Facebook/Meta/Instagram is making people crazy. Their artificial intelligence and algorithms and lack of human touch, or intelligence is staggering.

Yesterday, a lady I help with her group posted an article from a news source called VISTA Today, which is well known in our area. The algorithm police removed it. Said it was spam. The post she was trying to about a block party! Below is the link so you can see it for yourself.

https://vista.today/2024/07/chester-county-oic-sullivan-block-party/

As part of this lady’s admin team, I contested the removal because it wasn’t spam and it was germane to the geographical area of the group as in where it is located. Then I tried to post it again and then they removed my post and said it was spam.

Again, this is a share of a regional news blip talking about an upcoming community event. A block party that’s also in need of sponsors. Gosh, Meta/Facebook that’s terrible! Who on earth would want to read about a nonprofit event anyway? It’s much easier to see all the fake posts for duct cleaning and auto detailing and the post about the dog that I think has died in almost every region of the country at this point and oh, what’s the latest thing? Taking pictures of kids and saying they are missing when they’re not missing but those posts are OK. Our community ones are not?

That’s some kind of BS.

Facebook / Meta did this to me a while back with something else. I put a post up in a gifting group that I manage to apologize to people because they were getting weird almost Facebook ads within our group for other groups. We were not doing it and had no control.

Unbelievably, they labeled this post as “sexual exploitation.” I have been contesting this since December, because their algorithms and artificial intelligence took down a post that was pretty specific and fairly benign. It was an apology to our group members and they labeled it as something illegal and criminal.

But they allow how much cyber bullying and cyber harassment to go on? They don’t even keep kids safe? And since that whole thing exploded in the Great Valley School District, you have dumb kids whose parents aren’t educating them, mostly girls, who are just accepting random people into their Instagram , TikTok and Facebook accounts who are in middle school!

Here is what a friend said:

I work via a non-profit with some of the kids/families that know about this Great Valley mess. I want to share this quick story. I’d also like to start by saying I don’t think I’m a better smarter parent!

But this was weird and uncomfortable to see first hand…

I was visiting a family and one of the girls in middle school walked up to me and asked me if I’d heard about it. This is now NATIONAL news…maybe even international on some platforms if they’re really itching for a story. When I said I had, she opened up her TikTok, also her Instagram, and said she AND her friends were all blowing up. They have hundreds (maybe more) new strangers of all age and all genders following them. Some of the kids that even have changed their page to private are still accepting requests from people who “look ok” to gain higher numbers of likes or whatever. She messaged a few people who requested, that “looked ok” and was told she and others were found searching up different versions of the tags for the school, the district, etc.

There are hundreds of likes and comments on some of the videos still up or somehow related. Then people are even just adding others through that. I’m talking about kids not affiliated at all with the mess, and just dancing with sports team or school clubs or even at home.

My first thought was, “Oh crap…this could be really dangerous…” We’re flipping through what are meant to be harmless and cute videos and pics of kids in their swimsuits, shirts off, and light/skimpy clothing (because it’s summer and hot). Some of the songs are vulgar (I’m sure the kids don’t think much about that and just like the beat or whatever.) But my point is, that can invite some weirdos, perverts, or people who are just No Bueno.

Please consider sharing this story with your kids, remind them of strangers, and remind them to keep their info private or cross check to know that they know people who request them…or think before they make videos with friends at sleepovers or while they’re out. The world can be a crazy place..**Editing to add that I help/assist on occasion (indirectly affiliated) with those who have experienced trafficking in different ways (somewhat locally-don’t want to cause a huge commotion or deter from the basic point of the post)…but it’s a very real threat

The screenshot above is another that I’ve been challenging them on, that I was merely sharing something from a public page about yet another nonprofit event at that time. Again, the algorithms and artificial intelligence deemed it a threat. How are nonprofit events in your own community a threat? What is so broken about their algorithms and artificial intelligence that they can’t see what something is about?

Why is it you can’t ever get a real person to respond to you?

I clicked on some of their rules when asking for a review recently of one of these posts. This is what they said which had zero to do with the community events posts that had been shared and removed. Note what I am sharing:

And these posts are removing that they say are going against cyber security, and things like that are not bad. And this is happening to everyone. I’m just pointing out the couple of examples were I’ve experienced the craziness and you can request a review, but nobody ever gets back to you.

It’s a broken hamster wheel.

It’s like all my friends who have gotten their Facebook accounts hacked. Some of them were never able to get their Facebook accounts back and a few ended up deleting them somehow because otherwise, a stranger had all their photos and memories. My sister had this happen with her Instagram account and she’s careful with her passwords. She lost an account that had precious memories she will never get back. And Meta/Instagram never got back to her.

Now speaking of Instagram, you know how they encourage us to make reels? And reels are like little mini videos of snippets of your life for those not familiar.

With regard to Instagram I don’t do things like use it to get dressed or undressed in front of you so you can see all the clothes I’m wearing. For me it’s usually garden or pets.

Instagram is literally for me away to connect with friends and family and I keep it small. I also will do things like share my cooking because I like to do that. But I’m not a wannabe influencer so you don’t have dozens of little reels of me with food falling out of my mouth in restaurants. Or looking like a fireplug wrapped in bad Lilly Pullitzer.

But what did Instagram do? They took down two little reels that are memories I have of pets who died. And why did they take it down? For some kind of copyright infringement of music they allowed in their library of music choices. I’m truly bummed out about this because they are memories of my pets of the past and it’s cruel. But again you can’t get anyone to get back to you.

It’s absolutely maddening. You can not use foul language and post benignly and your stuff gets removed, yet you have people vomiting all over these social media platforms with literally fake news and pornography and all sorts of other things.

I’m beginning to wonder if social media is worth it? I mean in some regards it is because you can stay connected to people in your life who don’t live close by, but then you have all the other issues plus the psychology of social media where people can’t post honestly, they post fake lives.

But I do think it is completely crazy what they say is ok versus what they remove. And their customer service is a joke.

Thanks for listening.