I've had Facebook accounts with hundreds of friends, hundreds of thousands of incoming and outgoing messages, going back over 10 years.. disabled with no warning nor explanation, nor way to even access my own information.
Some people may say "well too bad".
It's not so simple.
Here is a real example. Lately I have been using my completely legitimate facebook account to chat with a woman who lives 2000 miles away. I had lost touch with her for about 5 months, but regained it last month. Her husband.. whom she had known for 10 years, since the age of 18 (she is now 28).. committed suicide 3 months ago with no warning. He was just 30 years old. He had a good job, friends, parents who talked with him weekly, etc. It has left this woman DEVASTATED. She has been diagnosed with a borderline personality, and is regularly seeing both a psychiatrist and psychologist. She is on the brink.
Just last week, this woman finally opened up to me about her husband, and his suicide.. and I am pretty sure I'm the only non-relative that she has confided in.
What do you suppose must be going through this woman's head, when she suddenly is no longer getting messages from me, and can no longer send me messages?
I wonder just how many lives have been destroyed by Facebook because they terminated accounts… severing ties between people.. I would not be surprised to find out that this woman has committed suicide - because her contact with me has been cut off.
That is just one real-life example of the consequences of Facebook's actions.
I have also noticed that quite a few accounts of people I used to chat with have vanished.. not just gone inactive.. but have been disabled.
In another real-life example.. About 6 years ago, there was a murder which was big news in another country. I commented heavily, and very intuitively about that case the day it broke. My comments were my speculation at the time, turned out to be 100% accurate 3 years later. At the time, the real killer started taunting me every few hours, often in live chat in "Messenger". The man was a raving lunatic. He said quite a few incriminating things that sounded absurd at the time, but which turned out to be TRUE 3 years later. He told me things that ONLY the killer could know, and were not revealed until 3 years later in the trial. The man confessed to the crime.. after someone else got charged with the crime. The man continued taunting me for months after the other man was in custody. I didn't know until about a year later who this anonymous person was who was taunting me. This man who had several social networking accounts, Facebook, various blogs, even a website.. was posting constantly.. every day.. for many years. But then one day, he abruptly stopped. I expected him to eventually pop back up somewhere.. but he did not. He lived IN the building where the murder was committed, but moved out as soon as he could. I found out where he moved to, but he's not there anymore either. I expected him to pop back up.. but he has not. That was about 5 years ago. I don't exclude any possibilties, but.. take your pick #1 he was murdered to silence him #2 he committed suicide #3 he is in hiding. He was not that old.. and he was quite famous for a movie he made decades ago co-starring with an actress whose name almost ALL of you would recognize. Nobody who knew the man has any idea what became of him. I often though.. "fine, doesn't matter if he is dead or in hiding.. i have his confession.. when the time is right, I will deal with this". Well, guess what.. HIS facebook account VANISHED sometime last year. How am I supposed to prove anything when both his account and my account have been not only disabled, but made inaccessible by Facebook? There is a man sitting in prison who will most likely spend the remainder of his life in prison.. which could be 50 years.. who is completely innocent.. because of Facebook!
How the hell does one even CONTACT facebook? Or Youtube for that matter. I usually get no response.. and when I do get a response, it is some automated form letter saying basically "we have decided not to re-enable your account". I don't even get THAT anymore.
One could say.. "well don't use Facebook". That is easy to say.. however if the killer is using facebook, I am forced to use facebook. For those of you with functional brain cells, you might remember that up until about 6 years ago, youtube had a very good system for sending and receiving messages, even private ones. They discontinued that and made it virtually impossible to communicate using Youtube. That is why I began using Facebook to begin with. This was not long after the virtual demise of Myspace 9 years ago.
Here's a thought.. why didn't MySpace ever sue the pants off of Facebook? MySpace was first. MySpace does still exist. They have a very similar functionality.
