with the sun setting
light moves from the western peaks
across these petals
A night haiku
Blog
Within the rainfall
within the rainfall
gentleness calming my soul
waiting for my tea
Facebook Account Access Issues
Over the years, I’ve helped a few people regain access to their Facebook accounts. Most all of those times were relatively easy since they were simply forgotten passwords. One was more complicated where a former social media consultant basically vanished and ghosted the business owners. The main challenge for me entailed getting copies of the business license and then a letter from the business owner. The hardest part (for me) was the waiting. It took me a fair bit of googling to track down a way to make the request, and then I had to wait for Facebook to respond. A few minutes of work that took weeks to complete due to slow communications.
So, now, I am working with someone whose account was compromised/taken over by someone else. Facebook’s knowledge base was a series of loops that accomplished nada. Frustrating. I then reached out to a friend who worked at Meta, who let me know that they’d risk termination if they tried to route me outside of the “normal channels”. So, as I value my friend, I opted to not push it. But, man, it’s frustrating. All of this to state that my experience with troubleshooting Meta issues has gone from clunky to infuriating.
So, when I read this article on Engadget, “How small claims court became Meta’s customer service hotline“, I groaned in recognition. I can see why people are using law suits to push Meta to act. I expect that they hope that this level of agrevation will deter people from seeking help and they just give up. However, I doubt that’s really going to be the case. Besides, I would expect that Customer Service Reps are much cheaper than attorneys. This seems to be the most expensive way to navigate this situation.
Since this article is posted on a major blog, I wonder if more people will seek Meta customer service via small claims court. Perhaps it will become painful enough for Meta to finally staff their customer service department adequately. Perhaps…
This strikes me as an element of Cory Doctrow’s “Enshittification”. In particular, the notion of “too big to care“. For so many folks, Facebook is an 800 pound gorilla. And they know it and are hard pressed to care.
This morning’s haiku
within the sunlight
sustained by the gentle earth
a late springtime breeze
A new (to me) Facebook Phishing Scam
So, one of the accounts I manage got this message today:
A quick search of the message language confirmed to me that it’s a scam. The biggest clue was the “bio.site” link. Very phishy. The clunky sentence “Your Facebook page is scheduled for permanent deletion due to a post that has infringed upon our trademark rights” was another clue.
This article was pretty high up on the Google SERP and is pretty solid on it’s analysis and advice.
If you get one of these, first and foremost: don’t click the link! If you’re at all concerned, reach out to Facebook directly.
So, I filed it as spam and reported this account. My contempt for scammers is rich and deep, so I hope for some consequences. However, I recognize these folks will simply open another account when/if their accounts get locked. It is a rather annoying game of whack-a-mole. One that will probably continue to be a focus of mine for the foreseeable future.
Happy Monday!
As I’m fond of bicycles and libraries, this image spoke to me well.
I hope you are well, and that your new week is filled with joy and vibrance.
A rainy day haiku
amidst these rain squalls
and the claps of thunder
calmness with my tea
I created this image with Canva. The image is a stock image that’s included in the app.
Today’s Tech Annoyance
So, one of the things I do regularly is markup PDF documents. Every time I add text I get the notice below:
No, I don’t need to have someone sign this. I know how to set up e-signing, I’ve done it literally hundreds of times. Quit bugging me, Adobe! I know what I’m doing. Argh! Nagging me every few seconds is, *ahem* annoying.
Yeah, I know, first world problems, but geez, trust your users to know what they’re doing.
today’s haiku
the gift of late spring
as the flowers start to fade
under the blue skies
Today’s Podcast
One of my favorite things is listening to podcasts on my walks. During today’s walk (you can check that out on Strava, if you care) I listened to Saturday’s (June 8) Geekwire podcast: “How This Professor teaches AI and thinks about human creativity“. Featuring Léonard Boussioux, I appreciated his positive outlook on the potential that AI offers. I agree with those folks who think AI is in a hype-cycle. However, that doesn’t mean that there are no gains or innovations that will be coming out of this. I deeply believe this technology will be significantly transformative. However, I doubt it will be as destructive as some predict, nor as positive as others are thinking.
I also appreciate that they touched on the sustainability issues surrounding AI. Huge amounts of energy and water are part of this equation. These will be key elements for the efficacy of this technology.
I have a few ideas that I want to explore with AI tools. These tools will be critical ones to learn and master. I’m confident many jobs that will be replaced by AI, will create new roles on the other side of this equation.
They had a side discussion looking at the ethics of using AI to enhance photography, and what should be disclosed. Todd Bishop, one of Geekwire’s founders, used an AI tool to enhance (de-noise is the phrase they used) an image. When I first heard the situation, I thought that disclosing was unnecessary. Mainly, I don’t see any difference between “de-noising” and color-correcting, or cropping. As they went on and explored the issue, I shifted to thinking disclosure is the wisest course. As I respect the distrust many feel towards AI, so it makes sense to just be conscientious.
There’s so much that AI is challenging in our lives. I really appreciated this unique dive into it.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments.