| Surviving Facebook: A true story showcasing the value of abstraction and redundancy in your business model |
But, I am on Facebook
People wonder why I am not on Facebook. I will tell you why. Because I am on Facebook and they keep blocking me. I don't know what I am doing to trigger their security and they have not explained it to me (in fact, nobody has responded or talked to me yet). I have two logins - two email addresses. I am not the only person who has more than one email address for Facebook. This cannot be anything new to their world.
Hello Meta
Listen, Meta, I have been trying to unlock my account since August of 2022. I have submitted my passport multiple times, I have attempted to contact support on multiple occasions. I own the domain name for the email address, I control that inbox, I am who I say I am, my corporations and their names are duly registered with a secretary of state as legit business entities.
Maybe your AI is broken, the model is poisoned, you got a broken if/then block somewhere or maybe someone forget a curly brace. Idunno, yo. But having a human who actually responds would be super awesome, especially for someone who has loaded a credit card and paid to do some promotions (which were approved, and then blocked mid-stream). I have to believe, with Meta laying off people that they must need money, right? Apparently they don't want my $49. When your down 230B, every little bit helps, right?
Boycott Udemy
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The Unlock is a Cake
And the cake is a lie. Basically each time, I try to unlock my account I get an email back stating that I can track my progress. Eventually I will get another email which says a decision has been made and I can use this new code they've sent me to unlock my account. If I try to use that code, however, it takes my full circle back to the "your account is locked" page. I even tried logging off of that page, and logging back in (As they said I could use my email and the new code as my password to gain access). Same problem.
Meta Can't Read
Now, apparently, after sending a 4MB scan of my passport multiple times, which is so vivid I have to use sunglasses to look at it, they have responded stating they can't read it:
Really? The information you need is there, Meta, and it is painfully legible. Meta just can't read. So, apparently I can do this for an eternity and I might never see my account again.
Enjoy the Irony
With the MindFuel brand being a light-hearted, LOA focused and expansive brand, this is obviously not a post on gratitude or resonance. I can be positive and share my personal truth thus far as Meta's customer. I want others who are searching the internet while experiencing similar issues to know they are not alone. I want Meta to know they have a problem I believe is worth fixing. And I want to arm other business owners with strategy and tactics to avoid get overly impacted when a company blocks them from using their content and tools.
I have been trying to login to Facebook for 5 months and counting. Five months. Thank the heavens I don't need Facebook and that I have structured my business ventures so that social media is not a linchpin!! I am still enabling my brand, I am still in business, with or without Facebook. Let's talk about how business owners can accomplish that level of resiliency.
Resiliency through Abstraction and Redundancy
That's a mouthful. But stay with me, I will break it down. Let's start with abstraction because, well, it is the most abstract one to get through. Roughly speaking, in the computer programming world, abstraction occurs when the programmers hide internal details of how something gets done. By putting in a layer of abstraction, we can provide a common set of requests ("log me in", "show me my shopping cart"), but the details of how those requests get fulfilled are handled elsewhere in the "code." Later, if the computer programmers need to change how someone logs in or how they show the shopping cart, they can make these changes without impacting the rest of their software system.
This process of abstraction works in the real world, too. If I put my website on Facebook and their broken AI locks me out, I am out of business. But I put in a layer of abstraction: I have my own website that I control, and I just use Facebook as a marketing layer. When they lock me out, both Meta and I lose out on that marketing. But I can live with that, because my website is still running, and I have Reddit, Twitter, and other places where I can accomplish marketing.
That brings us to redundancy. It's a concept that most folks are already familiar. I have multiple marketing channels (Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc). This not only gives my customers a choice regarding which platforms they want to tap into, but if I get locked out of one, I still have options. But the same is also true for my websites - although my main site is super important, if it were to become unavailable there are ways to put redundancy in place there too. CloudFlare is a great option - it will cache your site. But I also post my site contents to other locations, and in a pinch I could edit my links and point to a different storefront.
The technology tools of today make it easy to practice both abstraction & redundancy in our business models. Both practices add some overhead to your business complexity up front, but they almost always have days where you pat yourself on the back and say, "I am so glad I took the time to do it!" There are lots of different ways to implement these strategies, and for different parts of your business. I also have data and brand abstraction/redundancy 🤯, but today, I just wanted to put a silver lining on my the Meta storm cloud for anyone who might be experiencing similar woes.
Stay abstract & redundant! ...but uh ... in a good way, of course.
