, and yes, it's a real problem. I've had several run-ins with Google myself. One key reason I've de-Googled myself to the maximum extent possible.