Friend
Murphy, ever deaf to my pleas, has partnered with technology and upped our
dysfunctional game. I now stand accused of not being who I say I am.
One of
my Facebook accounts was disabled for “pretending to be someone else”. My
account (and by extension, I) was deemed bogus. Without due process or hearing,
I was abruptly ejected from that back-fence-around-the-world that I enjoy so
much.
The
initial shock morphed into something akin to loss, or maybe a form of
existential crisis. It felt like my friends were all in the local hangout
together because they were the cool kids who knew the secret code, and I -
well, I was not. I was stuck on the outside, knocking on the door and looking for a keyhole.
Soon,
the Five Stages of Facebook Loss set in.
Negotiation
A simple
mistake, I thought. I have - sorry, had - two accounts. One for family and old friends; the other for colleagues, business
friends, and my professional groups. Someone must have seen my picture on both
pages and decided one was Me and the other was Not Me.
So I
wrote to The Facebook Team (as the notice was signed) and explained the
situation.
The next
morning, I received an email from Adele Gisell at Facebook. They could do nothing
until I submitted the correct documentation. I sent a copy of my license to
Ms. Gisell and moved into the next step.
Anxiety
Who did
this to me? Who jumped to that conclusion and why didn't they talk to me first?
Did I leave anyone mid-conversation? Did they now think I didn't care? Life was
being shared and I wasn’t part of it. Did they miss me?
An email
from Donnatella Oceans at Facebook dropped into my box. It was identical to the
email received earlier. I submitted a copy of my passport (duly redacted) and
moved on.
Irritation
Facebook
said that a friend had reported me as an imposter. Some friend! And what's with
the form letters, Facebook? And those were my photographs and memories
and conversations with old friends. Mine, Facebook, not yours. At least give a little
warning!
The next
email, this time from Dezfara H'ghar, was identical to the previous emails and
confirmed my suspicion that I was dealing with algorithms, not people. There
was no human intelligence examining my documents; just a program, a two-dimensional
robot designed to scan for certain patterns. The irony of a pretend customer
service agent telling me that I was pretend was not lost on me.
Scheming
If you
can't beat ‘em, join ‘em, the saying goes. In their lack of sentience, the
programs could only search for patterns. So patterns they would have. For the
disabled Facebook account I had used my original surname and my current one in
order to be more easily identified by old friends; none of my legitimate
documents contain that set of names. I would provide them with fake documents
to beat a charge of being fake myself.
The
following morning, I received an email (this time signed Blue Dela Cruz). It
was the same form letter as before. Apparently, they can recognize fake documents
but not real ones.
Resignation
Today, I
quit what is arguably an excellent metaphor for our current political times.
Despite all the busy back-and-forth, no one is accepting solutions that work
for all parties. Questions are asked with little to no attempt to understand the
problem. All responses are considered fake, regardless of any truth they may
contain.
So
today I quit trying to move the massive machine.
I'm taking action: not
against but forward. Getting back in the game. Reestablishing connections.
Reentering the social exchange. Because unless we make the effort ourselves,
nothing happens.
And
while it may feel like no one is ever really listening, I know that isn't true.
Murphy.
Murphy
is always listening.
Ó Carol Shaw 2018
How infuriating!
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