from Hacker News

Facebook deactivated account after it advocated decentralized social networks

by telltruth on 1/23/21, 3:38 AM with 30 comments

  • by uniqueid on 1/23/21, 5:21 AM

    We do not live on a planet where Facebook noticed this person because of his advocacy of 'decentralized social networks'

    In fact, the reason I hate Facebook and social media so much is that they enable patently stupid theories like this to gain traction.

  • by bootlooped on 1/23/21, 5:14 AM

    Before people jump to conclusions, does anybody really believe decentralized social networks pose any significant threat to Facebook's market share?

  • by dalrympm on 1/23/21, 5:18 AM

    Without more information about what policy was being violated, it smells like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

  • by newscracker on 1/23/21, 8:04 AM

    I’ve seen Facebook and Instagram ban accounts that have neutral content, have never posted about violence or posted lies (luxuries that Facebook offers to politicians) and have not threatened or trolled or spammed others. In all the cases I’ve seen, there has been no recourse available to get the account back. The person hits a few walls of boilerplate responses and gives up.

    In some cases, like this one, Facebook or Instagram will ask for identity proof, and once collected, will still send boilerplate responses that the account can’t be activated. It’s not surprising that Facebook collected his ID and still refused to help.

    As for Facebook engineers solving complex problems with machine learning, I don’t see evidence of that. If anything, Facebook has huge disconnected code bases filled with bugs and biases that nobody can understand or do anything about.

    This is good riddance in a way. That Facebook and Instagram are removing users who may have stayed as decent people bringing others to engage on these platforms is a net positive to society.

  • by elipsey on 1/23/21, 4:20 AM

    and we are learning about this on twitter. hope they let it slide...

    https://redecentralize.org/

  • by frabcus on 1/23/21, 7:11 AM

    Is having a Facebook account randomly banned common these days? Does anyone measure this?

    The consequences are quite scary, and we have no means to recover from it - control is from remote people in another country, with no means of complaint.

    If we're going to have monopoly social networks, we at least need regulation imposing the extensive cost on them of manual vetting with judicial review for cases like this.

  • by wmf on 1/23/21, 6:21 AM

    Fortunately he can now appeal to the oversight board. I look forward to reading their decision.

  • by cudgy on 1/23/21, 5:12 AM

    Poor grammar in this title. Reads like Facebook advocates for decentralized social networks. Replace “it” with “user”.

  • by soloninja on 1/23/21, 4:53 AM

    Powers to be feel threatened by decentralized social networks. Even though it is already out and growing.

  • by seneca on 1/23/21, 5:23 AM

    The irony of this being posted on Twitter really takes away from the message they're trying to communicate.