I'M A FACEBOOK OUTCAST...AND WHO CARES?

A follow up to a previous post.

Facebook users around the world, including me, have been waking up to find themselves locked out of their accounts for no apparent reason.

The message many received reads: "Your Facebook account was disabled because it did not follow our Community Standards. This decision can't be reversed." There is no warning or explanation given.

Parent firm Meta said it has been investigating.

In a tweet, Meta's Andy Stone said: "We're aware that some users are experiencing issues accessing their Facebook accounts and we are working to resolve them as quickly as possible." He did not say how many were affected, or what the issue was, but it had to be in the thousands.

PR consultant Jen Roberts was one of those to find herself locked out of her account. She said "I haven't posted anything or commented for quite some time, so it's extremely unlikely that I've done anything that could be construed as offensive."

But, despite not being an avid user, finding her account locked was still upsetting: "All of the images from my university years and family occasions are on Facebook."I will no longer have access to 15-plus years of content, which is genuinely sad.

"It is also quite stressful not knowing what the issue is, and having no recourse to resolve it. To be given no warning and then no way to access our own data is mindboggling."

In my case, as an avid Facebook user for 20 years, I have been disabled twice and forced to establish a new account (Dick Wright initially and Richard (Dick) Wright the last time). In the process, I have lost access to a family group which I created and administered, including hundreds of photos and records that I contributed to other sites. Worst of all I have lost my only contact with several hundred friends and the ability to connect via word text (messaging) with any of them. Still, oddly enough, my profiles remain assessable to everyone but me. I'm completely closed out of Facebook. Period!

In spite of a previous notice on Wrights Lane explaining my dilemma and offering an alternative method of contacting me, no one has been concerned enough to respond which kind of tells me something.

Eventually, I frustratingly ran out of new pass words and the establishment of email accounts sufficient to sustain Facebook participation. In the end I simply gave up the ghost, life being as short and as precious as it is.

I am a Facebook outcast...and maybe it is in my best interest.

As I say, I don't know what I did wrong. Perhaps Facebook disliked my linking to religiously inspired posts on my Wrights Lane blog site...There is a distinct possibility too, that they think Richard (Dick) Wright stole the already blocked Dick Wright's identity. I see nothing in Facebook's "community standards" that I have been referred to that gives any semblance of a reasonably applicable suggestion and it is all beyond me.

While I have been left confused and detached, I readily acknowledge that the time I used to spend on Facebook is now better spent on the things in my life that really matter.

Old friends still matter, of course...but in lieu of telephone numbers, home addresses and email addresses I just have no way of contacting them. It is kind of like dying, socially speaking, or dropping off the face of the world.

And, in the end, who cares. Really!

No doubt that I am just one of countless other old souls that a scary world of algorithms and artificial intelligence is leaving behind in antiquity.