I have never used social media. Until now. Last week I set up a Facebook account for myself. Yes, I'm a little behind the times. Why am I starting now, when so many other people are abandoning the cesspool of trolls and misinformation? For me, it's mainly to communicate with my kids and grandkids. They are very slow to respond to e-mail and their preferred communication channel is Facebook Messenger. Okay, so I make the account on January 13th, 2025. And on January 16th, it gets suspended.What did I do, you may ask? Did I post something inflammatory? Did I say something mean? Nope! I entered my biographical data and family relationships and I linked to them. My wife and kids confirmed the relationships. I friended a few friends, and they accepted. I "liked" a photo or two from each friend, just to be polite. I had a long Messenger chat with my kids about an upcoming camping trip. I had a video Messenger chat with an old friend. That's it!Facebook thinks that I'm not a human. Frankly, it's insulting. I appealed. Facebook wanted a video clip of me rotating my head in various angles. I complied. The next day when I tried to log into my account I got a notification saying that my account had been disabled and that I cannot request another review! And then there was a link, labeled "Read more about account integrity". When I clicked on that, I discovered that it's a dead link. WTF, Facebook?!One of my friends has a Facebook account for his long deceased dog, and it still gets birthday wishes. So Facebook is okay with dead dogs, but not a human grandfather with 2 kids and 5 grandkids? And Facebook gives absolutely no reason for this, other than a dead link? As far as I'm concerned, Facebook can go Friend itself!
