Story of disabled Facebok Account covered by local news

Today, I received a link from a follower of this blog to a story which was posted on the WILX News 10 website concerning a Blackman Township resident whose account was disabled by Facebook after it had been broken into by a hacker. According to the new story, she had learned from Facebook about both the hacking and the disabling of her account.

“To protect you, your profile is not visible to people on Facebook and you can not use your account,” said Whitehead. Whitehead said she’s frustrated trying to get back into her account since.

She had attempted to reset her password, but has not been able to because the password reset link is being sent to a different email address. She has tried to reach out to Facebook but has not received any response. She’s even reached out to Mark Zuckerberg.

WILX10 also noted that the Blackman Township Public Safety Department had also run into issues with Facebook which had forced it to start a new page. Facebook had not been helpful to them either.

The news station had tried contacting Facebook, but hadn’t gotten a response by the time the story was published.

Overall, this story sounds very familiar to me, since I am basically in the same boat. I feel as though Facebook came down a little harder on me, considering that they straight up shut down my account without giving me an opportunity to reset my password.

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I am sending the following letter to the reporter who wrote the story:

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Cody,

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I read your news article covering a local resident whose account has been disabled by Facebook after it was taken over by a hacker. I had a similar experience a week ago, and my Facebook account is still disabled despite all of my best efforts. I do not know if my own account was accessed by hackers because Facebook did not share this information, but the header and profile images on a page I manage for the Shepherd Maple Syrup Festival had been altered.

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Initially, when I first attempted to log into my account in order to change the images on the SMSF page, Facebook asked me to verify my identity by uploading picture ID. I did so, but then it immediately displayed this message:

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You can’t use Facebook because your account, or activity on it, didn’t follow our Community Standards. We have already reviewed this decision and it can’t be reversed. To learn more about the reasons we disable accounts visit the Community Standards.

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This totally doesn’t make any sense, because I know that I didn’t post anything offensive during the time preceding when my account was possibly hacked. Most likely, Facebook is reacting to either the changes that were made to the festival business page, or to other posts that I do not have knowledge of.

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Like the individual in your news article, my Facebook account had been important to me because it allowed me to stay up-to-date on local and community news, posts from friends or family, and allowed me to share outward to my network. But, most importantly it was where a lot of my pictures and memories were stored from the last ten years. My son, Josh, passed away April 2, and I was really enjoying the photos of him when he was younger which would pop up in my timeline. It would be a huge blow if I was never able to access my account again.

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I wanted to share my story in the hopes that you might be able to mention me when or if you hear back from Facebook. There are a lot of other people who have found that their accounts have been disabled for unclear reasons by Facebook. Some have gone to extreme lengths to try to get their accounts reactivated, such as reaching out through job application links and purchasing an Oculus just so they would have access to better user support.

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I am also documenting my efforts to gain back my account on a blog at http://www.gazerbeam.com and I’ve started a hashtag on Twitter under #Return2Facebook.

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Thanks,

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Jon Morgan

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I am hoping that I can increase my chances of reaching Facebook if I can associate my story with others who are having a similar problem.

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