The keen eyed amongst you will have noticed that I’m no longer on Facebook or Instagram. Both are gone….permanently as Meta have disabled my personal account.
The Long Story
Whilst the decision has been forced upon me I’d been thinking of making my Facebook account dormant for a while. Six months ago on Good Friday (15th April 2022) whilst trying to post a memory I hit issues and tried to recover my account by resetting the password but it was just hanging. I was in a busy location so I just put it down to data connection issues. I didn’t think think much of it until later in the evening when I notice this the email below.
This was bit of a shock, but further shock was to come when I clicked on the ‘request review’ button and saw the reason why my post went against their community standards. I don’t think anything I’ve ever posted anything that could go against their community standards. That got me thinking could I have been hacked when I had account connection issues or was I maliciously reported (I’d had a run in with scammers only a week earlier).
I thought I’d challenge the decision but this soon became a very frustrating experience. Currently Facebook have an issue with their security check if you have a mobile phone number linked to your Facebook account. After several days I finally managed to get passed this security question by creating a false log in in another country via a VPN and then removing my mobile number from my account. On 22nd April I finally managed to submit a review request.
For the next month I didn’t bother checking as I thought I’d get an email to confirm the outcome of the review once Facebook had completed their review. One evening a few weeks later I met up with a friend. Conversation got onto photography and they said they’d noticed my Facebook account wasn’t there when they searched for me. As I explained to them what had happened I thought I’d quickly check the progress of the review, I saw the message below.
To be honest I wasn’t that surprised when I saw this as I’d heard many people hadn’t had reviews. It’s feels a little unfair that the review submission didn’t ‘stop the clock ticking’ as at that point I’d submitted the review request as soon as I could and it was out of my hands until they reviewed my case. Facebook had 23 days to complete a review which they said usually took only 1 day. Their excuse of having fewer people available to review information due to coronavirus is quite poor considering they still keep the 30 day time limit going, and I’m sure as a large tech company they should have the necessary skills and technology to move employees to work from home and still keep it relatively ‘business as usual’.
At least I wasn’t waiting on a decision that may never come and I can plan to move forward in a Meta free future.
What worries me when I’ve replied to others on Twitter and tagged in Meta the volume of replies you get from people who say they can help is huge. Personally I’d worry they were all scammers preying on people who are worried about losing their Facebook account and easy prey to rip off. Social media can highlight the worst of society.
Going forward
If I’m honest I’ve been thinking of reducing my use of facebook. Social media generally isn’t a healthy pastime as there is plenty on there that isn’t real. The problem I have with social media and Facebook in particular it can easily lead to mental health problems if you spend hours on social media watching people’s ‘highlight reels’. There are also far too many scammers on there, who as I found out Facebook do nothing to resolve.
Whilst leaving facebook will be a good thing in the long term the niggling feeling is that it wasn’t my fully decision. It was forced upon me for an unknown reason. As the review didn’t happen I still don't know what caused the ban. I still don’t know if I was hacked or maliciously reported.
The real kicker to all of this is I hadn’t only lost my personal Facebook account but my photography facebook page and also my Instagram account as that was linked to my facebook account. For many photographers a Facebook page and Instagram are both important social media platforms to interact with non photographers.
If I’m honest Facebook has put too many restrictions on photography pages. Your page posts only reach a small fraction of followers unless to pay to boost the post. Instagram is probably the better platform of the two and the one I thought I’d miss the most.
It feels unfair that the review doesn’t take place because they don’t have the resources available due to COVID-19. Surely they could easily stack the case and review it later when they have the resources to review.
One main point I’ve learnt I shouldn’t be too reliant on a single company in case things like this happen. In a way I’m lucky that both Facebook and Instagram were both personal accounts and not used as a key part of a business. There is the saying regarding the Internet, ‘if it’s free to use, you’re the product and not the customer!’. This is very true with Facebook/Meta. Everyone definitely needs to be aware of this. I found it can be easy to be caught out in this way and Meta don’t want to help any users. It may also have a greater effect on others who’s business accounts are run off their personal Facebook account.
Six months on
If I’m honest in the last six months I’ve not missed Facebook or Instagram at all. Instagram has been replaced with Vero, which I’ve started to really like. I’ve been a member of Vero since 2018 and posted only a few photos, but it’s only recently taken off as more photographers have started to look for an Instagram replacement due to there ent move towards videos. The ethical view of Vero along with being ad and algorithm free environment makes a welcome change from Instagram and Facebook. You can read Vero’s mission here.
I’m definitely going to post more of my photography on Vero. I like that I can post more than just photos as I can post links to my Adobe Spark Page ‘photo stories’ in between posting images. That’s a great outlet to improve their visibility which until now was only via my website.
My Meta free future is looking brighter than I thought it would. If you’re thinking of ditching Facebook it’s probably not as bad as you may think it will be. I’d honestly say go for, what is there to lose?
Also, come join me and other photographers on Vero. You can find me on Vero here.
A Recommendation
If you want to read more about photography and social media in general I’d recommend reading my friend George Wheelhouse’s recent blog, photography and social media. It’s definitely worth a read about the pitfalls of social media and it’s use within photography. It may also open a few eyes!