5 ms·

Anecdote time! I have a family member who runs a non-profit organization. They had contracted a social media agency, and one of the things that agency did was

by ketzo 5y ago

Anecdote time! I have a family member who runs a non-profit organization. They had contracted a social media agency, and one of the things that agency did was make a Facebook page for them. After the page had gotten some traction, and the contract with the agency was ending, their employee removed himself as an admin on the page in order to “hand over the keys.” Except he hadn’t made anyone else an admin yet. So the page had no administrator, and because it had strict settings, it meant that literally no one could get into the account. This page was not big, but it was not small; we’re talking ~50,000 impressions/post. Over four months, my family member couldn’t get access back to this account. She sent in her ID, some tax documents, a picture of the literal business registration with her name on it (that shared the name of the page). The old administrator confirmed, to Facebook over email, that she was intended to be the new administrator. Nothing. Facebook left her hanging. I reached out to a friend of mine who was a dev at Facebook. Issue resolved in 48 hours. Over a weekend.

yumaikas 5y ago
At least facebook employs enough devs that, hopefully, the Bacon number to a Facebook dev is 2-3.
- cialowicz 5y ago
  For this crowd, maybe. What about the majority of the world? They’re SOL, which seems unacceptable.
  - charcircuit 5y ago
    The rest of the world can just email them. It's not like facebook employees are cut off from the rest of the world.
    - jeromegv 5y ago
      Email whom? OP just talked about how emailing support did nothing. What are you supposed to do if you don’t know anyone at Facebook?
      - najqh 5y ago
        Go through linkedin and email everybody ;)
        passerby1 5y ago
        Sounds like an idea for startup ;-) Serioualy, there's market for this, and people are gonna pay money for the service.
        rvnx 5y ago
        It exists, it's called Bookface ;) You pay 7% of equity to YC and you have access to engineers at FAANG.
      - charcircuit 5y ago
        Do your own networking / ask your own social network. Find an employee and then send an email. Find a discord server where one is and DM them. It's not impossible to talk to an a facebook employee as a random person. In the age of the internet we are all deeply connected.
    - chris_wot 5y ago
      Yeah, nice try. My wife decided that she didn't want to share her age. Not being computer literate, she changed her age to zero. Yes, dumb move. She's never been able to get back on again. Frankly, she did herself a favor. Facebook is toxic.
  - someotherperson 5y ago
    I'm part of "this crowd." My Instagram was disabled without warning. Instagram barely actions their appeals process and I don't know anybody that works at Facebook. Neither do any of my friends. I'm also SOL.
jfoutz 5y ago
The thing that's great about this model of support is it's auditability. When the normal channels don't work, and you just sorta know a guy get problems fixed gives me a lot of comfort. The main thing is, there's no way for someone to social engineer the standard system. And there's really no way an employee could be bribed, because they wouldn't be friends with the kinds of people who offer bribes. Security through an anonymous web of trust. Good stuff!
tomc1985 5y ago
Is there anything we can do to force the FAANGS of this world to maintain a proper amount of customer support staff? I am so tired of hearing about these stories. We need to start showing up with torches and pitchforks. I swear, this short-sighted profit-first skeleton-crew styule of management ruins everything. Like a reverse Midas touch
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  "Is there anything we can do to force the FAANGS of this world to maintain a proper amount of customer support staff? " It's called regulation and laws. A lot of other industries have to follow a lot of rules. Tech doesn't like it because it would cost them profits.
  - forgotmypw17 5y ago
    Host your own platform where you're the the support staff. It's easier than it may seem with all the software available today.
    - KronisLV 5y ago
      But doesn't the network effect (e.g. the fact that 95% of the people out there won't have heard of said platform and won't have much interest in using it due to their friends not being there) kind of ruin the efficacy of doing that? I kind of see that now with Signal/Telegram, most of my friends are still on WhatsApp, so using either of those as an alternative to it isn't a viable choice, since i'd have very few people to chat with. In contrast, WhatsApp is an already established solution, so i wouldn't have to ask them to install a new app either (which i tried, about 10% even cared about Meta owning it). In regards to having any sort of a social media account for a company, that would be a non-starter in most cases - since you'd limit your outreach possibilities severely by using niche networks. That said, it can work for other sorts of software, like file sharing software (Nextcloud over Google Drive or Dropbox or whatever), and federated networks could be worthy of further consideration as well.
      - 5y ago
PostThisTooFast 5y ago
Yeah, Facebook = assholes. A filmmaker friend of mine had a properly categorized page for a film he was making, and when he reached 10,000 followers... Facebook deleted it with no excuse. On the day his brother was killed in a construction accident, coincidentally. I just happened to know that an ex-coworker now worked at Facebook. I explained the situation and didn't refrain from insinuating that this wasn't going to be good PR if the page wasn't restored. It was. But no way would it have been otherwise. Companies that hide from their customers should be mercilessly scorned and shunned. But people just take being treated like shit, so we all get treated like shit.
inglor_cz 5y ago
This is like the old stories from royal courts, where you had to have a friend in order to win some attention. Facebook et al. are really replaying feudalism in some sense.
michelb 5y ago
Getting past the absolute useless Facebook Concierge Support is impossible. And they cannot help with anything that's not a copy-paste from the faq. It's infuriating. A client's domain had gotten a restriction so they could not run ads with a link to their site (which they had been doing for years), but on inspection from the FB team, and the escalated team, it wasn't restricted at all, but nothing they could do/wanted to fix. All these automated systems coupled with a total unwillingness to help, it just sucks. Google is even worse, as you often can't even send a mail somewhere.

by ketzo 5y ago

yumaikas 5y ago

At least facebook employs enough devs that, hopefully, the Bacon number to a Facebook dev is 2-3.

cialowicz 5y ago
For this crowd, maybe. What about the majority of the world? They’re SOL, which seems unacceptable.
- charcircuit 5y ago
  The rest of the world can just email them. It's not like facebook employees are cut off from the rest of the world.
  - jeromegv 5y ago
    Email whom? OP just talked about how emailing support did nothing. What are you supposed to do if you don’t know anyone at Facebook?
    - najqh 5y ago
      Go through linkedin and email everybody ;)
      - passerby1 5y ago
        Sounds like an idea for startup ;-) Serioualy, there's market for this, and people are gonna pay money for the service.
        rvnx 5y ago
        It exists, it's called Bookface ;) You pay 7% of equity to YC and you have access to engineers at FAANG.
    - charcircuit 5y ago
      Do your own networking / ask your own social network. Find an employee and then send an email. Find a discord server where one is and DM them. It's not impossible to talk to an a facebook employee as a random person. In the age of the internet we are all deeply connected.
  - chris_wot 5y ago
    Yeah, nice try. My wife decided that she didn't want to share her age. Not being computer literate, she changed her age to zero. Yes, dumb move. She's never been able to get back on again. Frankly, she did herself a favor. Facebook is toxic.
- someotherperson 5y ago
  I'm part of "this crowd." My Instagram was disabled without warning. Instagram barely actions their appeals process and I don't know anybody that works at Facebook. Neither do any of my friends. I'm also SOL.

jfoutz 5y ago

The thing that's great about this model of support is it's auditability. When the normal channels don't work, and you just sorta know a guy get problems fixed gives me a lot of comfort. The main thing is, there's no way for someone to social engineer the standard system. And there's really no way an employee could be bribed, because they wouldn't be friends with the kinds of people who offer bribes. Security through an anonymous web of trust. Good stuff!

tomc1985 5y ago

Is there anything we can do to force the FAANGS of this world to maintain a proper amount of customer support staff? I am so tired of hearing about these stories. We need to start showing up with torches and pitchforks. I swear, this short-sighted profit-first skeleton-crew styule of management ruins everything. Like a reverse Midas touch

spaetzleesser 5y ago
"Is there anything we can do to force the FAANGS of this world to maintain a proper amount of customer support staff? " It's called regulation and laws. A lot of other industries have to follow a lot of rules. Tech doesn't like it because it would cost them profits.
- forgotmypw17 5y ago
  Host your own platform where you're the the support staff. It's easier than it may seem with all the software available today.
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    But doesn't the network effect (e.g. the fact that 95% of the people out there won't have heard of said platform and won't have much interest in using it due to their friends not being there) kind of ruin the efficacy of doing that? I kind of see that now with Signal/Telegram, most of my friends are still on WhatsApp, so using either of those as an alternative to it isn't a viable choice, since i'd have very few people to chat with. In contrast, WhatsApp is an already established solution, so i wouldn't have to ask them to install a new app either (which i tried, about 10% even cared about Meta owning it). In regards to having any sort of a social media account for a company, that would be a non-starter in most cases - since you'd limit your outreach possibilities severely by using niche networks. That said, it can work for other sorts of software, like file sharing software (Nextcloud over Google Drive or Dropbox or whatever), and federated networks could be worthy of further consideration as well.
    - 5y ago

PostThisTooFast 5y ago

Yeah, Facebook = assholes. A filmmaker friend of mine had a properly categorized page for a film he was making, and when he reached 10,000 followers... Facebook deleted it with no excuse. On the day his brother was killed in a construction accident, coincidentally. I just happened to know that an ex-coworker now worked at Facebook. I explained the situation and didn't refrain from insinuating that this wasn't going to be good PR if the page wasn't restored. It was. But no way would it have been otherwise. Companies that hide from their customers should be mercilessly scorned and shunned. But people just take being treated like shit, so we all get treated like shit.

inglor_cz 5y ago

This is like the old stories from royal courts, where you had to have a friend in order to win some attention. Facebook et al. are really replaying feudalism in some sense.

michelb 5y ago

Getting past the absolute useless Facebook Concierge Support is impossible. And they cannot help with anything that's not a copy-paste from the faq. It's infuriating. A client's domain had gotten a restriction so they could not run ads with a link to their site (which they had been doing for years), but on inspection from the FB team, and the escalated team, it wasn't restricted at all, but nothing they could do/wanted to fix. All these automated systems coupled with a total unwillingness to help, it just sucks. Google is even worse, as you often can't even send a mail somewhere.