




@hund Is there a specific reason why they chose Facebook other than "everybody uses it already"?

@maxigaz I haven't asked them. Since it's a non-tech company I just assumed they choose Facebook because it's 1.) free as in free coffee, 2.) "everyone" uses it and 3.) most know how to use it.

(Learning new things is obviously dangerous in so many ways.)

@hund The only scenerio I can imagine Facebook to be suitable for a job is when you rely on public promotion. But for internal communication?

@maxigaz Yep. It's questionable to put it out gently. :)

@hund @maxigaz And potentially against Facebooks ToS! Whoever approved this probably didn't consult with anyone beforehand.

@hund yeah, that really makes me feel uneasy. My wife tried to change her name on Facebook to my surname, it asked for photo ID.

I told her to keep her maiden name on there. Screw that!

@kev That's just so dumb! It's scary how normalised a malicious service like Facebook has become. :(

I had the same experience. I have an account I use to manage a page, without any social connections and it was suspended without any explanation.

@hund always like this: they allow you to create an account, and after some time they block it until you provide them all the requested personal data

@KinmenRisingProject @hund they discriminate against animals using FB too. I uploaded a picture of a donkey. How do they KNOW I'm not a donkey??!!

@KinmenRisingProject @hund Big corps seem to think this is normal these days. Especially fun with email providers. One wrong connection from outside your home network and your data is taken hostage :blobcatgoogly:

@tennoseremel @hund yes; especially ridiculous if you think about how much people travel or just move among different buildings

@pinkprius It was more like "Fuck off, then give us your data and fuck off some more!" for me. :D

Can you use an AI generated face from thispersondoesnotexist?

@simon @hund in theory yes, I did it once to successfully unlock an account I was barely using but for singing up onto some other website.

Facebook locked it a second time though, and I'm not certain why, maybe unrelated to the picture? Who knows...

@simon That's clever! I should have tried that. :D

My school mostly uses Facebook for communication even though we have to simultaneously PAY for a marking service which includes messaging teachers and a calendar with deadlines. But nope, gotta use Facebook instead and only post inside the service when there is absolutely no other way. I quit Facebook a year ago as a form of protest and it works fine so far. I am lucky to be able to get most of information via other channels...

@glitchyhare That's great! I'm to new on the work to rage quit Facebook. :P

Understandable. I quit after two years at the school, maybe year and a half? I hesitated for quite a long time and tried to plan everything in advance. It is better than just sorta doing it overnight because when you're left without a plan B, it feels like returning to Facebook would solve your problems the quickest.

To chat with a client I had to create a Skype account. I'm not able to use my job's e-mail so I created a protonmail adress just for that. 2 or 3 days later I cannot connect to it again. They have locked it and require that I give them a phone number (unused during registration).

The support tell me "don't worry we do not keep the number" and I respond/lie I do not have a SMS compatible mobilphone.

I tried online numbers but they do not accept them…

@Zykino That sucks! I use *a lot* of aliases with my e-mail provider. I use unique e-mail adresses on pretty much all my accounts. :)

@hund if they have any reason to suspect your face isn't your real face or your name isn't the name your parents gave you or your gender doesn't match what the doctors said when you were born, facebook will lock your account and demand the most detailed ID it can of you so it can force you into using your birthname and identity and collect as much info on you on the rest of the internet (because facebook stalks you). It's creepy.

@hund it's hell for trans people though because facebook will never let you abandon your birth identity even if you're known by your name and gender elsewhere.

@hund hey if they can't find info on you from the ID you gave them you're up to something apparently /shrug. It's more to do with what allows them to trace you and find any info on you they can because really facebook is a data mining website dedicated to creeping on ***everyone***

@Pyretta @hund and they can get away with having broad policies that abuse minority/marginalized groups, what a shit hole tbh

@hund Maybe your experience will convince the people you work with to switch to other means of communication?

@me I would hope so, but I'm very sceptical. :/

@hund yeah they did the same exact thing to me, i just said fuck it, you can't force me to use this awful site

@hund Powerless is a good word for it. I had a discord account that was banned out of nowhere and then when I asked for clarification, it was reinstated with as little context as it was taken away. As a result, I use it and rely on it much less than before.

People invest a lot of emotional energy into these platforms and the communities they build around them. To me, the fediverse feels like the cornerstone of a resilient online identity.

@ishara Ouch. Discord is another fantastic malicious service that everybody must use.. I can't see why it's better than IRC and Mumble.

Fuck all these places wanting ID they can't even shield basic info then they want Gov't issued docs. Haha fuck off.

@hund Is this job at a public school?

Doesn't the GDPR protect you? FB requires a GSM phone, no? So who's to say you even have one? Perhaps the boss should give you one so you can register an account with it.

BTW, I highly recommend reading RMS's advice for situations similar to yours:

@resist1984 It's not and it's not required to have a phone at all. :) I use the Frost client from F-Droid. They can't get much information from me anyway.

@hund a while back a group I was involved with mainly communicated via facebook, so I logged into my very old account from pre-2010 and it wanted me to do the same.

I took it as a sign.

@hund I deleted mine months ago and I've never felt better! Next will be Twitter and Instagram!

@c_tyre Great! I hope it goes well. :) Did you quit it all or did you replace it with something else? Other than Mastodon obviously.

@hund I'm also gonna use pixelfed to replace Instagram but as for Facebook I haven't replaced it yet. So I guess I did quit it all! I found Mastodon and pixelfed on 🙂

@hund yeah, after I quit I tried creating an anonymous account for using with some forums, but then they locked it and required I give them a phone number to unlock it. And I was like, ah, so this is how they're going to link to my previous profile and whatever other data they have on me. Nope.

They've done psych studies on users without consent, given data to groups trying to destabilize governments, and they've lied repeatedly to congress. I won't go along to get along.

@hund considering what an absolute garbage company FB is I am quite astonished that your employer depends on them that much for their business communication. I would bring these concerns to the attention of the employer. If FB is all up in your business like that they are guaranteed to be just as up in the business of your employer too.

There are and always have been better alternatives to FB. By outsourcing communication to FB they have given away control over it. Seems very foolish.

@msh I don't work with computers so it's not a battle I'm going to take there. I have learned to pick my battles over the years. :)

It's the same with every user. When your profile has been used for a while, they ask you for an ID, phone number, etc. Although once I sent a random picture and it was accepted.
Those sneaky bastards even do the following: The facebook page is blurred and you get a message to provide ID or send phone number. To make you to do this, they show on the blurred background page a little red area near the facebook icons so it looks like you received new notifications. This is to make you curious. I heard from several users that they provided a photo and after logging in there was no new notification at all.   :D

@hund holy crap, I completely forgot that I gave Facebook, who I trusted, a photo of my ID when I was an 18-year-old kid a decade ago

@hund well, I *had* changed my name to humorous fake names 2 times in highschool, thus maxing out my allowance of name changes for a fb account

@hund Feels a lot like signing up for Twitter -- the signup form says that providing a phone number is "optional", but you'll be blocked as a "bot" and asked to provide one very quickly if you leave the field blank.

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