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Each Facebook user is monitored by thousands of companies

294 points by mfiguiere 3y ago

denvaar 3y ago
Couple days ago I logged into Facebook for the first time in about 2-3 years because I wanted to download a video that I had saved there. What a hot mess. I needed to reset my password, but the form was seemingly unresponsive. Then suddenly a message appeared in a dialog popup letting me know that I had been temporarily locked out. I eventually managed to log in. Inside the app, I had a handful of messages from various friends who were obviously hacked, asking me to click a some sketchy link. Several posts on my feed had comments from users who seem like bots. I found the thumbnail of the video that I was looking for, clicked it, and got a plain-text page that read: "Gone." So, I guess the video doesn't exist anymore. It felt like some sort of dystopia. I couldn't stop thinking to myself about how many smart people work there, and how much money the company has, yet still it was one of the worst online experiences that I've had.
- mckn1ght 3y ago
  Wait until you try Marketplace. For something with so much monetization potential, it still looks and feels like it was slapped together by an intern. Using it is an exercise in frustration.
  - shiroiuma 3y ago
    Most of the Facebook site has felt like something "slapped together by an intern" for a long time for me. But yeah, FBM really went above and beyond in that regard the last time I tried using it. It's too bad, because it does have a lot of potential as you said; Craigslist has been mostly ruined by scammers and FB has the advantage that everyone is basically a verified user and not some random person in Nigeria who wants to send you a cashier's check for more than your asking price. The only thing from FB I've really liked was the Messenger Lite app, and they've destroyed that now. The regular Messenger app still works ok though, but it's very bloated.
    - shever73 3y ago
      > FB has the advantage that everyone is basically a verified user When my wife sold a standing desk recently on FBM, approximately 60% of the respondents were scammers. They offered above the asking price, but wanted us to pay for a courier, for which they would repay us with cash in an envelope. The whole thing ended up so annoying and stressful, we said we'd never sell anything on Facebook again.
      - shiroiuma 3y ago
        Wow, apparently FBM has gone the way of Craigslist since I last tried it (back in early 2022).
  - dpkirchner 3y ago
    And Events -- they haven't quite nailed sorting events in chronological order. Maybe this is something leetcode should cover.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  > I couldn't stop thinking to myself about how many smart people work there, and how much money the company has, yet still it was one of the worst online experiences that I've had. Intellect by itself does not cause good. When will HN understand that? (Never.)
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    > Intellect by itself does not cause good. We aren’t interested in ‘good’, it’s more about the burn rate and the monetisation strategy. Said mostly sarcastically.
- nebula8804 3y ago
  >I couldn't stop thinking to myself about how many smart people work there, and how much money the company has, yet still it was one of the worst online experiences that I've had. Really feels like the product has been in 'maintenance mode' for a while. Probably the focus in the company has shifted to growing platforms and not declining ones. Once the grandparents are on the platform it dies. Was it a video you uploaded? Have you considered doing a data request to see if your video is available that way?
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    > Once the grandparents are on the platform it dies. Really? I thought the point of Facebook was to be in touch with friends and relatives. I would rather say that "grandparents" were slow to adapt Facebook amd likewise slow to leave. The decline of Facebook seems to me to be related to the feed pushing crap people don't care about and competition from Instagram, TikTok amd whatever.
    - nebula8804 3y ago
      Young people don't wanna be on the platform if their parents and grandparents are on it. Once those people got on Facebook the young moved to Instagram -> Snapchat -> Tiktok. Instagram is interesting because it seems to have staying power in the face of Tiktok. Mainly just thirst traps and content stolen and ripped off of tiktok so not sure how long term it really is. >The decline of Facebook seems to me to be related to the feed pushing crap people don't care about and competition from Instagram, TikTok amd whatever. There is plenty of that on the other platforms you mentioned.
      - rightbyte 3y ago
        > There is plenty of that on the other platforms you mentioned. Old Facebook was "social" in a sense that Instagram and TikTok is not even close to. Now they all have some sort of "recommendation" feed.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
jeff_vader 3y ago
Somewhat related.. I recently discovered Facebook "Ad Topics". In my case through Instagram preferences. List of topics is hilariously long and 2/3rds have nothing to do with me. But I guess it does help the sales pitches.. "Are you selling hunting bows? Well if you advertise on Facebook we have audiences of tens of millions interested in 'Bow Hunting'".
Erratic6576 3y ago
I'm using mullvad’s extended DoH. I can't even visit twitter anymore. I hope it's putting a dent on suck's hidden island’s budget
paride5745 3y ago
Every time I open FB, I see only sponsored and suggested content, and never any content from friends, pages or groups I'm in. Since a few years I moved my social media presence on Mastodon and Instagram (too many non-tech people stuck in Meta-lands). Honestly, I am kinda happy to see many of the pages I follow on FB moving to Threads, yes it is still Meta, but with the incoming ActivityPub integration it feels better. I wonder how long until Meta will eventually integrate FB with Threads, so that you can easily crosspost between the two, as FB seems to be in maintenance mode since a while and I think Meta will eventually shift focus on Threads more (so expect Threads groups, Threads marketplace, Threads messenger, ...). Hopefully with ActivityPub I can follow my racing teams pages from my own Mastodon-server and delete my Meta account (finally)...
- wil421 3y ago
  Agreed. I opened the Facebook website on my phone last weekend to search for a pic on a kayak fishing group. It was impossible to navigate my feed, it was all sponsored content, ads, and Facebook’s ads for its own content.
wil421 3y ago
> The Markup has written extensively about the Meta Pixel and how it has been used to surveil people as they dial suicide hotlines, buy their groceries, take the SAT, file their taxes, and book appointments with their doctors. Website owners can configure the pixel to track user website interactions such as searches or filling out a form, sending each action to Meta, even if the user doesn’t have an account on Facebook. Although research tools like The Markup’s Pixel Hunt can detect the Meta pixel or SDK tracking, there is no way for a consumer to monitor the traffic between a company’s server and Meta’s. Another reason to never touch an Ad company’s phone.
dspillett 3y ago
“… and we wish we had that sort of pull instead of the small number of hundreds of stalking partners we get some of our income from” -- that site¹, no doubt. Though credit to Consumer Reports for their refreshingly honest stalking opt-in banner: the two choices are “accept all” and “do not sell my personal information”, so there is no doubt what “accept all” results in. -- [1] before the link was updated to go direct to consumerreports.org
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
yodon 3y ago
With an average of over 2000 companies tracking each person in the study, and with a great many of those companies being retailers, there is zero chance the identities of the individuals involved are not either already de-anonymized or trivially de-anonymized at some point in the future through a leak of the data collected by one of those retailers.
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  I have little doubt some of these companies do de-anonymization themselves (or through a third party). I use a PO Box for all my mail, yet I somehow get ads delivered to me based on my interests and recent purchases in my name to my residential address. I've literally never purchased anything using my residential address, I have zero mail sent here intentionally.
  - aspenmayer 3y ago
    Do you receive mail to both addresses under the same or any name? Is it required to have the name field populated to receive mail to your physical or P.O. Box?
    - micromacrofoot 3y ago
      Oh another point this reminded me of: I go by Alex (to the extreme that it's on my bank accounts and credit cards) but all the ads have my full name Alexis. When I google my full name in quotes, all of the results are data brokers. Full name isn't required, I've received mail to my PO box with my first name only, last name only, initials, etc... My residential address is used so infrequently that my cousin remembers my PO Box number but had to recently ask for my street number to visit.
bentt 3y ago
I have one browser (Chrome) where I have logged into Facebook/Insta/Oculus/Meta and one where I have never logged into them (Brave with Shields UP). I'd like to think that gives me some protection from tracking in the clean browser. Am I naïve?
- jvanderbot 3y ago
  Firefox offers tab sandbox/isolation so you don't need to do this. It's becoming standard elsewhere. You'll want to start isolating everything eventually. Gmail, shopping sites, etc.
  - smolder 3y ago
    Last I checked, Firefox no longer offers the Facebook container feature on fresh install. It was a hidden feature I had to go into about:config to set up... :(
    - dmarti 3y ago
      You can have the most tricked-out, up-to-date protections on your client, or in a proxy between your client and a web site...and if that site is using server-to-server tracking they can get around it. https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2041148702652965?id=818859032317965 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2041148702652965?id=8...
- siraben 3y ago
  Probably protects you against a decent amount of tracking, but there are numerous markers still that don’t even rely on cookies, and when used together can be correlated back to your profile. For instance, IP address, user agent OS string, timezone, hardware capabilities via the browser, etc.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  I regularly get my ads and social algorithms injected with topics that I have no relation to, except other people in my household are deeply into them. Like pet reptiles related products while my kid was doing prior research before pitching us on raising one. The bigger companies definitely cross reference access from different users/devices/browsers.
JohnFen 3y ago
This kind of thing is one of the reasons why I don't use Facebook. Not to single Facebook out, though -- I don't use any social media, and am extremely hesitant to heavily use any web site or internet service at all because of how ubiquitous all the spying is.
wealthyking 3y ago
Lately a lot has been happening in my life and all I can say is Thank God I meet C L E A N S P Y T E C H .this expert has been really good to me . when I meet him and his recovery team ,all I worried about in the past came back magically, they fix back my BTC refund to my cash app weekly. Every scammer that lied to me are now in big trouble .They help to verify identity of anyone I meet online & any related tech issue ,I ring C L E A N S P Y T E C H on 1<541 901 3390 .They charge no dollar at all .what can be as good as that.
73556 3y ago
https://archive.is/rLgDV https://archive.is/rLgDV
Havoc 3y ago
Has anyone tried doing a deep dive on their own data from FB? Is it fairly accessible to crunch this?
- legitster 3y ago
  The actual Consumer Reports piece has exactly the information on how to do this: https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/each-facebook-user-is-monitored-by-thousands-of-companies-a5824207467/ https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/each-fac... > Facebook users can browse through the list of companies that have sent their data to Facebook by going to the Accounts Center and clicking on “Your information and permissions.”
  - stinos 3y ago
    Following the instructions I get "You have no available activity to show at this time.". Even when downloading my data I get nothing under sections like "Connected apps and websites". So it looks like opting out of everything possible and running FB in a dedicated FF container only seems to do something.
    - Havoc 3y ago
      I’d be surprised if the container is that effective. They get data from other source too
  - Havoc 3y ago
    Thanks!
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  I don't believe anyone has ever received a copy of their "shadow profile". Nor do I think folks can see all of the data associated with their FB account (or Google account, even). I think it would really creep folks out if they could.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ericra 3y ago
This is depressing, but of even more concern is the fact that this data (and other, perhaps more "important" data) is available to essentially anyone with enough money to pay for it. This obviously includes most governments. I'm fairly sure the data brokers are not too picky about how they get paid. There has to be regulation at the federal level to stop such practices. Nothing else will do.
- adrr 3y ago
  Story is about Meta who doesn't sell your data.
  - kyboren 3y ago
    Actually, they do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_bidding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_bidding Modern programmatic advertising enables each user to be pimped out to whichever manipulator is willing to pay the most. In just a few dozen milliseconds, Facebook will send out your personal data to participants in the advertising system ('bidstream data'), select a winner, and serve their ad to you. Note: Your data goes out to bidders, and someone pays Facebook for it. That sure sounds like selling your data. This is not some farcical, imaginary backdoor to collect data and spy on people. It's happening right now. "Patternz", an Israeli spy-tech company, run an advertising service as a front to get free access to bidstream data from 87 ad exchanges and SSPs including Google, Yahoo, MoPub, AdColony, and OpenX. They take those bidstream data, de-anonymize them, and permanently record them. They claim to have profiles on billions of users including their location history, home address, interests, information about 'people nearby', 'co-workers' and 'family members'. See also this slide of theirs: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F-5bA6QW8AAyfSK.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F-5bA6QW8AAyfSK.jpg, entitled, "We help national security agencies detect audience patterns and user behavior using digital advertising data mining and analytics".
    - chillacy 3y ago
      Show us a link to a Facebook advertising API which can give me bidstream data which includes a user's demographic info? The links describe "Modern programmatic advertising" including "Patternz" but have not shown that Facebook is an implementor. For the record every time I have advertised on both Google and Facebook, it works in reverse: I give them my ad, audience info, and how much I'm willing to bid, and they run an auction per impression (of which I don't get to participate in knowing the details directly). I get no user data, only the bill. If I did get user data (presumably with user consent) I would start my own direct-marketing mailing or email list and stop paying the ad-tech companies each time (who act as gate-keepers).
legitster 3y ago
Link to the actual Consumer Reports report: https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/each-facebook-user-is-monitored-by-thousands-of-companies-a5824207467/ https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/each-fac... So most of the data provided is probably coming in via the FB tracking pixel. I think the references to FB's "custom audiences" is a red herring - it's a very manual process and very few companies use that feature in any sort of scale. FB hashes the data that gets uploaded and specifically throws out extraneous data that does not help it make matches with its existing data set: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2082575038703844?id=2469097953376494 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2082575038703844?id=2... Love this note at the bottom: "Editor’s Note: Consumer Reports has a business relationship with LiveRamp and another data broker, Acxiom. Consumer Reports shares data with each of these companies in order to help support its mission."
- jklinger410 3y ago
  Consumer Reports themselves have 12 unique data trackers on their site, including the Facebook pixel. And just to be clear about the usage of the term "Monitored" here. They mean that data tracking pixels are sending anonymized data between META and all of these companies. Not a soul at META or any company with that pixel installed are aware of any PII or even, in most cases, cognizant of your specific session on their site.
- goenning 3y ago
  I guess FB tracking pixels will no longer work when third-party cookies are removed from browsers. That seems like a massive hit for them if I understand it correctly (and a big W for us)
  - spcebar 3y ago
    There's a server side implementation FB offers developers to circumvent some privacy restrictions now being enforced by browsers which doesn't have all the features of the clientside version but is their current workaround. It will improve privacy slightly, but some websites are still gathering as much information about you as possible over the course of a session to try and build demographic information and remarket to you.
TacticalCoder 3y ago
Never had Instagram. Never had WhatsApp. Had an old Facebook account opened under a fake name, using a throwaway email (haven't opened it in six months, maybe more). That company is cancer.
- dheerajvs 3y ago
  Same here. In addition, to prevent shadow profiles, I've blocked them on NextDNS, setup NetGuard[0] and Firefox with uBlock Origin on Android. [0]: https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/releases https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/releases
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  I don't have that luxury. If I delete WhatsApp, I will be ostracized. Instagram is easier to live without but some people and services can only be contacted there. Mercifully Facebook is dead. I've made peace with the fact that at least WhatsApp has end-to-end encryption. I hope to god they don't enshittify it.
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  That is a good start but unfortunately my understanding is that they will still have a data profile on you specifically. This is a problem for us all and we need regulation to solve it. And we probably need campaign finance reform to get people in power willing to regulate it.
  - IronWolve 3y ago
    Exactly, if your kid has an account, and she identified her mom, facebook will think her mom is your wife if at the same address. Those connections start to add up, add in they copied linkedin, your phone address books, email accounts, etc.
    - akira2501 3y ago
      To me, the answer is noise. Generate so much false data about yourself that you both overwhelm and devalue this mechanism entirely.
leotravis10 3y ago
Here's the actual piece over at The Markup which is very useful: https://themarkup.org/privacy/2024/01/17/each-facebook-user-is-monitored-by-thousands-of-companies-study-indicates https://themarkup.org/privacy/2024/01/17/each-facebook-user-... Not suprised that their tracking pixel on websites and apps are the primary reason for this. They're not the only ones of course.
tobias2014 3y ago
"Large retailers like The Home Depot, Walmart, or Amazon showed up, too" Call me naive, but I'm surprised to see these sell my data, I'll have to read agreements for accounts on those websites...
- smeej 3y ago
  Really? Selling your data is core to the business model of virtually every merchant that offers the ability to create an account and/or use a membership "rewards" tracking system.
thoraway3127 3y ago
Recently been inundated with “People you may know” which are old flings, people I went on one date with/slept with once, etc… I met them on tinder or CL, and it’s very strange to see that. I can only guess maybe I was still in their phone, but I haven’t had a facebook app on my phone in many years, and I don’t believe they were all even on my contacts list. I did have whatsapp, so I can only guess that’s where it’s coming from - maybe there was a small overlap in 2017 or so. One of them I’m sure I never added to my contacts. Anyway, it’s strange and jarring to see that. It’s been more than 6 years, I’m married - with kids. I don’t want to see them, I don’t want them to see me. This was with everything on good terms, I can only imagine how jarring it would be if things were different.
- 15457345234 3y ago
  People who are in happy relationships/marriages probably disengage from the platforms and focus more on the real world. There is an incentive here to be reprehensible.
wackget 3y ago
There's such a beautiful irony in reading about unfettered data mining on a website (theverge.com) which connects to *37* third-party domains when displaying the article: 1. ak.sail-horizon.com 2. amazon-adsystem.com 3. api.parsely.com 4. c.amazon-adsystem.com 5. cdn.concert.io 6. concert.io 7. coral.coralproject.net 8. coralproject.net 9. csp.withgoogle.com 10. d35xxde4fgg0cx.cloudfront.net 11. duet-cdn.vox-cdn.com 12. google.com 13. googleoptimize.com 14. googletagmanager.com 15. googletagservices.com 16. gstatic.com 17. ingest.sentry.io 18. js.memberful.com 19. memberful.com 20. micro.rubiconproject.com 21. moatads.com 22. narrativ.com 23. o4682.ingest.sentry.io 24. parsely.com 25. polyfill.io 26. rubiconproject.com 27. sail-horizon.com 28. sentry.io 29. static.narrativ.com 30. theverge.coral.coralproject.net 31. vox-cdn.com 32. www.google.com 33. www.googleoptimize.com 34. www.googletagmanager.com 35. www.googletagservices.com 36. www.gstatic.com 37. z.moatads.com P.S. list courtesy of the uMatrix browser extension
- gorhill 3y ago
  I see 156 distinct 3rd parties on my side if I disable the content blocker so as to let the second-, third- and nth-waves of JavaScript execute: https://imgur.com/a/lZbUqnQ https://imgur.com/a/lZbUqnQ
  - wackget 3y ago
    Wow that is truly shameful. P.S. thanks for uBlock Origin and uMatrix
- mtillman 3y ago
  New outlets are constantly trashing “Silicon Valley” for apparently providing them with a non trivial portion of their revenue stream.
- bdcravens 3y ago
  I wonder how many of those companies are YC alum?
- Retric 3y ago
  The amount of redundancy on that list is hurting the point you’re trying to make. In terms of tracking double/quadruple etc counting the same company isn’t meaningful. So, once you start noticing it the list seems significantly shorter than it actually is (2. amazon-adsystem.com vs 4. c.amazon-adsystem.com). Worse, 5 of them are the same domain with www. in front (12. google.com and 32. www.google.com) which most people subconsciously see as the same thing. Therefore, a slightly curated list comes off as more impactful: 1 amazon-adsystem.com 2 concert.io 3 coralproject.net 4 d35xxde4fgg0cx.cloudfront.net 5 google.com 6 memberful.com 7 moatads.com 8 narrativ.com 9 parsely.com 10 polyfill.io 11 rubiconproject.com 12 sail-horizon.com 13 sentry.io 14 vox-cdn.com 15 z.moatads.com PS: I mean Google representing 10 domains on your list does say something, but it’s only tangential to tracking.
andirk 3y ago
I downloaded my FB data and as I predicted, nothing I'm bothered with. It is my common behavior that is ad targeted. Can someone please tell me what data people are so bothered with that Facebook uses to target basic ads? That "Facebook whistleblower" said the company is "profits over people". That people were appalled by that that will always be so funny to me.
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
  Some people such as you have no issues with companies employing mind tricks to manipulate people into buying their goods and services, some people do
  - andirk 3y ago
    Wow that makes a lot of sense. When people complain about social media using their data, it often comes off as if they're addicted and a victim of it, like they're really complaining about their own use of the platforms that they have grown to resent. I, too, would resent FB (for me, Instagram) if it had even the slightest bit of control over me. Pro tip: Like/interact with ads on Instagram that look cool so they'll show up more. I like the watches, cool shoes, cat food ads. I assume I'll buy something eventually once I get targeted with something that's not a cheap Chinese manufactured pile. It's never useful stuff like "Check out this cool shovel".
- barbariangrunge 3y ago
  Care to post your fb download here? Since you don’t mind people knowing about you
  - andirk 3y ago
    My understanding is that 3rd parties get to _target according to this data_, but they do not _get the actual data_. So I can say "I'm going to propose!" a bunch of times and get engagement ring ads (the classic example, bc now the bride-to-be may also start getting engagement ring ads before she's/they's proposed to) but the 3rd parties don't know what I said or who I am, just that there is +1 in the engagement ring bucket. I also don't use much real PII, with fake name, burner email, but real uni and real birthday. Though I had to tell FB I was a straight male so I'd stop getting their hunk ads. Anyways, there are ~550 advertisers listed. Here are the top ones. I threw a zinger in there too. Live Nation Sponsorship x x Ticketmaster x x Drive with Lyft x x Essence x x Airbnb x x Uber x x AEG Presents x x MullenLowe U.S. x x AEG Presents - Media x x Coinbase x x The Joy of Spandex Deritives Incorporated, Inc Live Nation Concerts x x Amtrak x CVS Pharmacy x Iron Store x Microsoft Customer Insights Center x Massage Envy x Huntington National Bank x Evernote x Big Spaceship x Dollar General x Edit: Holy sh!t!!! I personally made an FB ad to say hi to this girl I was dating back when targeting could be super narrow, and [her name] is one of the ads that targeted me lol! Wow and that was only once for a couple days.
yedava 3y ago
Earlier today, this[1] was on the HN front page, a blog post on how Meta processes trillions of serverless functions. All that impressive tech exists for one single reason - massive surveillance at scale. [1] https://read.engineerscodex.com/p/meta-xfaas-serverless-functions-explained https://read.engineerscodex.com/p/meta-xfaas-serverless-func...
- enraged_camel 3y ago
  Surveillance isn't the reason. It's a means to a goal, which is to sell people stuff.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    they can't sell them stuff if they haven't surveilled them to find out what they want. although, even after all of the surveilling, they still fail to deliver relevant ads way more often than they should.
  - morserer 3y ago
    You're right, but "selling people stuff" is a secondary source of profit. Surveillance too. The truth is, users become profitable far before they ever pull out a credit card, and the goal isn't the credit card, it's the user itself. To target an ad for a product, you need an interest-based profile on someone. To build that profile, you need data. To influence public opinion (as has become so popular for politicians and intelligence departments), or if you want to monetize an emotional reaction (like the NRA or PETA) you need a psychological profile, or a way to extrapolate one. Again, data. To prosecute crimes, you need communications and location data (this is what most would call "surveillance"). Law enforcement (state and federal), private investigators, state departments are all customers for this. The market for this evidence (both what can and can't be used in court is harvested; look up "evidence laundering") is an unending stream of income, for the same reason as all three of these, and here's why: If you're Meta, or Google, do you want to be performing this psychological profiling, or scanning every message for "incriminating" keywords, or tracking specific users' locations? Absolutely not. That would put your company at fault. So what do you do? You sell the data itself, unspecified, en masse. The FBI approaches you to implement a service that you can query for real-time location data? Hell no, buddy, that'd threaten the whole company! Go do it on your own servers! Pay for the data and compute it yourself! (Or pay for just enough processing to get what you need without us knowing what you're using it for, which is what op's link is about) And that's exactly what happens: the data itself becomes the product. Then, the goal is to harvest as much data as you possibly can. That's the business model. Product sales are not the aim. The people are what is sold.
nico 3y ago
Just tried creating a fb account to manage some ads It let me create the account, but then to manage the ads they had me create a business account, and a few seconds later, they blocked my fb account Exactly the same thing happened to someone else I’m working with We are trying to appeal, but seems like it might go nowhere Any tips would be appreciated
- nebula8804 3y ago
  I became an obsessive FB marketplace user buying up tons of other peoples old junk until one day I initially offered to purchase a table but discovered that IKEA was selling the same table for 5$ less in new condition. I explained my reasoning to the seller and sent her the link and within minutes I was banned from Marketplace with no recourse. I don't know if she reported me or something. I was really bummed for weeks because FB support does not exist. But after a while I figured out that if you sign up for FB verified you gain access to human based support. I did so and eventually they managed to restore my account with no reason as to why I was banned. Maybe that will help?
- kornhole 3y ago
  I don't have a solution, but I tried to do something similar and asked my friend who is a manager in data and identity management at Facebook how I could create an account for some experimentation. He explained to me that they are very strict on identification nowadays and the only way to get back into a locked out account is to show ID next to your face on camera.

294 points by mfiguiere 3y ago

Couple days ago I logged into Facebook for the first time in about 2-3 years because I wanted to download a video that I had saved there. What a hot mess. I needed to reset my password, but the form was seemingly unresponsive. Then suddenly a message appeared in a dialog popup letting me know that I had been temporarily locked out. I eventually managed to log in. Inside the app, I had a handful of messages from various friends who were obviously hacked, asking me to click a some sketchy link. Several posts on my feed had comments from users who seem like bots. I found the thumbnail of the video that I was looking for, clicked it, and got a plain-text page that read: "Gone." So, I guess the video doesn't exist anymore. It felt like some sort of dystopia. I couldn't stop thinking to myself about how many smart people work there, and how much money the company has, yet still it was one of the worst online experiences that I've had.

mckn1ght 3y ago
Wait until you try Marketplace. For something with so much monetization potential, it still looks and feels like it was slapped together by an intern. Using it is an exercise in frustration.
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  Most of the Facebook site has felt like something "slapped together by an intern" for a long time for me. But yeah, FBM really went above and beyond in that regard the last time I tried using it. It's too bad, because it does have a lot of potential as you said; Craigslist has been mostly ruined by scammers and FB has the advantage that everyone is basically a verified user and not some random person in Nigeria who wants to send you a cashier's check for more than your asking price. The only thing from FB I've really liked was the Messenger Lite app, and they've destroyed that now. The regular Messenger app still works ok though, but it's very bloated.
  - shever73 3y ago
    > FB has the advantage that everyone is basically a verified user When my wife sold a standing desk recently on FBM, approximately 60% of the respondents were scammers. They offered above the asking price, but wanted us to pay for a courier, for which they would repay us with cash in an envelope. The whole thing ended up so annoying and stressful, we said we'd never sell anything on Facebook again.
    - shiroiuma 3y ago
      Wow, apparently FBM has gone the way of Craigslist since I last tried it (back in early 2022).
- dpkirchner 3y ago
  And Events -- they haven't quite nailed sorting events in chronological order. Maybe this is something leetcode should cover.
avgcorrection 3y ago
> I couldn't stop thinking to myself about how many smart people work there, and how much money the company has, yet still it was one of the worst online experiences that I've had. Intellect by itself does not cause good. When will HN understand that? (Never.)
- lostlogin 3y ago
  > Intellect by itself does not cause good. We aren’t interested in ‘good’, it’s more about the burn rate and the monetisation strategy. Said mostly sarcastically.
nebula8804 3y ago
>I couldn't stop thinking to myself about how many smart people work there, and how much money the company has, yet still it was one of the worst online experiences that I've had. Really feels like the product has been in 'maintenance mode' for a while. Probably the focus in the company has shifted to growing platforms and not declining ones. Once the grandparents are on the platform it dies. Was it a video you uploaded? Have you considered doing a data request to see if your video is available that way?
- rightbyte 3y ago
  > Once the grandparents are on the platform it dies. Really? I thought the point of Facebook was to be in touch with friends and relatives. I would rather say that "grandparents" were slow to adapt Facebook amd likewise slow to leave. The decline of Facebook seems to me to be related to the feed pushing crap people don't care about and competition from Instagram, TikTok amd whatever.
  - nebula8804 3y ago
    Young people don't wanna be on the platform if their parents and grandparents are on it. Once those people got on Facebook the young moved to Instagram -> Snapchat -> Tiktok. Instagram is interesting because it seems to have staying power in the face of Tiktok. Mainly just thirst traps and content stolen and ripped off of tiktok so not sure how long term it really is. >The decline of Facebook seems to me to be related to the feed pushing crap people don't care about and competition from Instagram, TikTok amd whatever. There is plenty of that on the other platforms you mentioned.
    - rightbyte 3y ago
      > There is plenty of that on the other platforms you mentioned. Old Facebook was "social" in a sense that Instagram and TikTok is not even close to. Now they all have some sort of "recommendation" feed.
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jeff_vader 3y ago

Somewhat related.. I recently discovered Facebook "Ad Topics". In my case through Instagram preferences. List of topics is hilariously long and 2/3rds have nothing to do with me. But I guess it does help the sales pitches.. "Are you selling hunting bows? Well if you advertise on Facebook we have audiences of tens of millions interested in 'Bow Hunting'".

Erratic6576 3y ago

I'm using mullvad’s extended DoH. I can't even visit twitter anymore. I hope it's putting a dent on suck's hidden island’s budget

paride5745 3y ago

Every time I open FB, I see only sponsored and suggested content, and never any content from friends, pages or groups I'm in. Since a few years I moved my social media presence on Mastodon and Instagram (too many non-tech people stuck in Meta-lands). Honestly, I am kinda happy to see many of the pages I follow on FB moving to Threads, yes it is still Meta, but with the incoming ActivityPub integration it feels better. I wonder how long until Meta will eventually integrate FB with Threads, so that you can easily crosspost between the two, as FB seems to be in maintenance mode since a while and I think Meta will eventually shift focus on Threads more (so expect Threads groups, Threads marketplace, Threads messenger, ...). Hopefully with ActivityPub I can follow my racing teams pages from my own Mastodon-server and delete my Meta account (finally)...

wil421 3y ago
Agreed. I opened the Facebook website on my phone last weekend to search for a pic on a kayak fishing group. It was impossible to navigate my feed, it was all sponsored content, ads, and Facebook’s ads for its own content.

wil421 3y ago

> The Markup has written extensively about the Meta Pixel and how it has been used to surveil people as they dial suicide hotlines, buy their groceries, take the SAT, file their taxes, and book appointments with their doctors. Website owners can configure the pixel to track user website interactions such as searches or filling out a form, sending each action to Meta, even if the user doesn’t have an account on Facebook. Although research tools like The Markup’s Pixel Hunt can detect the Meta pixel or SDK tracking, there is no way for a consumer to monitor the traffic between a company’s server and Meta’s. Another reason to never touch an Ad company’s phone.

dspillett 3y ago

“… and we wish we had that sort of pull instead of the small number of hundreds of stalking partners we get some of our income from” -- that site¹, no doubt. Though credit to Consumer Reports for their refreshingly honest stalking opt-in banner: the two choices are “accept all” and “do not sell my personal information”, so there is no doubt what “accept all” results in. -- [1] before the link was updated to go direct to consumerreports.org

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yodon 3y ago

With an average of over 2000 companies tracking each person in the study, and with a great many of those companies being retailers, there is zero chance the identities of the individuals involved are not either already de-anonymized or trivially de-anonymized at some point in the future through a leak of the data collected by one of those retailers.

micromacrofoot 3y ago
I have little doubt some of these companies do de-anonymization themselves (or through a third party). I use a PO Box for all my mail, yet I somehow get ads delivered to me based on my interests and recent purchases in my name to my residential address. I've literally never purchased anything using my residential address, I have zero mail sent here intentionally.
- aspenmayer 3y ago
  Do you receive mail to both addresses under the same or any name? Is it required to have the name field populated to receive mail to your physical or P.O. Box?
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    Oh another point this reminded me of: I go by Alex (to the extreme that it's on my bank accounts and credit cards) but all the ads have my full name Alexis. When I google my full name in quotes, all of the results are data brokers. Full name isn't required, I've received mail to my PO box with my first name only, last name only, initials, etc... My residential address is used so infrequently that my cousin remembers my PO Box number but had to recently ask for my street number to visit.

bentt 3y ago

I have one browser (Chrome) where I have logged into Facebook/Insta/Oculus/Meta and one where I have never logged into them (Brave with Shields UP). I'd like to think that gives me some protection from tracking in the clean browser. Am I naïve?

jvanderbot 3y ago
Firefox offers tab sandbox/isolation so you don't need to do this. It's becoming standard elsewhere. You'll want to start isolating everything eventually. Gmail, shopping sites, etc.
- smolder 3y ago
  Last I checked, Firefox no longer offers the Facebook container feature on fresh install. It was a hidden feature I had to go into about:config to set up... :(
  - dmarti 3y ago
    You can have the most tricked-out, up-to-date protections on your client, or in a proxy between your client and a web site...and if that site is using server-to-server tracking they can get around it. https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2041148702652965?id=818859032317965 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2041148702652965?id=8...
siraben 3y ago
Probably protects you against a decent amount of tracking, but there are numerous markers still that don’t even rely on cookies, and when used together can be correlated back to your profile. For instance, IP address, user agent OS string, timezone, hardware capabilities via the browser, etc.
makeitdouble 3y ago
I regularly get my ads and social algorithms injected with topics that I have no relation to, except other people in my household are deeply into them. Like pet reptiles related products while my kid was doing prior research before pitching us on raising one. The bigger companies definitely cross reference access from different users/devices/browsers.

JohnFen 3y ago

This kind of thing is one of the reasons why I don't use Facebook. Not to single Facebook out, though -- I don't use any social media, and am extremely hesitant to heavily use any web site or internet service at all because of how ubiquitous all the spying is.

wealthyking 3y ago

Lately a lot has been happening in my life and all I can say is Thank God I meet C L E A N S P Y T E C H .this expert has been really good to me . when I meet him and his recovery team ,all I worried about in the past came back magically, they fix back my BTC refund to my cash app weekly. Every scammer that lied to me are now in big trouble .They help to verify identity of anyone I meet online & any related tech issue ,I ring C L E A N S P Y T E C H on 1<541 901 3390 .They charge no dollar at all .what can be as good as that.

73556 3y ago

https://archive.is/rLgDV https://archive.is/rLgDV

Havoc 3y ago

Has anyone tried doing a deep dive on their own data from FB? Is it fairly accessible to crunch this?

legitster 3y ago
The actual Consumer Reports piece has exactly the information on how to do this: https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/each-facebook-user-is-monitored-by-thousands-of-companies-a5824207467/ https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/each-fac... > Facebook users can browse through the list of companies that have sent their data to Facebook by going to the Accounts Center and clicking on “Your information and permissions.”
- stinos 3y ago
  Following the instructions I get "You have no available activity to show at this time.". Even when downloading my data I get nothing under sections like "Connected apps and websites". So it looks like opting out of everything possible and running FB in a dedicated FF container only seems to do something.
  - Havoc 3y ago
    I’d be surprised if the container is that effective. They get data from other source too
- Havoc 3y ago
  Thanks!
candiddevmike 3y ago
I don't believe anyone has ever received a copy of their "shadow profile". Nor do I think folks can see all of the data associated with their FB account (or Google account, even). I think it would really creep folks out if they could.
deleted 3y ago
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ericra 3y ago

This is depressing, but of even more concern is the fact that this data (and other, perhaps more "important" data) is available to essentially anyone with enough money to pay for it. This obviously includes most governments. I'm fairly sure the data brokers are not too picky about how they get paid. There has to be regulation at the federal level to stop such practices. Nothing else will do.

adrr 3y ago
Story is about Meta who doesn't sell your data.
- kyboren 3y ago
  Actually, they do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_bidding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_bidding Modern programmatic advertising enables each user to be pimped out to whichever manipulator is willing to pay the most. In just a few dozen milliseconds, Facebook will send out your personal data to participants in the advertising system ('bidstream data'), select a winner, and serve their ad to you. Note: Your data goes out to bidders, and someone pays Facebook for it. That sure sounds like selling your data. This is not some farcical, imaginary backdoor to collect data and spy on people. It's happening right now. "Patternz", an Israeli spy-tech company, run an advertising service as a front to get free access to bidstream data from 87 ad exchanges and SSPs including Google, Yahoo, MoPub, AdColony, and OpenX. They take those bidstream data, de-anonymize them, and permanently record them. They claim to have profiles on billions of users including their location history, home address, interests, information about 'people nearby', 'co-workers' and 'family members'. See also this slide of theirs: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F-5bA6QW8AAyfSK.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F-5bA6QW8AAyfSK.jpg, entitled, "We help national security agencies detect audience patterns and user behavior using digital advertising data mining and analytics".
  - chillacy 3y ago
    Show us a link to a Facebook advertising API which can give me bidstream data which includes a user's demographic info? The links describe "Modern programmatic advertising" including "Patternz" but have not shown that Facebook is an implementor. For the record every time I have advertised on both Google and Facebook, it works in reverse: I give them my ad, audience info, and how much I'm willing to bid, and they run an auction per impression (of which I don't get to participate in knowing the details directly). I get no user data, only the bill. If I did get user data (presumably with user consent) I would start my own direct-marketing mailing or email list and stop paying the ad-tech companies each time (who act as gate-keepers).

legitster 3y ago

Link to the actual Consumer Reports report: https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/each-facebook-user-is-monitored-by-thousands-of-companies-a5824207467/ https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/each-fac... So most of the data provided is probably coming in via the FB tracking pixel. I think the references to FB's "custom audiences" is a red herring - it's a very manual process and very few companies use that feature in any sort of scale. FB hashes the data that gets uploaded and specifically throws out extraneous data that does not help it make matches with its existing data set: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2082575038703844?id=2469097953376494 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2082575038703844?id=2... Love this note at the bottom: "Editor’s Note: Consumer Reports has a business relationship with LiveRamp and another data broker, Acxiom. Consumer Reports shares data with each of these companies in order to help support its mission."

jklinger410 3y ago
Consumer Reports themselves have 12 unique data trackers on their site, including the Facebook pixel. And just to be clear about the usage of the term "Monitored" here. They mean that data tracking pixels are sending anonymized data between META and all of these companies. Not a soul at META or any company with that pixel installed are aware of any PII or even, in most cases, cognizant of your specific session on their site.
goenning 3y ago
I guess FB tracking pixels will no longer work when third-party cookies are removed from browsers. That seems like a massive hit for them if I understand it correctly (and a big W for us)
- spcebar 3y ago
  There's a server side implementation FB offers developers to circumvent some privacy restrictions now being enforced by browsers which doesn't have all the features of the clientside version but is their current workaround. It will improve privacy slightly, but some websites are still gathering as much information about you as possible over the course of a session to try and build demographic information and remarket to you.

TacticalCoder 3y ago

Never had Instagram. Never had WhatsApp. Had an old Facebook account opened under a fake name, using a throwaway email (haven't opened it in six months, maybe more). That company is cancer.

dheerajvs 3y ago
Same here. In addition, to prevent shadow profiles, I've blocked them on NextDNS, setup NetGuard[0] and Firefox with uBlock Origin on Android. [0]: https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/releases https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/releases
matheusmoreira 3y ago
I don't have that luxury. If I delete WhatsApp, I will be ostracized. Instagram is easier to live without but some people and services can only be contacted there. Mercifully Facebook is dead. I've made peace with the fact that at least WhatsApp has end-to-end encryption. I hope to god they don't enshittify it.
TaylorAlexander 3y ago
That is a good start but unfortunately my understanding is that they will still have a data profile on you specifically. This is a problem for us all and we need regulation to solve it. And we probably need campaign finance reform to get people in power willing to regulate it.
- IronWolve 3y ago
  Exactly, if your kid has an account, and she identified her mom, facebook will think her mom is your wife if at the same address. Those connections start to add up, add in they copied linkedin, your phone address books, email accounts, etc.
  - akira2501 3y ago
    To me, the answer is noise. Generate so much false data about yourself that you both overwhelm and devalue this mechanism entirely.

leotravis10 3y ago

Here's the actual piece over at The Markup which is very useful: https://themarkup.org/privacy/2024/01/17/each-facebook-user-is-monitored-by-thousands-of-companies-study-indicates https://themarkup.org/privacy/2024/01/17/each-facebook-user-... Not suprised that their tracking pixel on websites and apps are the primary reason for this. They're not the only ones of course.

tobias2014 3y ago

"Large retailers like The Home Depot, Walmart, or Amazon showed up, too" Call me naive, but I'm surprised to see these sell my data, I'll have to read agreements for accounts on those websites...

smeej 3y ago
Really? Selling your data is core to the business model of virtually every merchant that offers the ability to create an account and/or use a membership "rewards" tracking system.

thoraway3127 3y ago

Recently been inundated with “People you may know” which are old flings, people I went on one date with/slept with once, etc… I met them on tinder or CL, and it’s very strange to see that. I can only guess maybe I was still in their phone, but I haven’t had a facebook app on my phone in many years, and I don’t believe they were all even on my contacts list. I did have whatsapp, so I can only guess that’s where it’s coming from - maybe there was a small overlap in 2017 or so. One of them I’m sure I never added to my contacts. Anyway, it’s strange and jarring to see that. It’s been more than 6 years, I’m married - with kids. I don’t want to see them, I don’t want them to see me. This was with everything on good terms, I can only imagine how jarring it would be if things were different.

15457345234 3y ago
People who are in happy relationships/marriages probably disengage from the platforms and focus more on the real world. There is an incentive here to be reprehensible.

wackget 3y ago

There's such a beautiful irony in reading about unfettered data mining on a website (theverge.com) which connects to *37* third-party domains when displaying the article: 1. ak.sail-horizon.com 2. amazon-adsystem.com 3. api.parsely.com 4. c.amazon-adsystem.com 5. cdn.concert.io 6. concert.io 7. coral.coralproject.net 8. coralproject.net 9. csp.withgoogle.com 10. d35xxde4fgg0cx.cloudfront.net 11. duet-cdn.vox-cdn.com 12. google.com 13. googleoptimize.com 14. googletagmanager.com 15. googletagservices.com 16. gstatic.com 17. ingest.sentry.io 18. js.memberful.com 19. memberful.com 20. micro.rubiconproject.com 21. moatads.com 22. narrativ.com 23. o4682.ingest.sentry.io 24. parsely.com 25. polyfill.io 26. rubiconproject.com 27. sail-horizon.com 28. sentry.io 29. static.narrativ.com 30. theverge.coral.coralproject.net 31. vox-cdn.com 32. www.google.com 33. www.googleoptimize.com 34. www.googletagmanager.com 35. www.googletagservices.com 36. www.gstatic.com 37. z.moatads.com P.S. list courtesy of the uMatrix browser extension

gorhill 3y ago
I see 156 distinct 3rd parties on my side if I disable the content blocker so as to let the second-, third- and nth-waves of JavaScript execute: https://imgur.com/a/lZbUqnQ https://imgur.com/a/lZbUqnQ
- wackget 3y ago
  Wow that is truly shameful. P.S. thanks for uBlock Origin and uMatrix
mtillman 3y ago
New outlets are constantly trashing “Silicon Valley” for apparently providing them with a non trivial portion of their revenue stream.
bdcravens 3y ago
I wonder how many of those companies are YC alum?
Retric 3y ago
The amount of redundancy on that list is hurting the point you’re trying to make. In terms of tracking double/quadruple etc counting the same company isn’t meaningful. So, once you start noticing it the list seems significantly shorter than it actually is (2. amazon-adsystem.com vs 4. c.amazon-adsystem.com). Worse, 5 of them are the same domain with www. in front (12. google.com and 32. www.google.com) which most people subconsciously see as the same thing. Therefore, a slightly curated list comes off as more impactful: 1 amazon-adsystem.com 2 concert.io 3 coralproject.net 4 d35xxde4fgg0cx.cloudfront.net 5 google.com 6 memberful.com 7 moatads.com 8 narrativ.com 9 parsely.com 10 polyfill.io 11 rubiconproject.com 12 sail-horizon.com 13 sentry.io 14 vox-cdn.com 15 z.moatads.com PS: I mean Google representing 10 domains on your list does say something, but it’s only tangential to tracking.

andirk 3y ago

I downloaded my FB data and as I predicted, nothing I'm bothered with. It is my common behavior that is ad targeted. Can someone please tell me what data people are so bothered with that Facebook uses to target basic ads? That "Facebook whistleblower" said the company is "profits over people". That people were appalled by that that will always be so funny to me.

rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
Some people such as you have no issues with companies employing mind tricks to manipulate people into buying their goods and services, some people do
- andirk 3y ago
  Wow that makes a lot of sense. When people complain about social media using their data, it often comes off as if they're addicted and a victim of it, like they're really complaining about their own use of the platforms that they have grown to resent. I, too, would resent FB (for me, Instagram) if it had even the slightest bit of control over me. Pro tip: Like/interact with ads on Instagram that look cool so they'll show up more. I like the watches, cool shoes, cat food ads. I assume I'll buy something eventually once I get targeted with something that's not a cheap Chinese manufactured pile. It's never useful stuff like "Check out this cool shovel".
barbariangrunge 3y ago
Care to post your fb download here? Since you don’t mind people knowing about you
- andirk 3y ago
  My understanding is that 3rd parties get to _target according to this data_, but they do not _get the actual data_. So I can say "I'm going to propose!" a bunch of times and get engagement ring ads (the classic example, bc now the bride-to-be may also start getting engagement ring ads before she's/they's proposed to) but the 3rd parties don't know what I said or who I am, just that there is +1 in the engagement ring bucket. I also don't use much real PII, with fake name, burner email, but real uni and real birthday. Though I had to tell FB I was a straight male so I'd stop getting their hunk ads. Anyways, there are ~550 advertisers listed. Here are the top ones. I threw a zinger in there too. Live Nation Sponsorship x x Ticketmaster x x Drive with Lyft x x Essence x x Airbnb x x Uber x x AEG Presents x x MullenLowe U.S. x x AEG Presents - Media x x Coinbase x x The Joy of Spandex Deritives Incorporated, Inc Live Nation Concerts x x Amtrak x CVS Pharmacy x Iron Store x Microsoft Customer Insights Center x Massage Envy x Huntington National Bank x Evernote x Big Spaceship x Dollar General x Edit: Holy sh!t!!! I personally made an FB ad to say hi to this girl I was dating back when targeting could be super narrow, and [her name] is one of the ads that targeted me lol! Wow and that was only once for a couple days.

yedava 3y ago

Earlier today, this[1] was on the HN front page, a blog post on how Meta processes trillions of serverless functions. All that impressive tech exists for one single reason - massive surveillance at scale. [1] https://read.engineerscodex.com/p/meta-xfaas-serverless-functions-explained https://read.engineerscodex.com/p/meta-xfaas-serverless-func...

enraged_camel 3y ago
Surveillance isn't the reason. It's a means to a goal, which is to sell people stuff.
- dylan604 3y ago
  they can't sell them stuff if they haven't surveilled them to find out what they want. although, even after all of the surveilling, they still fail to deliver relevant ads way more often than they should.
- morserer 3y ago
  You're right, but "selling people stuff" is a secondary source of profit. Surveillance too. The truth is, users become profitable far before they ever pull out a credit card, and the goal isn't the credit card, it's the user itself. To target an ad for a product, you need an interest-based profile on someone. To build that profile, you need data. To influence public opinion (as has become so popular for politicians and intelligence departments), or if you want to monetize an emotional reaction (like the NRA or PETA) you need a psychological profile, or a way to extrapolate one. Again, data. To prosecute crimes, you need communications and location data (this is what most would call "surveillance"). Law enforcement (state and federal), private investigators, state departments are all customers for this. The market for this evidence (both what can and can't be used in court is harvested; look up "evidence laundering") is an unending stream of income, for the same reason as all three of these, and here's why: If you're Meta, or Google, do you want to be performing this psychological profiling, or scanning every message for "incriminating" keywords, or tracking specific users' locations? Absolutely not. That would put your company at fault. So what do you do? You sell the data itself, unspecified, en masse. The FBI approaches you to implement a service that you can query for real-time location data? Hell no, buddy, that'd threaten the whole company! Go do it on your own servers! Pay for the data and compute it yourself! (Or pay for just enough processing to get what you need without us knowing what you're using it for, which is what op's link is about) And that's exactly what happens: the data itself becomes the product. Then, the goal is to harvest as much data as you possibly can. That's the business model. Product sales are not the aim. The people are what is sold.

nico 3y ago

Just tried creating a fb account to manage some ads It let me create the account, but then to manage the ads they had me create a business account, and a few seconds later, they blocked my fb account Exactly the same thing happened to someone else I’m working with We are trying to appeal, but seems like it might go nowhere Any tips would be appreciated

nebula8804 3y ago
I became an obsessive FB marketplace user buying up tons of other peoples old junk until one day I initially offered to purchase a table but discovered that IKEA was selling the same table for 5$ less in new condition. I explained my reasoning to the seller and sent her the link and within minutes I was banned from Marketplace with no recourse. I don't know if she reported me or something. I was really bummed for weeks because FB support does not exist. But after a while I figured out that if you sign up for FB verified you gain access to human based support. I did so and eventually they managed to restore my account with no reason as to why I was banned. Maybe that will help?
kornhole 3y ago
I don't have a solution, but I tried to do something similar and asked my friend who is a manager in data and identity management at Facebook how I could create an account for some experimentation. He explained to me that they are very strict on identification nowadays and the only way to get back into a locked out account is to show ID next to your face on camera.