Farcebook Strikes

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You may not have noticed it, but in the right hand column you can see a link to the Facebook page I set up for my blog. It is this:

I did that back in 2018 when they stopped allowing us to share posts with our friends, but it does have a small advantage in that it is public, opening up a potentially larger audience. I have done very little with it other than using it as a vehicle for my posts, and the grand total of 89 page followers rather reflects that! It still gets regular links to the blog each week, so I haven’t really thought about removing it. Until now.

Last Thursday I opened FB to find this notification:

I’m assuming that it was an AI bot that took this decision, as any human with half a brain might have understood that bloggers like to attract new readers and every post is an opportunity to do that. It’s hardly conning people, is it, despite what their bot thinks.

I’ve clicked on a few of the links to find out more but, as you would expect from a big tech site, these are about as informative as a Donald Trump speech, though admittedly without the rambling, lies and incoherence. They allow you to query the decision so of course I did. Their ‘what happens next’ screen says:

 

Yeah, right. As it is now seven days I guess I’m in the ‘it can take longer’ category. This year, next year….

They also give you the ability to check your page’s status, so I did:

 

Do bots have hands? If so it appears that their right and left hands don’t know what the other is doing: they have just removed one of my posts but they tell me my page is in excellent health, so there is clearly something weird going on (not intended as another Trump reference, but maybe the bots also have tiny hands to go with their tiny brains).

In itself, this little episode isn’t really a big deal, but it isn’t the only one. A good blogging friend – Jill of Filosofa’s Word – posted on Sunday that the same thing had happened to her twice, and several others commented that they too had suffered the same fate. You can read her post here if you’d like to see what she said: being Jill, she went into attack mode rather more quickly than I have done! She posts several times a day, including a daily music piece, and the two that were removed were one of her regular offerings and a music one. In my case the post that FB objected to was one of those rare occasions when I wasn’t playing music: TBR Or ISRM? from last Thursday. Maybe they are trying to tell me something, that perhaps I should stick to music. It will be interesting to see if they remove this one too! And if they do, will they then ban my page as a repeat ‘offender?’

Try as I might I can’t see anything in that which could give the clowns at FB reason to accuse me of trying ‘to get likes, follows, shares or video views in a misleading way.’ FFS, it was just a simple blog post! Like all bloggers, I appreciate people reading, liking, occasionally even sharing my posts, but how can that be determined to be ‘misleading?’ It’s not as though I am claiming to have prevented WW3 when I’m actually trying to start it, is it? (Sorry, him again!). So is there something more sinister going on? Since Musk bought Twitter he has rebranded it as X, opened it up to unrestrained hatred and conspiracy theories, and is using it to indoctrinate the many morons who follow him into voting for his preferred candidate in the US election (guess who?). Is he trying to encourage Mark Zuckerberg to join Facebook with X in an Axis Of Evil? I’ve always thought that Musk was evil, but I didn’t think that of Zuckerberg. Until now, when doubts are beginning to form.

The big social media businesses are growing ever more powerful and influential, seemingly without any regulation. Do governments know what to do with them? Recently, Brazil banned X, which was a bit of a case of pot, kettle, black, but nowhere else really seems to have a handle on them. Given the proven influence of Russian efforts to mislead people on X, in particular, I would have thought that western governments might be seen to be taking action. Musk no doubt welcomes such interference, but the rest of us shouldn’t.

Am I blowing this up out of all proportion? It was just one little blog post from an insignificant corner of the web, wasn’t it? But I fear that in its own small way this may be symptomatic of something much bigger. That US election is on 5 November (an ironic date for a Brit!) and whichever way it goes there is likely to be a huge fallout to be fought on social media and, I fear, in reality, particularly if one side loses. This week, my humble blog post, next week…?

Do you have a Facebook page for your blog? If so, has this also happened to you? Do tell – I’d be interested to see how widespread this might be.

UPDATE: Facebook removed this post, 10 minutes after it went up. I’ve requested a review. Watch this space!

60 thoughts on “Farcebook Strikes”

  1. Pingback: Social? Or Not? | Take It Easy

  2. I have had posts or comments removed, for stupid reasons. I believe it is Artificial Intelligence doing this instead of Actual Intelligence. I have complained about posts and comments which were offensive, yet the decision comes back: “No violations found.” I would love to establish a paid social media website whereby each member will be vetted prior to being approved, by a real human being then able to customise their profile page how they want. I hope you can restore your content soon.

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    • I’m sorry to hear that, and you’ve confirmed my view that it is bots with a faulty algorithm rather than real people making the decisions. At least you’ve had an answer, of sorts – I still haven’t heard anything!

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  6. I got a warning about some innocuous post I put up a couple of months ago. I would love to know what they ossibly could have found controversial about it. It didn’t include violence and wasn’t political. I was baffled. I found it equally humorous and disturbing. The other part of these mega companies like Facebook that is frustrating is you can’t phone anyone to find out what exactly the problem is.

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  8. Thanks for the mention and the link, my friend! I laughed at what you said about “being Jill, she went into attack mode rather more quickly than I have done!” I laughed at that … probably true in most cases! I do have a short fuse sometimes.

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    • You’re very welcome. I said I would, when I posted my piece on this. Happy to have made you laugh. Have you looked through the other comments on this one? Six more have said the same thing has happened to them. Including this post, it’s now twice in a week for me! Looks like I’ll have to stick to music 🤣

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      • They took this one down, too??? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr … I’m getting tired of this!!! No, you do you, dear friend, and to hell with Facebook! Perhaps that’s now owned my Elon Musk, too, and we just haven’t heard yet. Yes, I did notice that several others had experienced the same. I think I’m gonna have to post something really, really ornery just to annoy the Facebook gods. Perhaps we should rename it Fecesbook! (Not in the best of humours tonight, obviously 😉 )

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      • Yup, just ten minutes after I posted it. It’s almost as if they were looking for me, isn’t it! Whoever owns them, they assume absolute power and the rest of us are expected to play by their rules: the ones they don’t tell us about!

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      • Feeling ornery ‘n grumpy, I tried to ‘share’ it to my own Facebook page, but it was removed within 15 seconds! Before I could even get my fingers back on the keyboard to type a comment on it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I am sick and tired of the censorship for NO reason. While Donald Trump threatens to murder us all, I am not allowed to say anything that offends a damned robot!

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  10. Clive, you wild eyed rabble-rousing revolutionist anarchist you! I stick to WP- I can live with them, at least until they lumber me with their latest (excre)mental update.

    (Note to WP geniuses- if it simply works, don’t fux it up.)

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    • A small protest, from a tiny speck in the cosmos. But I felt it needed to be said.

      I don’t rate our chances of avoiding more of WP’s helpful improvements – they seem to think it their life’s work to bugger up their product.

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  11. Yeah I got something similar a couple of years ago saying a complaint had made been about one of my posts on my song-writing FB page and to correct it I had to click on a link which looked the darker end of dodgy, so I ignored it. Now they won’t let me boost any of my posts even though it suggests I should.

    Being honest boosting my posts just invited in some crazies out there and it did little to help anyone except FB getting the odd tenner from me. But as you know, trying to get an answer from them is a fruitless task anyway. I just hope you’re not missing out too much on readers.

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    • They make the rules up as they go along, but somehow forget to tell us what they are. You’re probably better off not spending the money anyway, especially if that is the outcome.

      This isn’t really a big deal for me, as I only get 2-3% of page views from there. But I share a link party I belong to every Monday and it would be an annoyance not to be able to do that if either they or I close the page.

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  13. FB is totally crazy these days. I don’t have a link to my blog on it. Just my own page to see friends and relatives’ photos, etc. But I have got the same warning as you about a post of mine going against community standards and them taking it down. A post wishing someone a happy birthday or something else ridiculous like that being taken down. Makes no sense! Sorry you have to deal with it. But if Jill is on their toes maybe they will straighten up. LOL!
    Its nothing like it used to be!

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  14. And yet they allow what is an obvious blatant scam claiming to be from Amazon offering laptops for £3 a piece.
    AIs might be ok for telling you on demand what the time of day is or where is the best place to get yodelling lessons in a ten mile radius, however when it comes to making decisions…why I would still sooner trust a committee (with the exception of Trump campaigners of course)

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    • I know, I’ve seen those and wonder if anyone falls for them. Amazon aren’t renowned for their generosity, are they!

      AI is supposed to be bringing great improvements for our lives, but I remain to be convinced of that. I wouldn’t trust that committee either – combined IQ would struggle to reach 100!

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      • Amazon did actually give away laptops through their Vine system but you had to be genuinely chosen to be a member- I had one, worked for two whole years too- then were perfffft!….Ah well.

        True about the committee, but being humans they will waffle, argue amongst themselves, back track, revise, and do the opposite of what they thought they were doing. So there was a chance you might get the better of them.
        An AI. Once it has decided?

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      • I’ve never heard of Vine so I missed out on that – it doesn’t seem much of an offer though! Mine has lasted longer than that (so far!)

        I think the definition of an elephant is a horse designed by a committee. Who needs AI anyway?

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      • The committee would have inadvertently provided something useful when lost in an area roamed by hungry predators.

        If asked AI might have supplied a list of cough medicines, or something to efficiently freshly washed clothes on or possibly a dray horse for the Grand National.

        Both more useful than a government farming out the request to the some low bid private contractor.

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    • You don’t need to search, John. Hopefully you’ll find it by clicking the image on my blog. I’ve just tried it and it still works ok for me here – they haven’t taken it down yet!. Please let me know if you can find it.

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  17. Yes indeed I have been banned twice ! I don’t know why and nor do I care I was a tad put out the first time at least six years ago …. I think I am okay at the moment because I hardly ever use Facebook…. It doesn’t appeal much to me. No not even as a tool for my blog which Facebook obviously objects to.
    Like you I have no idea why they banned me twice? ….but honestly I am not fussed. It’s not even worth fighting them …. eventually you’ll get put back on …..daft isn’t it. 💜💜💜

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  21. Yes, I guess this is where I stand up and with a red face say “Me too!” It was two years ago. I was originally posting my stories on my personal FB page, then started a separate page called Write Here. All my stories were now viewable on this new page and not my personal page. A few people started posting and/or commenting on Write Here, but traffic was deathly slow and after a while I decided to put everyone out of their misery and stop publishing Write Here …. but not before FB, in their incredibly incomprehensible stupidity, shut me down. Not my personal page, just Write Here. I asked for a review, never heard from FB, and about one month later, my page was back up and running as if nothing had happened. Go figure. A FB glitch? Perhaps. I’ll never know. Shortly after that, in defiance (and because I had already decided to shut down Write Here), I gave FP the proverbial finger. I still have my personal page but rarely check it. In fact, just yesterday I decided to take a chance and post one of my poems. I’ll take a look in a few days to see if anyone gives a good hot damn!

    Sorry for your troubles, Clive. It’s freaking frustrating, innit? 🤬

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  22. Yep, happened to me the same awhile ago. It was on the Writer’s Workshop post, too. I don’t have a page, but I do post a link to my blogs on FB. Maybe the word ‘shop’ had something to do with it, and they thought we were trying to sell something? I didn’t as for a review, because no one even responds to my links anyway. I don’t know why I bother. I only keep FB to see what relatives are doing. Even they don’t read my blog. So whatever … haha 🙂

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    • Thanks, Barbara, sorry to hear it happened to you too. I don’t think it was the ‘shop’ bit, for two reasons: firstly, I didn’t include that in my post title and secondly, wait for it, they took this one down as well, just 10 minutes after it went live!

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      • What???? Wow that is …well, I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it at all! I’ll be posting my blog for Writer’s workshop later this morning, so we’ll see if mine gets taken down, too. But I’ve done others for this prompt, and they stay up just fine. It’s puzzling for sure.

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