Today, I will tell you how not to lose your Facebook account, access to your pages, or your domain name. Don’t be like me. And don’t do it all in one week!
Getting booted off Facebook
I lost my personal Facebook account recently, one that I’ve had since 2007. How, you ask? Two years ago, I posted a photo of a fictitious bottle of Clorox Chewables. This was of course satire. It doesn’t exist. And it’s preposterous. I posted this in April 2020.Â
However, the post was deleted by Facebook several days ago, almost two years after I posted it. And an hour or two later, I discovered that my Facebook account was completely disabled. This isn’t “Facebook jail”. It’s a complete disabling of my account. The reason given? “We hid your post because of our Community Standards on content related to suicide. We have these standards because this content may cause harm to others.”
I don’t know whether this was due to “bots” or someone sifting through two years of photos and then complaining. I’ve requested a review. After all, I obviously never intended this to be encouraging suicide.
Does this mean that every person who posted photos of Tide Pods also got the boot? What about purposely posting misinformation repeatedly, bullying, harassment, hate speech, spam, nude photos, and all that? Do they get the boot as well? Or is it mostly people who post a photo of Clorox Chewables? Two years ago?
Mistakes I made with Facebook
But I made some mistakes as well. For instance, I am the Admin for two groups on long exposure photography and several pages. This includes my Ken Lee Photography page as well as two music pages and much more. I can no longer access my pages. Why? Because I was the only Administrator No one else. Yeah. Not good.
- Pro tip: Make someone else an Admin or create a secondary account to make certain you retain Admin access. I didn’t do that. And now, I may never have access to those pages again.
Losing my domain name
I had an old personal music and travel site called Eleven Shadows. It was actually one of the older websites on the internet. I had begun this when I was a kid and somehow kept it going. The last time I renewed the domain name, I renewed it for 10 years. All was good.
A parade of errors
Or more accurately, it was good until it wasn’t. I lost the domain name. This is because, for some reason, I changed the email address on WHOIS 10 years ago. I thought this would only change on WHOIS and not my contact information, which I had not changed on Network Solutions. Not so. Consequently, I never received any of their messages saying that it was about to expire.
Additionally, my credit card information had lapsed.
Due to this parade of errors, I lost my elevenshadows.com domain name literally one day after it expired because either someone on Network Solutions jumped on it or someone purchased it. I never really got a straight answer.
Now, to be fair, it’s difficult to remember to do something 10 years later. After all, a lot of things change in 10 years. Perhaps having a domain name expire in 10 years made it difficult to remember to track. However, it seemed like a great idea at the time!
After days of trying to get it back, I gave up and purchased another domain name, elevenshadows.net. It is in its ancient state right now. It features some HTML that was originally coded when “Star Trek: The Next Generation” was on prime-time and dinosaurs roamed the earth. But I will build it into something else that will be engaging and fun, probably using WordPress so I can modernize it.
- Pro tip: Create a reminder near when the domain name is set to expire. Keep your credit card information current. Make sure that you have a current email on file.
Don’t be like me
Just because I make stupid mistakes doesn’t mean that you should. If this even saves one person from making these awful mistakes, then great.
Other thoughts
I have this love/hate relationship with Facebook. When I use the platform, I feel like I am dancing with the devil. I do love keeping up with friends, though. And I’ve also met some great friends there, such as my friends that are part of the Nightaxians YouTube Video Podcast. And also, my book publishing deal and other opportunities have come from Facebook. So I continue to dance that dance.
That losing my Facebook account and domain name comes on the heels of surgery for a detached retina makes this even more challenging. I lost both in one week, just a week after I had to remain face down for eight days straight for my eye to heal. Part of a rough week for this night photographer.
I wrote an article long ago that began with “Don’t be like me.” Quite a title. This is my second article beginning with this phrase. I’m going to try not to make it a regular column!
Don’t get too stressed about the FB situation. For one thing, FB is steadily becoming a wasteland. Few of my friends even post anything, so all I see is ads. FB has had its day.
And I think you’ll probably get the account back, although it will take a while. FB has been trying to salvage its reputation with a phony house-cleaning campaign – carried out by unsophisticated, buggy code thrown together to impress Congress. That code is just creating one big mess which they may have to unwind over time.
Thanks. This is why I mention that love/hate “dancing with the devil” thing I have with Facebook. But given the positives – meeting fantastic new friends, keeping in touch with friends, book publishing deal, appearances in magazines, and that kind of thing – this is why I’ve continued dealing with them.
And I will continue to, albeit in a considerably different, pulled-back manner. I feel like I have a strong feeling about who they are and where they are going, and it’s not something that seems very positive.
You give the perfect summary of Facebook here, Ken! And very entertaining!
Facebook operates by a double standard. I got a warning last month for a comment I made on a very violent video. The video showed a group of young men beating someone up and it was violent. I spoke my mind as to what should happen to the young men and got a warning for violent speech.
So how is it okay to post violent videos that anyone can see, but you can’t post a comment as to appropriate punishment?
Entertaining…unless you’re living it, haha!
Whether it’s double standards or bots gone wild, I don’t know. After reading this post, my friend mentioned that he was banned for posting a guy playing a viral “tabla” tune with a cat “dancing” to it. Why? “Hate speech against a community.”
The bots don’t seem to employ any meaningful sort of machine learning regardless. The bans get harsher and dumber as we go along.
Interesting. A friend of mine told someone to put a gun to his head and end his misery. (the person asked what should they do if they think they are a narcissist).
24 hours in jail.
I make a joke about Jeffrey Dahmers hair care – 30 days and red flagged under the terror groups. With a 6 month old post in my private group.
Ohhh Man…
Ken.I.Am.So.Sorry!
About the domain.
About Facebook.
All the things.
*%&^$#
–PF
Eye surgery, FB, domain name, internet woes, and more. It’s been a weird couple of weeks. Thanks.
I would say that it is all a load of BS. That Bot or Algorithm is a easy excuse. Anyone can become a moderator on any group or page they choose through the Developers route. I have a private hidden only friends group with my sense of humor. Six months ago posted a joke – what does Jeffey Dahmer have in his shower? Head and shoulders. Slammed baby. I wrote a satire about what my dogs taught me in my home language Afrikaans. Used the word teef (bitch) which is Wikipedia defined as a female dog. A male dog is… Read more »
Puhhhh. I’d love to say I’m surprised, but given what passes for “policy”, no, none of this surprises me. As you say, there’s no sense of intent. This is why I thought it might be a bot since several of my other friends got dinged for it too, although none of them lost their account permanently. But I definitely will allow that it’s possible that someone there has it in for me. I’m not sure why, but people often get mad at others for reasons that are inscrutable. Thanks for your comment.