
Why I’m sitting at home crying on a Saturday afternoon - rdl
http://violetblue.tumblr.com/post/130440543695/why-im-sitting-at-home-crying-on-a-saturday
======
phaemon
That was weird.

I stopped using Facebook a few years ago (don't remember when), because
something trivial about the site annoyed me (don't remember what).

The author seems to have written many accounts of what a terrible company
Facebook is, how LGBT people are treated appallingly by them, how they're
starting in on refugees and how they're ruining privacy for everyone. And then
jumped through every possible hoop in order to _keep using their website_!

Is she just confused about how boycotts work?

~~~
morganvachon
> _And then jumped through every possible hoop in order to keep using their
> website!_

I don't think you read the entire article. Her goal at this point is to delete
her account[1], which she cannot do until she regains control of the account.
She's at a stalemate right now.

[1] _" But now I just want out. I want my account deleted. I want the
bullshit, inaccurate pages Facebook creates about me without my consent gone,
too, but that’s just a bitter little joke for the ages, isn’t it? Facebook is
just going to do whatever the fuck it wants to me. And to you."_

~~~
phaemon
I did read the whole thing. Her goal _now_ is to get the account deleted. She
was trying to keep using the site before they asked for an official ID.

"Facebook is just going to do whatever the fuck it wants to me. And to you."

Perhaps, I don't know what Facebook is doing to me. I didn't delete my
account, I just stopped using it. It fact, I still get emails from them that
are redirected to a 'facebook' folder that I haven't checked in a while.

I'll check now. Hmm 1,558 unread messages...ok...

Oh well, if it was important, they would have phoned or emailed or something
:)

------
ikeboy
She's hardly the model of anti censorship:

 _In July 2008, Blue sought restraining orders against online critics David
Burch (aka Ben Burch) and Nina Alter to prohibit them from e-mailing her,
editing her Wikipedia page, or writing unkindly about her online._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Blue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Blue)

~~~
scrollaway
That's pretty shitty but how does it relate?

~~~
ikeboy
Part of the article was railing against Facebook for censorship.

~~~
toomuchtodo
A government or private company censors, private individuals libel and slander
(in this example).

------
jonesb6
"This is reality. This is not theory. This is not assertions on Hacker News
about how you must have something to hide if you want to keep something
private. This is not about a man in a position of power and influence, who has
industry privilege and respect for his wealth and status, at Google or
Facebook saying that anonymity, or multiple online identities, demotes a 'lack
of credibility’. We don’t care of you believe we’re credible, we just don’t
want your willful ignorance to ruin our lives or get us killed. This isn’t
about telling us that someone must have been targeting LGBT people that one
time – because, wouldn’t you know, you seem to have a new reason every year.
This isn’t about how many people were in your company’s Pride contingent, and
it damn well isn’t about jerking around a group of drag queens – who cope with
the suffering done by outing every day, and for fuck’s sake we’ve buried too
many people we love – for one of your little press appeasement moments. This
isn’t about YOUR beliefs, or what you think is best for us. This is about you
making us live in fear. This is about the fact that you have had a chance to
make it right repeatedly, and when faced with one kid saying no please don’t
publish my birth name – you looked away, again.
[https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=1020470...](https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=10204701697172621)
"

I normally avoid tumblr like the plague, but I chose to read this post. I
encourage anyone who reads this to view the full post to get complete context.

I thought it was raising some good points about Facebook's poor UX for account
recovery.. until I got to this paragraph. I feel that while there may be many
valid points to this article it is shrouded in certain biases and stigmas that
dilute the overall positive message it was trying to make in the first place.

~~~
MichaelGG
That link is strange. Person is using Facebook. They then voluntarily send
Facebook their _birth certificate_ and are bewildered and upset that Facebook
used that info and corrected (read: edited) their profile? I really dislike
Facebook but come on, you signed up for this. If you don't like Facebook's
policies (and you shouldn't), then don't use it. What gives anyone the right
to use someone else's service, then dictate how that service should work?

And even supposing we create some new privacy law, how would that even work?
The right to identify with any name? That can't be signed away at all?

~~~
wanorris
The birth certificate was not the only form of ID that person sent. Facebook
outed the past name of a transgender person -- that's never ok, and it's a
problem taken very seriously in the transgender community.

And yes, if you want, you could say that, well, trans people just shouldn't
use Facebook, but given the position Facebook occupies in our society in
practice, that's quite a statement.

Just as important, in cases like this, the damage has already been done --
potentially quite serious -- be the time the user might choose to abandon
Facebook over the problem.

Forcing trans people to provide a bunch of ID to use the site, outing them to
the world, and then saying whoops, sorry, but you can quit the site if you
don't like it -- that's not ok.

And your basic attitude seems to be that trans people's own fault for being
different from most people, so of course they should expect to see problems or
to just stay off of common services if they don't like those problems. This
attitude is part of the problem -- basic human empathy seems like it would
require a more considerate attitude than that.

~~~
hugh4
> Facebook outed the past name of a transgender person -- that's never ok, and
> it's a problem taken very seriously in the transgender community.

Why is that not okay?

I mean, if people want to change their names for whatever reason then that's
fine, but that doesn't mean that everybody is obliged to pretend that your old
name never existed.

If I were Hitler, living under an assumed name in Argentina, and somebody
outed me as actually being Hitler, would that be okay? (Pick a non-Hitler but
still criminal example if you prefer.)

~~~
scrollaway
Did GP really have to say "the past name of a non-criminal transgender person"
to carry their point?

This is a company we're talking about. And the person in question doesn't seem
to be a criminal. The name certainly wasn't outed because that person was a
criminal.

I'm shocked by the atrocious quality of the comments in this thread. There's
plenty to say about real name policies, yet all that people are coming up with
are ridiculous strawmen. Disturbing.

Edit: Scratch that last paragraph, I didn't realize most of the nasty comments
in the thread are in fact coming from _you_. You seem like a very unpleasant
person to deal with.

------
rdl
I respect her (disclaimer: I know her IRL from conferences and stuff) for not
doing the "hey, I know a Facebook employee" solution; that is almost always my
first response to problems with services, but doesn't scale, and doesn't help
the actually vulnerable people who don't know people.

------
powera
I'm sorry she had a bad experience (and if the situation was triggered by
something she posted that's horrible), but from a security point of view, if
the automatic security questions can't be answered and you can't provide an
"official government ID", the only way that you should be able to get access
back to your account is "from a favor from someone on the inside that knows
that you are you".

If there's any way that she can just say she's herself and skip the security
procedures on a regular basis, then they aren't security and anyone else can
just do the same thing to skip the procedures, so they might as well not even
have them.

~~~
panic
She's not saying that Facebook shouldn't have security procedures. She's
saying that Facebook's security procedures aren't designed properly and that
they don't work for her. Plenty of identity providers (she cites Apple's
policies in particular) have more reasonable ways of recovering your account.

~~~
danellis
She's saying they're not secure, but quite the opposite is true: they're _too_
secure.

------
late2part
I'm sorry to hear you don't agree with the Facbeook's policies. I agree with
most of what you wrote, including the right to privacy. The Facebook is an
advertising channel, and they make money by targeting ads. So, it's not
surprising they want to know more about you. Solution: Don't use the Facebook.

~~~
danellis
It hasn't been called "The Facebook" in ten years.

~~~
recursive
No. It still is. Just look at the comment you responded to.

------
MichaelGG
I've no idea why she's put up with FB for long. I've none of the issues she
has with Facebook, I just hate it on privacy reasons. So... I don't use it.

But if she's gotta use it just submit fake ID. Scan your license or passport,
and edit information. This works fine and there is nothing wrong with it.

Complaining about their security policies... Eh I'm gonna guess that FB
engineers probably want to protect user accounts as that's in their interest.
It doesn't help them to lock users out for no reason. FB is a private company,
and, as much as I dislike them, they can do whatever they want, including
requiring ID to login.

Though, I'd imagine you could file a lawsuit to force them to delete your
info, if they refuse to do so without ID. But that'd probably leak your ID in
the process.

~~~
danellis
> FB is a private company

Facebook is a public company. I'm surprised anyone reading HN would have
missed their rather high profile IPO.

~~~
baby
public means government owned

~~~
asuffield
Sorry, this is incorrect. There are several very similar sounding terms here,
which do not mean the same thing.

A "public company" or "publicly traded company" is a company traded on the
stock exchange.

A "state company", or "publicly owned company", or "public sector company" is
a company owned by a government and not traded at all.

The terms here are a regrettable accident of history, which often confuses
people.

------
jtoll
Whether you sympathize with her plight or think she's ridiculous, one
important issue remains for all Facebook users. Even if you quit using
Facebook, there's no assurance that Facebook will stop collecting data on you,
and there's no assurance that Facebook will purge data pertaining to you from
their database and website. In fact, it appears that your absence does nothing
to curtail their data collection, nor their fictional representation of you.
That is extremely problematic. Ideally ending one's account would end the data
collection and the data profile. Failing that, at a minimum, one's personal
data should no longer be displayed. Unfortunately Facebook's "security" policy
seems indifferent to the real-life well-being and personal security of their
current and former users.

~~~
techdragon
Having a profile you can "claim" is a feature, just look at IMDB actor
profiles if you want a more understandable example that's not reliant on
Facebook's creepy surveillance. It's not creepy to Facebook that they gather
the info ergo they see no reason to not create the absentee profile since to
them the profile is "look we've already done all this work for you" type bait
for the few remaining internet users not on Facebook.

~~~
jtoll
The entirety of your assertion is specious, but there's little value in
debating it. The simple fact is that when a user closes their account, they
should, at a minimum, be offered the ability to hide their profile from
display. Ideally, they would be offered the ability to delete the entirety of
their profile data. Facebook, as a company, is effectively stalking every man,
woman, and child on the face of this planet. That is not a feature, no matter
how much twisted double-speak you employ to justify their actions.

------
Spooky23
I'm sitting on my couch shaking my head because I fell for the bait and wasted
five minutes of my life reading a few paragraphs of attention seeking
nonsense.

Know what would help this person with whatever problem that they are having?
Getting to the point.

------
rdl
I don't get why Facebook doesn't do account recovery via email. The photo ID
your friends thing is ducking annoying; I have a hard time passing it.

I have the 2SV thing set on my account, so haven't seen the ID challenge in a
long time.

~~~
MichaelGG
Doesn't FB see itself against email and would prefer to be the replacement? FB
doesn't even allow reporting security issues without signing up. I found a
rather strong phishing attempt going on and had no way to report it. Oh well.

They might also have data that shows people often get email compromised at the
same time. Or that picking out faces works better (faster recovery?)

------
dates
friends and i have successfully evaded facebook's idiotic (read: trans-
exclusionary) "real" name policy by photoshopping the text of legal documents
on a few occasions. a laborious option! but worth considering.

~~~
dredmorbius
In my most recent review of random ID-generating tools (all I wanted were
plausible and random names and details), I found that many will now "generate"
documents -- state drivers licenses, passports, etc. -- which could presumably
be submitted.

Mind: that likely puts you solidly into fraud category.

------
mattkrea
I understand this is far from the point of this piece but interesting bit
anyway I think.. I don't agree with some of what she says (I've gone through
this account recovery process without issue since it's been in place for quite
a while--I deleted my account 2 or 3 years ago).

Twitter I expect to be a place where I am following strangers. Facebook on the
other hand.. I am very much surprised to see that she could not identify
people that she has 'friended' (the 'all black people look alike' Facebook bug
aside). Why click 'friend' if you don't actually know the person?

Again, I understand that is not the whole point of the article but it is worth
mentioning that Facebook has been pulling this stuff for years and for her to
get ticked off about this stuff _now_ seems a bit ridiculous.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_Why click 'friend' if you don't actually know the person?_

Perhaps someone is a relative in another country? Someone who you've never
seen in person, or maybe you met for a few minutes, 30 years ago.

That's the situation with me. I created a Facebook account years ago but never
used it. I recently logged in again to contact a particular individual. I had
13 friend requests pending. Which I accepted, even though I didn't "know" the
people.

Those people were my cousins in another country, and their spouses, and their
children, etc. Other members of my extended family interact with them, even
though I don't.

So should I refuse their friend requests? No. Facebook is for more than
friends that you can identify. It's a way to keep in (loose?) contact with
distant relatives.

I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons why people "friend" people they
don't "actually know". The real world isn't as simple as you suggest.

------
Camillo
Why doesn't Facebook use the social graph to verify identity? Have the user
contact their Facebook friends and let those friends vouch for them. Weighing
friends by length of friendship, frequency of interaction, etc. so that you
cannot verify your account using sockpuppets.

~~~
jonesb6
What would be the implications of such a system when accounts are compromised
(as they so frequently are)?

~~~
Camillo
You mean all of your friends' accounts and yours being compromised at the same
time?

------
rch
I thought the obvious problems with forcing the issue with real names online
was well known at this point, and that pseudonymous participation was
generally accepted.

Is this really an accurate interpretation of FB policy?

------
baby
> Facebook’s account security is apparently based on its users knowing what
> every one of of its friends looks like (do you?) …

Well yeah. You're supposed to be able to recognise your friends in that test
if it's really your account. I don't see what is the problem? I've passed
these tests several time, you are presented with 6 different pictures for each
friend (so it's hard to fail) and you can re-pass the test several times with
different friends if you fail the first times.

I stopped reading after that. Why would I read about someone ranting about her
fake facebook account being locked?

~~~
asuffield
It works well for the way a lot of people use facebook, and very poorly for
the way some people use facebook. There's a baked in assumption that you only
"friend" people who you can identify from their photos.

(This one isn't a fake account, it's a "professional" account, so she's
"friends" with a lot of people that she only emails for work purposes and has
never met)

For a hilarious example of how this can fail, a guy I used to work with has a
facebook account for his pet bird. It is friends with the pet birds of lots of
other people. I was present on the occasion when he forgot the password to
this account, and spent quite some time trying to guess the names of birds
from their photos.

Facebook has a fallback authentication mechanism of showing them some
government-issued ID (which could have worked for Violet Blue, and not for my
colleague's bird).

~~~
parennoob
> This one isn't a fake account, it's a "professional" account, so she's
> "friends" with a lot of people that she only emails for work purposes and
> has never met

In fairness, I don't think this is a model that Facebook can easily cater to,
given that the express purpose of their site is to map relationships between
groups of people what know each other in real life, and to use that
information to show them ads. Not saying that I approve of that, but it'll be
pretty hard for them to differentiate between a fake account trying to scam
people, and this person who can't identify her Facebook friends.

LinkedIn, or better still, actual email would be far more appropriate for such
work related purposes and also not fall into the "real name" crap policy.

~~~
scrollaway
> In fairness, I don't think this is a model that Facebook can easily cater to

It's not a model they're asked to _cater to_ , it's a model they _break_ with
a poorly-thought-out verification mechanism.

It's NOT ABSURD to be friends with people whose face you don't know. And I
know a _lot_ of people with HUNDREDS if not thousands of friends on facebook,
most whose names they certainly do not remember.

~~~
baby
Seems completely absurd to me. You are supposed to know what your friends look
like (aren't they called friends?)

~~~
mcphage
There's _friends_ , and there's "Facebook friends". In reality people have
thousands of different relations between people, and nuances to those
relationships. Facebook has two-you're either "Friends", or "not Friends".
Needless to say, this is a tremendously leaky abstraction. Thus, don't assume
that because two people are Facebook friends, that their relationship in any
way resemble friendship.

~~~
baby
you're playing on words. If you add someone on facebook, it's because you know
them.

~~~
mcphage
> you're playing on words

The words we use to describe our relationships are important, and the fact
that Facebook flattens them all down to two is a significant issue. Especially
when we have people who don't understand that, and seem confused why people
are "Facebook friends", but not _actually_ friends.

> it's because you know them

Sure, but that doesn't mean I know what they look like.

------
icewater0
When the crying person gets this all resolved, perhaps the crying person will
want to consider alternatives to Facebook, such as diaspora*.

~~~
dredmorbius
"The alternative" is almost certain not to be _an_ alternative Web-based
service, but a set of protocols allowing for interactions between independent
and independently hosted systems.

Diaspora was a valient effort, but sadly, appears quite doomed (I was an early
fan and user).

~~~
alexschleber
From everything I've seen/read during the security research phase for my
project, trusting in the computational/security integrity of endless P2P nodes
is not a road I want to go down.

There really is nothing _a priori_ wrong with the centralized system, PROVIDED
said system/operator makes strong Privacy / Data Sovereignity guarantees from
the word go.

~~~
dredmorbius
Fair point. It's not necesarily the case that you'd see extensively P2P nodes.
But again, a distributed _protocol_ based system would allow for local
supernodes, competently administered, to exist.

There's also the issue that client nodes, under _any_ model, _also_ require
security updates and practices. The universal P2P model really isn't far from
that, and certain auto-updating models seem arguably preferable to present
offerings.

------
mirimir
It's sad :(

Mirimir might like a Facebook account, but then he doesn't have a phone or
government ID. So he's just shit outta luck. He could maybe get some usable
fake ID. But Facebook isn't so easy to trick with online mobile numbers.

But then, who needs Facebook?

Edit: I'm agreeing with the author that Facebook can't be trusted to keep
disclosed information private. My point here is that the only reliable
strategy is to avoid providing true identity. And Facebook makes that
virtually impossible.

------
awakeasleep
I'd like to see a wiki documenting the harm that comes from Facebook, sort of
like how [https://reddit.com/r/gunsarecool](https://reddit.com/r/gunsarecool)
documents mass shootings.

Violet Blue is lucky because she has a platform and her problems will get
notice. Everyone else just deals with their life quietly, and we the public
don't get a good grasp of the problem.

~~~
hugh4
> Everyone else just deals with their life quietly

And it works out great for most of us.

Want to deal with facebook? Use facebook. Don't want to deal with facebook?
Don't use facebook. Not that tricky.

~~~
MichaelGG
Nah, it's beneficial for people to publicly complain about things like this.
So long the claims are true or reasonable it's good to pressure companies into
changing bad policies.

Only thing I'd question is that she's had to "bury" a lot of people due to FB
and that there's such a dangerous threat to her safety from this. It could be
true (especially in years past or in shitty countries) just seems
extraordinary and should have citations. I'd be surprised if FB tricked users
into revealing personal information, got them killed, and wasn't sued like
crazy.

------
5ilv3r
Fuck facebook. If you do not agree with the
platform................................

------
wutbrodo
> facebook’s account security is apparently based on its users knowing what
> every one of of its friends looks like (do you?)

This isn't central to the post or anything, but uh, is this really that
uncommon...?

~~~
bhrgunatha
People accept friends requests on Facebook and social media sites from people
they don't know all the time. Some seem to treat it like a game - how many
friends they can collect. Others because of peer pressure or not wanting to
miss out on work related opportunities and a whole host of other reasons.

Social media relationships are _not_ equivalent as your offline friends,
relatives and acquaintances.

~~~
wutbrodo
Thanks for being mature enough to actually answer my question, as opposed to
those who just downvoted.

I can honestly say I wasn't aware of that mode of usage. It seems alittle
counterproductive, though I suppose you can always depend on Facebooks feed
ranking to not show you posts from all the randos.

------
marincounty
Well, in this case, Facebook indirectly gave Violet Blue a lot of new media
exposure? I had no clue to her existence until now.

I don't like Facebook, but in this case, I'm glad FB didn't cave in and give
Violet Blue her account back--just because 'She has a friend at FB'. I don't
like inside special favors.

~~~
wanorris
1\. Violet Blue has been a reasonably widely published journalist for many
years now. Her bylines include CNet and the SF Chronicle, and she's written or
edited a couple of dozen books. She writes both about sexuality and
technology, and sometimes about the ways in which they overlap.

2\. Your reading comprehension has failed you. Several different people at
Facebook offered to do her inside special favors and she chose to decline that
because she doesn't like that kind of thing either.

