Facebook is such a broken system and I hate it

Yeah, so I seem to be on Facebook’s naughty list lately and it’s interfering with a lot of things. I’m seriously concerned about my account, which I’ve had since around 2005. I’ve never actually violated Facebook’s TOS but they keep axing me and handing out suspensions.

It’s not just me, they’re doing this to everybody. Probably in response to all the (justified) alarm about social media being weaponized to spread misinformation and interfere with the democratic process and make it more difficult to fight the pandemic. I’m just collateral damage.

I ran a history memes group on there for two years. The responsibility for it got dumped on me, without me being asked or wanting it, but it was either run the group myself or let it die, so I decided to run it. I found some people to help moderate, worked my butt off on that group and eventually it got up to over 40,000 members. Then in September, Facebook axed it for no apparent reason. All that hard work, all those memes, vanished overnight. I was quite distressed about this. I appealed, of course. Five minutes later my appeal was denied. Again, no reason specified.

It’s not human beings that are deciding who violates the TOS; it’s bots. There’s a severe shortage of human moderators at Facebook and has been for some time. And unfortunately bots are sometimes just not very good at moderating.

Facebook has violated me for posting a photo of a Venus of Willendorf figure on the grounds that the artistic sculpture, which the ancients probably used in fertility rituals, was against their terms of service about “nudity.” They’ve violated me for historical memes about Croatia that had a scene from Spongebob. Etc.

So I got violated again yesterday and got a 24-hour ban on any kind of Facebook activity, and a 30-day ban on posting things in groups and posting anything on pages I run. That includes the Charley Project page. So I’m afraid the Charley Project page is going to be inactive for a month and there’s nothing I can do about that.

I hate Facebook as a corporate entity. But unfortunately I can’t afford to leave it. For one, it’s a major source of information on missing persons and a great way to connect with people who view the Charley Project. For another, it’s my primary means of socializing with people, particularly during the pandemic. I have loads of friends that I could not communicate with any other way.

It’s sucks but that’s the way it is.

I just hope that people who view the Charley Project page on Facebook are also aware of this blog, and don’t assume I’ve abandoned the Facebook page.

I’ll see them in a month.