Following on from yesterday’s saga…

The email I sent bounced back with a generic “We don’t deal with this, go to the Help pages” response. I found a page that let me file a dispute to an account being disabled. Hurrah! Except… they want me to scan my ID (drivers’ licence, passport) and upload it as a JPEG. I decided to send this instead.

KA ID

I amused myself in nothing else.

But then — disaster!

disabled account screenprint

So apparently the account I’m blocked from isn’t actually disabled, meaning I have precisely zero ways of resolving this issue, because clearly finding a human being at Facebook is less likely than finding a baboon picking its arse on Mars. In fact, I’m inclined to think there are no people at Facebook, just cyborg overlords, and arse-picking baboons.

So, fine, I decided to go back, and was greeted with this:

login to continue

Yeah, if only I could log in, there would be no drama. Oy.

Then, on a whim, I decided to see what would happen if I entered a false name.

~cue choirs of angelic cherubs singing aaaaaaaah-aaaaaaah-ah~

katrina

Ladies and gentlemen, Katrina Aaron has entered the building.

No, I don’t know who she is, either.

The bot then scolded me for telling porkies in the past, and informed me that I can never, ever change my name on Facebook again. So. Apparently they prefer the pet name my high school art teacher gave me over the name my parents chose. There is a delicious irony to this that, being English, I adore.

No doubt next week Facebook will inform me that I’m actually Norwegian and I’ll stop being amused.

So I am back, although FSM knows for how long, but during my 24-hours without my lord and master, without sanctuary and security, when I was just a lone voice crying in the wilderness, I did at least learn a few lessons.

1. I am way too dependent on Facebook.

I advocate diversity in ebook distribution because I recognise that a monopoly is A Bad Thing, so why not with social media?

2. I’d miss you guys if I couldn’t get back on there.

I have over 700 Facebook friends. I don’t interact with all of them, but I do with a startling number, many of whom I don’t know/follow anywhere else. Finding you again would become my lifelong quest if I lost you.

3. Facebook is about more than my online friends.

My school friends are on there, and people I used to work with. I like seeing what they’re up to. There’s also photos on there, of me and my friends, of big occasions in our lives, which I’d be devastated to lose. For the past nineteen months, AJ and I have spoken on Facebook messenger every single day. Usually for hours on end. From the moment she got up in the morning to the moment I went to bed, if our timezones were in sync we were talking. We fell in love on Facebook. Our whole history was there. And now it’s gone. It might not be a real-life tragedy, but I’m genuinely gutted.

With that last point in mind, there is something we can all do — download our Facebook data.

print1

At the top right of your screen, click on the faded down arrow, then click ‘Settings’.

print2

That will bring up your General Account Settings. At the bottom, click ‘Download a Copy’ of your Facebook data. You’ll be taken through setting up an archive, then they’ll email you when the file is ready and you download it as a zip. It will contain all your contacts, all your conversations, all your pictures, and also some bonus goodies like the ads you’ve clicked on, the time you’ve spent online, and your security details. All stuff worth knowing and keeping, because you don’t want conversations you’d prefer to keep for ever and ever to end up like this.

facebook Pms

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to read my wall posts from 2007.


TL;DR. In future, I will be on Facebook. There are people and groups there I don’t want to lose contact with. I will, however, be less dependent on any single network. I’m active on Twitter and Tumblr as well as Facebook and this blog, and I’ve just entered the murky waters of G+. I hope to see some of you on those other platforms, too. And don’t forget you can always sign up to my mailing list if you’d prefer that I contact you about new releases and special promotions (I promise, no spam, not ever).

Categories: Random

Kate Aaron

Born in Liverpool, Kate Aaron is a bestselling author of LGBT romances. Kate swapped the north-west for the midwest in October 2015 and married award winning author AJ Rose. Together they plan to take over the world.

8 Comments

AJ Rose · September 16, 2014 at 6:37 pm

Sell out. #jealousboots

    Kate Aaron · September 16, 2014 at 6:59 pm

    Hee.

    Jennifer · September 16, 2014 at 7:58 pm

    AJ – Maybe you could pick a random “A” name rather than initials and see if it’ll let you back in at least long enough to download your history then you can decide whether to stay or give fb a well-deserved double middle finger salute as you leave under your own terms. lol

Sara Testarossa · September 16, 2014 at 7:49 pm

So ridiculous. Thanks for the info… I’d heard about this happening to others and signed the Change.org petition (don’t share the petition through the Change.org app on FB, some shifty stuff happens, but you can share the link) https://www.change.org/p/facebook-allow-performers-to-use-their-stage-names-on-their-facebook-accounts Up to 16,700ish signatures so far….

Jaycee Edward · September 16, 2014 at 11:27 pm

I can’t tell you how ridiculously happy I am that you guys got your 19 months back. I know I was devastated to lose my conversations and I didn’t even fall in love with either of you. I really, really like both of you an awful lot, though. <3 <3 ;o)

    Kate Aaron · September 17, 2014 at 2:39 am

    heh, and we really really like you, too. Fortunately now our accounts are back, so are the threads, and better still, I got them in a html file as part of the data download <3

Marleen Kennedy · September 17, 2014 at 10:43 am

So glad to have you two back. Even more happy you to got back everything you lost. I haven’t (yet) figured out how to stop G+ emailing me every time something happens there but I’m not thinking I might just keep them coming. They’re easy enough to delete and it means I can save whatever conversations I want to save well away from any bots wanting to play dirty games.

I did the download information for both my accounts. Of course now I’ll have to remember to do that once a month or so, just to make sure I don’t lose any new stuff and I’m lousy at remembering things like that but at least everything up until now is safe on my hard drive and soon also in dropbox, just to be sure to be sure.

I’d hate to lose either of you on any platform but, I will follow you where ever you choose or are forced to go.

All’s well that ends well, even when it leaves a bitter taste.

    Kate Aaron · September 17, 2014 at 3:04 pm

    Glad you’re staying in touch! And I just found the email notifications in the settings section on the G+ website, not the app.

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