BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...

Subject: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: InOBU
Date: 23 Feb 26 - 02:26 PM

Well, after some 30 years, and never having been suspended, Facebook kicked me off, separating me from my several thousand friends, many of whom depend on me as a human rights advocate.

I would call this elder abuse. We tend to get isolated as we get older, and I now have gone from a minor celebrity in the NYC theater world, to an isolated township in Appalachia, because disaster profiteers stole my theater, tavern and museum... and my home.

For some ten years I shared my mother's final years, as she fought dementia, and all the comments of her friends many of whom are now dead... and now they are totally gone, because of this billionaire corporation that gives on no right of appeal to a human, or even tells their victims what they did to get kicked off.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Feb 26 - 04:55 PM

Did they give any warning or reason for this?

Do you still have use of the Museum of the American Gangster? (https://www.facebook.com/lorcan.otway.3)

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: r.padgett
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 03:39 AM

I am locked out of fb had 1700fb friends 600 Friends of Barnsley folk song dance and music

A camera selfie to prove I am not a robot ~ cannot do it current and I have accepted I will not return to fb

Maybe they want me to pay WE don't follow "folk" commercially in UK and the US pay f0r all mentality we do no recognise

Some folk clubs with bank accounts have closed them £5 per month charge when we play and sing for nowt and enjoyment

Ray

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 06:20 AM

If, (as I read it) this is about Facebook closing accounts, or imposing charges, on non-profit folk music groups (and similar). Maybe it should be re-titled and boosted 'above the line'.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: InOBU
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 08:42 AM

Dear Nigel Parsons:

I doubt it was about folk music. Rather they said, "Community Standards," with no details and also provide no way to offer a defense if you knew what community standards were violated, which I do not. Rather I have a Juris Doctor degree, and graduate credits in Constitutional law, and have testified on issues of the law and human rights. I believe the Trump administration is attempting to limit the ability of experts to comment on their criminality. However, FB is a perfect environment for censorship, as there is no way to challenge complaints, if you don't know what was said was the wrong doing.

By the way, my work in law was often at the core of my folk music which often paid for my advocacy. =-)

Dear Stilly River Sage:
No warning, no previous complaints. As to the Museum site, theater and bar sites, they are still up, but I can't access them of course, and COVID disaster profiteers killed those institutions anyway. Genie and I went from three businesses worth millions and a town house, to homelessness, which we are now attempting to climb up from. We now have a roof over our heads and are trying to make it as permanent as possible in a nation where the working class are simply food for the canabal rich.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: InOBU
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 08:44 AM

Correction... I got distracted... I meant to write graduate credits in Political Science and TA'd Constitutional law for several years.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Charley Noble
Date: 25 Feb 26 - 02:35 PM

The same thing happened to me: Facebook membership suspended for violating "community standards," with no other explanation. You have my deepest condolences.

I do admit to having been a prolific poster of vintage photo albums about sailing ships and steamboats. There were thousands of photos, with detailed captions and discussion that are now in Facebook limbo.

Charlie Ipcar (aka Charley Noble)

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: InOBU
Date: 26 Feb 26 - 11:59 AM

Hi Charlie Noble:

That's exactly it. If we sue, you may want to join the suit. In my case, for 20 I had faith in the site, and for example, chronicled my mother's last illness. She was a chief designer at Calvin Kline, and the comments were from friends, many of whom are no longer alive. These things they blithely destroy have real value. They have value to us, and in Mom's case, value to the history of fashion in the USA.

I must tell you, I think of you ever time I see an old ship's stove pipe. =-) ( a ship's stove pipe and well... for those who don't know.)

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Feb 26 - 12:26 PM

It's also an unfortunate (but probably fiscally sound) decision of the Internet Archive to not crawl and preserve Facebook pages, so there is no back door to get in to see the posts and images put up over the years.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: InOBU
Date: 01 Mar 26 - 12:19 AM

Well friends, the appeal which is suppose to take two days took a month, and suddenly, I was cleared with no explanation. So, like a bad penny, I'm back. Hmmm....

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Mar 26 - 01:42 AM

This is probably a decision, or decisions made by robots

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 01 Mar 26 - 02:59 AM

what if it happens again, can you copy valuable stuff & park it elsewhere?

sandra (who is not on facebook & only ever looks occasionally at a few cartoonists, or folk artists' sites, & closes the page as soon as it says JOIN UP)

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 01 Mar 26 - 03:00 AM

just thought the whole site is valuable ...

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: DaveRo
Date: 01 Mar 26 - 03:27 AM

InOBU wrote: I'm back. Hmmm....

Schofield's First Law of Computing

"Never put data into a program unless you can see exactly how to get it out." ― Jack Schofield (2003)

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 01 Mar 26 - 11:13 AM

That, I believe, was originally coined in the 1980s. It should continue: ".... without using the original software." See his Wikipedia page for his second and third laws, which complement the first.

.... I'd best leave this there.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Mar 26 - 06:21 PM

If your name were Richard, you might get banned for posting Dick pics when AI is in charge.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: DaveRo
Date: 04 Mar 26 - 02:57 AM

Sandra in Sydney wrote: what if it happens again, can you copy valuable stuff & park it elsewhere?

Can anybody who has experience of Facebook answer Sandra's question?

I imagine most stuff people post to FB is ephemeral, and they would not care - maybe not notice - if it vanished. But if you do value some thread, or however FB organises content, how can you export it in a usable form?

When I ran a Wordpress blog, and also a Flickr site, I was able to export everything as a backup.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 04 Mar 26 - 05:56 AM

Charlie Noble lost his site & it contained a lot of valuable stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Mar 26 - 09:47 AM

There are loads of albums and photos in Facebook accounts, but nothing apparent in the individual accounts about downloading them.

This is a recent post (from a site that turned up in a non-AI search) giving information, and it starts with requesting the download (so you need to be currently able to see the account to do this): how to save all your photos from facebook and instagram. The site appears to be from a commercial digital organizer.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Charley Noble
Date: 07 Mar 26 - 03:48 PM

I now post on Facebook under the name "Ships and Songs" in case anyone is interested.

Glad to hear that some folks who were suspended from Facebook were reactivated.

Cheerily,
Charlie Ipcar (aka Charley Noble)

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: DaveRo
Date: 07 Mar 26 - 04:17 PM

Charley Noble wrote: I now post on Facebook under the name "Ships and Songs" in case anyone is interested.

Given your previous problem why do you still post this material on Facebook? Non-FB users like me might be interested, but all I can see on this tablet is a set of thumbnail pictures of people singing(?) in pubs.

Google AI suggests that only 50% of over 70's like me on on Facebook in the US and UK. I suspect, but don't know, that FB users overestimate the proportion of FB users and also the degree to which non-members can see their posts.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: r.padgett
Date: 12 Mar 26 - 12:38 PM

Yes as have tried to say but being off line does not help ~ I was told to save my postings on fb ~ I did not
"
My regret is losing Friends of Barnsley folk song, dance and music"

~ but this site was specifically around FUTURE gigs and happening

I am certainly glad of mudcat cafe

Ray

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Mr Red
Date: 13 Mar 26 - 04:34 AM

We all know Fakebook is frippery, trivial, and all about retaining eyeballs, and collecting data. The Meta agenda - whatever you use it for. So features are not geared to be helpful outside of that. eg its search engine is egregiously unhelpful in finding a string of words you know you posted a month ago, specifically within a group.

I run two databases for a Charity and images and are available publicly on https://geograph.co.uk which also has charity status (UK legal responsibilities). And the perennial question is how to save and store those images separately. Given there is not a huge mountain of cash available. Then there is the task of trying to tell the committee that all forms of personal storage has an MTBF (aka "use before date"). And 5 years is not being overly alarmist!

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Mar 26 - 10:23 AM

They can be saved on a thumb drive, Mr. Red, so I'm guessing your question has to do more with curating them and how to organize the cache of images?

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 16 Mar 26 - 08:04 PM

I manage and have set up various Facebook groups related to my musical interests - a couple of folk clubs and two ceilidh bands and am an “admin” on a couple of others. I suppose one of my golden rules is that any photos that go on these Facebook group pages are also saved to my hard disk and backed up as well: I certainly would not rely on Facebook to keep them indefinitely. Many of them are mine, but I also save photos that other people post: admittedly they may be of low res, but if need be, I can usually ask the photographer for a higher res original if that seems necessary.
In setting up new groups, I also did a big back trawl through emails, looking for photos that might have previously been sent around the group as email attachments. In my email system (Yahoo) you can ask for a search of attachments rather than every single email you’ve not deleted. This retrieved quite a few, and I duly saved them as above. Took a bit of time and effort, but hopefully worth it.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Mar 26 - 11:57 PM

That's a good rule, Tattie.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: DaveRo
Date: 17 Mar 26 - 03:16 AM

Saving photos is a good start. But In the OP's case it was contributed text that he feared lost (and is still at risk presumably):

InOBU wrote: ...all the comments of her friends many of whom are now dead... and now they are totally gone...

You'd have to be very disciplined to copy that out as a thread continues.

What's needed is a facility to archive a thread, or particular posts, when you realise that you want to keep them as in the OP's case, or it's become a valuable source.

Imagine: somebody posts a photo of a scene in a folk club and that is followed by a stream if posts identifying, and reminiscing about, the people in it.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 17 Mar 26 - 06:20 AM

There are facilities to save text as well as photos or if you close a group/page, you can choose to archive it rather than delete it completely. I looked at this when setting up new groups for the two bands: there are instructions in the Facebook help menu. But didn’t do it in the end, as there weren’t all that many comments to be saved. Alternatively, you could copy and paste conversations into a Word doc and then save it.
But I accept that it would be difficult or impossible to retrieve stuff that’s already gone.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Mar 26 - 07:06 AM

They can be saved on a thumb drive

Apart from the 15,000 items on the primary purpose with multiple images on many. Then the ancillary historical items of interest that more than double that. Curating is a process, and surprisingly well run given we are all volunteers, it has to be with Charities.

No, thumb drives are silicon NAND which has a nebulous lifetime, SSD is still NAND with a processor monitoring and correcting lifetime reliability (only when powered) but there are limits, and rotating disks are mechanical.
As delineated in this parish many years ago, a member quoted his 10 identical "disks" he stored duplicated data on. He found 5 had errors after 5 years. Silicon is no better. After 5 years, with no errors, you are on borrowed time. CD/DVD? Forget it!
The real problem is telling this to the proverbial "cats you are herding".
Knowing where those errors and the mechanism to correct, is a whole other. Best solution is to pay for guaranteed storage on-line. Money being the "only" problem, apart from the herding issue.

Fakebook probably have all the images offered to them (E&OE). But finding, let alone curating, is ............... just not. I have seen glitches where posts/images have been perfect for a few hours, then it goes slow then the posts vanish (think hacking). Hardly a secure repository.

Subject: RE: BS: Facebook killed me. Grrrr...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Mar 26 - 11:16 AM

I probably wouldn't save them on a thumb drive, I was using that as an example of removable media that could be used to download and/or store those photos. An external drive would work. Burn them to a DVD every so often if you wish. Organizing them is probably the biggest part of the job.