It Started with a Book Recommendation
A friend suggested I read Careless People, a sort of exposé penned by Facebook’s global public policy director. A former diplomat, Sarah Wynn-Williams began her relationship with Facebook, now Meta, a few years after I did. Whereas I was a mere user in those early heady days of finding old friends and getting to know new ones, Wynn-Williams joined its upper level staff, jetting around the world with Facebook’s founder/CEO and his COO, the Lean In woman.
Wynn-Williams pitched Facebook executives that her skills as a diplomat would be necessary as the company continued to globalize. Indeed, the company began to have outsized influence everywhere, and thought-through policies would be necessary. During her tenure and beyond, and in country after country, those vying for power could be made winners or losers depending on the action (or inaction) that came from Facebook policy (of lack of).
The author titled her book after an F Scott Fitzgerald quote in The Great Gatsby:
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
In short, Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism is about billionaires behaving badly. Once a person has enough power, there’s no need—or way—to be held accountable.* You can bet that the powers-that-be really don’t want stories from the inner circle of the upper echelon told.
I began to think about my engagement with Facebook since I’d first logged on in 2007. Giant swaths of humanity have become addicted to Facebook not just for connection, but also for news, commerce, and dopamine hits. Including me. Was it in my own interest to stay engaged with what had become hours and hours of mindless scrolling?
* “It’s not that the wealthy become evil; it’s that their environment stops teaching them the things that nonwealthy people are forced to learn simply by living in a world that pushes back.” — Filmmaker and author Noah Hawley in a recent article in The Atlantic
Next Came Poop
The word Enshittification kept showing up in my podcast and article feeds. Coined by Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification: Why Everything Got Worse and What to Do About It, the term refers to how platforms start great but then decay.
“First they’re good to users, then they abuse users to serve business customers, then they abuse everyone to claw back value for themselves” (source).
Obviously, Facebook is not alone in enshittifying things, but it was first in line for me to consider due to the book I had just read.
From Mindlessness...
Sure, my attention span was fried. Isn’t everyone’s? I couldn’t watch an entire episode of Schitt’s Creek (only 22 min!) without pausing it to check my Facebook feed. After reading just few pages of a novel—a good one—I’d set the book down to open Instagram for a quick check-in, which was never actually quick. The urge to scroll, to be in the know, to feel connected to friends—as well as to people who don’t even know I exist—was strong. You might say compulsive.
I decided to try to take back my ability to focus my attention cold turkey. I logged out of both Meta platforms, Facebook and Instagram, on all my devices and vowed not to log back in for at least a week.
The first few days were rough! No tremors, but I did feel panicky and out of sorts, like I should be doing something I wasn’t doing. It was hard to keep my focus on the thing I was doing and not reach for a nearby device.
...To Mindfulness
But day by day, the pull to the Meta’s platforms waned. It felt like I had wrested control back of the parts of my brain that social networks spend tons of money discovering how to hijack. Turns out that controlling people’s brains is worth tons more money.
I logged back in at the week mark, but only long enough to see if I had any meaningful notifications (I didn’t) and to scroll a moment or so just to see what was at the top of my feed, presumably deemed most important to me (or, more likely, most profitable to Meta).
I decided to repeat that week again. And then again. It kept getting easier. Winter turned to spring and I’d spent nearly two months living more in my offline life and less in my online head. I hadn’t realized the portion of my thoughts that were consumed with what I might post and what others had posted.
My experiment was a success. I had found a recipe for how to use social media rather than allow it use me. And that felt good.
Then this happened
Days later, my plan went awry. I logged in to be greeted by this message, first on Facebook and then by its equivalent on Instagram.
My account had been disabled by Facebook. No more personal or professional accounts.
I tried Instagram and saw that I’d been disabled there, too.
Panic set in. OMG, am I really losing 19 years of content, of documenting nearly 2 decades of my life? Can I no longer access the thousands of conversations I’ve had with people (some of them dear but no longer alive)? Was it all gone, the photos and stories and observations I’d shared, in these places I can’t get back to? What about the life-preservers Friends offered me and my family when Dominic was killed—all gone just like that? UNTHINKABLE.
I saw I had options. Surely this could be fixed. First I’ll hit the Download button to get my content and then I’ll go to the Help Center to straighten everything out.
AbsurdoWorld
I soon found out that “Download your information” does not mean “download your content.” The zip files that Facebook and Instagram provided were NOT the content I’d created and wanted to preserve, but instead my ad preferences, a random profile pic from Halloween 2009, a random cover pic from 2016, and a dozen other photos that offer no clue to why they made the cut and thousands of others didn’t.
Oh, and Facebook included its logo in the download. How thoughtful.
Next I went to the Help Center
Since I’d gone directly to jail, did not pass Go or collect $200, it was dawning on me that Meta somehow thinks I have done something super-duper egregiously villainous. Surely I can clear this up with an appeal, as suggested.
But know what the first step is in appealing? LOGGING IN. Know what I cannot do at this point? LOG IN.
SpamBanning: Banished but Far From Alone
So I start searching for a way out of my predicament and discover that I am not the only long-time user this has happened to.
Was this mere AI ineptitude, or something more sinister?
If it’s a mistake, will it be corrected? If it’s a shake-down, should I pay up to regain access?
Either way, it’s clearly enshittification. Through users’ addiction to Facebook, there are ingenious and numerous ways to make our addiction profitable. Think Big Tobacco (there is no evidence that cigarettes cause cancer!), vape companies (candy flavors and cartoon packaging are not “marketing to children!”), and sports betting (your first bet free!).
Injury? Meet Insult.
Yesterday I received this email:
So with one hand Meta delegitimizes me personally and professionally (my account as an author/speaker/coach was also disabled). While the other hand dangles legitimization—as long as I pay a monthly fee.
I’ll pass on the offer, Meta. Just like a Las Vegas casino, the House always wins. Your long game has been to turn me from a person into a user into a commodity.
Pretty poopy of you.
In Conclusion
I’m resigned to the sad fact that all my content and connections on Meta are gone. Even though I may have lost contact with a thousand Friends, I still have my friends.
And yet, don’t mistake my choosing to be philosophical and resilient for not experiencing loss and harm. There is a legal response to this mass action brewing and I would consider joining and lending my voice.
So those of you still able to login to Meta, I ask: do you have a Friend you haven’t seen around in awhile? Check on them; they may not be OK. (On the other hand, they might be better than OK!)
One more question. What evidence have you seen of increasing enshittification with Meta or other tech platforms? I have to ask here because I can’t ask there!
Post Script: Two More Places I Don't Exist
Seems I am also persona non grata elsewhere. LinkedIn won’t let me back on without showing my driver’s license. And when I checked in on Twitter for the first time since a few months after its takeover by a near-trillionaire, I see all my content is gone from there, too.
If we were connected on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter/X (back when it was run by mere millionaires) and if you’d like to keep in touch, please do so by email. If you don’t already have my email address, please use the contact form on this site and I’ll reach back out to you.
Happy life, Friends. I hope to see you again soon, friends.
Resources
- Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams
- “Meta’s Response to Explosive Tell-All Is Ripped From a Familiar PR Playbook” in Vanity Fair
- The film The Social Network
- Enshittification: Why Everything Got Worse and What to Do About It by Corey Doctorow
- CBS News report, “More Facebook, Instagram users say accounts wrongly banned over ‘sickening’ allegations with no explanation“
- How Social Media Hacks Our Brains via Center for Humane Technology
- Social media platforms love it when you’re outraged
2 Responses
Lori, I am so sorry to hear this. And angry. Something similar happened to my FB account, different, but infuriating and baffling. It’s such a violation…like someone broke into your home and stole things of value, pictures, memories, etc. And you’re left standing there, thinking WTF, with no recourse.
Holding you while you stew and fret …and get through this stupid challenge.
Thank you for understanding so well, Jo, and I’m sorry that you do! That is a perfect analogy of how it feels.
xo