[updated 21 February 2022]
It has been a long time since I was last reminded how small and insignificant I am. In spite of its pretensions to virtue and social responsibility, Facebook is really just the modern face of corporate greed and manipulation, vices which it pretend to despise. I need to use it as I originally started out doing, to make connections — (I’m still “bumping into” old childhood acquaintances) — and just stay clear of its bulldozer blade.
David A. Woodbury, 14 December 2021
THIS THIEF, FRAUD, AND FACEBOOK EMPLOYEE DOES NOT VIOLATE META/FACEBOOK’S “COMMUNITY STANDARDS” – a personal experience
Some years ago Facebook invited me to create a page — a space, distinct from my profile, where I might feature a hobby or business. And so I did. When it had enough “Likes” Facebook assigned it the URL (universal resource locator) of my choice. Thus, https://www.facebook.com/RegisteredMaineGuide became my first page. At the time, I was actively making a little money as a guide in fishing, hunting, and wilderness exploring.
Later, I created the page /ProverbialBeer for my beer-making hobby, /MaineMapleSyrup for that hobby, and then /BabieNayms and /ColdMorningShadow for two of the books that I’ve written. All of these were contained in my /woodbury.david Facebook account.
Nowadays Facebook invites us to compose a “story” of some sort, join a chat, join a group, set up a business identity, and more. I have added a business identity, but mostly I avoid those confusing digressions. The whole Facebook experience now feels like navigating a Maine coast fog in an ill-equipped trawler.
Through the years I have followed all of Facebook’s recommendations for keeping my account secure. On November 17, 2021, however, my account was hacked by someone in the Philippines with the email address vergiemhle@outlook.com. I reported this as soon as I discovered it, and two days later Facebook restored my profile to me after I held my driver’s license up to my computer’s camera and let them take a picture of it.
I was grateful and went back to Facebook-as-usual until December 4th. It was then that I discovered I was no longer the administrator of /RegisteredMaineGuide or any of my other Facebook “pages.”
Facebook — or Meta, as we are now asked to call its parent company — believes they resolved the November 17th hack. I tried reporting the newly-discovered problem with my pages, (and in case you think you get to describe the problem, you’re mistaken), but I was led again and again around the same circle: Secure my account by changing my password. I followed through a couple times, getting dizzy with the ‘round-and-‘round, so I began looking for another way to request help.
I did some more digging into the settings for my compromised pages and found lists of people who had been assigned “admin” privileges in each one, reducing me to “analyst” on each of them — in other words, no control. I took screen shots.
In some of its “help” guidance Facebook asked how they could improve their support, adding that they would welcome screen shots. Since there is no way to report hacked and stolen “pages” separately from a hacked account, and since they think they have resolved the hacked account, I tried explaining the difference in 500 characters or less through the improve-our-support interface. I did this again and again, asking that someone please respond to me about it. Facebook sometimes presented a box on the screen cautioning me that this is not the place to report a problem and that I will not receive a reply.
I continued daily assaults on the AI (artificial intelligence/absolute ignorance) of Facebook’s support services, unattended by human eyes, for about a week. During this time I looked up several of the names who had been granted admin privileges in my pages. I settled on one who appeared most often and who seems to have a genuine active Facebook account/profile of his own, Phạm Linh, in Vietnam. Ironically, he claims to work for Meta. Aha! — I thought — Facebook will certainly want to know this — he’s made himself the admin of my pages, also appears as my “friend,” and he pretends to be a Meta employee and even links his profile to meta.com.
I found a link on Phạm Linh’s profile to report a suspicious account, so I clicked it. There was no option to provide supporting details. I could only click Pretending to Be Someone Else (among other options) and then click Submit. I did and waited a few hours. Sure enough, Facebook replied that this person’s profile does not appear to violate their “community standards.” And since his profile says he’s one of their own and making that claim doesn’t violate their standards, then I must accept that as Facebook admission that Phạm Linh is indeed their own employee. I tried again a day later using a different violation from their list (Harassment). Same result.
I tried this approach as well on the profile of Jeonard Balmaceda Jimenez, another unauthorized admin on one of my pages who also claims to be employed by Facebook. Same result. I tried reporting Violation of Intellectual Property. That’s also acceptable in their community standards.
Phạm Linh’s most recent timeline post is from November 6th, so I thought maybe he doesn’t look at his profile very often, but on December 12th I composed a polite message to him nevertheless. Since my screen shot of the message thread is restricted to a tiny box, here you will see a screen shot of the part showing his reply followed by a transcript of the entire exchange.
Here’s what I know so far:
- Phạm Linh works for Facebook — Meta has confirmed this. (Claiming so on his profile meets with their community standards. Who is this “community” by the way? Clearly it doesn’t include me.)
- As a Meta/Facebook employee, Phạm Linh bought my pages from some source that sells Facebook identities.
- With Facebook’s permission, Phạm Linh is demanding a ransom. (The amount that would satisfy him is unspecified, nor am I going to ask the price.) If I pay him, separately from his Meta salary, he will return control to me.
- Meta/Facebook has no option within its “support” system whereby I can reach a human being, by email, chat, phone, message, or any other means.
- Meta’s web site lists no contact information — no main office address or phone number. It does provide one email address, press@fb.com, for “press inquiries.” (What’s a press inquiry?)
To survive in the wilderness such as the forest that surrounds my home, an animal that is not, in some combination, cunning, camouflaged, cautious, or vicious will not survive. The internet is a wilderness. To a predator in another part of the world, an American is a fat, bumbling meal to be pounced upon and consumed. That is Phạm Linh’s perspective. (Given that I was an American GI during the Vietnam war, he is doubly justified, I suppose.)
To survive in the city you must be some combination of chic, undefinable, unapproachable, or evasive. Facebook is a quintessential city creature. With its fashionable transformation to Meta it has reinforced, among its qualities, the arrogance of unapproachableness. I have been violated in their boudoir. Facebook cannot be approached with my complaint. But Facebook still invites me to create a story. OK. Here it is (but not using the “story” format).
It remains unresolved. If you have pages in Facebook, be warned now that they are for sale by Facebook employees and you can pay the ransom to get them back — maybe. These pages which I created are no longer my own. I cannot add to, modify, or delete them.
https://www.facebook.com/davidandrewwoodbury (for publisher DamnYankee.com)
https://www.facebook.com/ColdMorningShadow
https://www.facebook.com/ProverbialBeer
https://www.facebook.com/RegisteredMaineGuide
https://www.facebook.com/MaineMapleSyrup
https://www.facebook.com/BabieNayms
These screen shots tell the rest of the story…
This story, with all its screen shots, still resides on my Facebook profile, https://www.facebook.com/woodbury.david/, with numerous comments. Among the comments are a couple of telephone numbers that one friend suggested might reach the company. I tried one. It did reach a recorded menu at Facebook telling all callers that they must search the Facebook web site for answers. I didn’t bother with the second phone number.
I did compose a letter with the necessary details and mailed it to the physical address that appears on their web site, 1101 Dexter Avenue N, Seattle, Washington. Ten days later I sent a second one just asking how they were coming on my request. Both letters were returned as undeliverable. I suppose that I too could refuse to accept all mail and refuse as well to be contacted in any way. And I could pretend at the same time to be a friendly entity that encourages people to communicate with one another.
On the supposition that, since Meta’s web site invites press inquiries sent to the email address, press@fb.com, I assumed that there might be an email address, legal@fb.com. Therefore, I composed a message, included the URL for this article, and sent it off from the email address associated with my Facebook account. It bounced back immediately with this caveat:
Your message to legal@fb.com couldn’t be delivered. legal@fb.com only accepts messages from people in its organization or on its allowed senders list, and your email address isn’t on the list. -How to Fix It- It appears you aren’t in the same organization as the recipient or your email address isn’t on their allowed senders list. Contact the person you’re sending your message to (by phone, for example) and tell them to ask their email admin to change the settings on their mailbox so it will accept messages from you. Was this helpful?
Frankly, I no longer care. For most people, it appears that Facebook is viewed with the same love and respect that they afford the IRS and the insurance industry, to name two of our other necessary evils.
It has been a long time since I was last reminded how small and insignificant I am. In spite of its pretensions to virtue and social responsibility, Facebook is really just the modern face of corporate greed and manipulation. I need to use it as I originally started out doing, to make connections — (I’m still “bumping into” old childhood acquaintances) — and just stay clear of its bulldozer blade.
Update, 13 March 2022
Albert Jay Nock 
Mr. Woodbury tells a most fascinating story here. I have long known that Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg is an evil enterprise. I no longer use Facebook as it is managed by dishonest and corrupt people. Mr. Woodbury’s story is but one piece of the millions of pieces of evidence establishing the corrupt character of Facebook. If you want to protect yourself, leaving Facebook may be a good idea.