Facebook quit me

The existential crisis of social media loss.

If any of you follow me on Facebook – and, based on what I’ve seen in my subscriber lists, several of you do – you may have wondered where I disappeared to on Saturday night. Anyone who wanted to Message me suddenly found all my responses pulled from their feed; those looking up my account were met with a message that my content was unavailable. Given that I’m a fairly prolific Facebook poster – this is not a brag, but a confession – I received several emails and texts asking if everything was okay. Was I still alive? Was there a catastrophe that made me rethink social media? Why did I quit Facebook? 

The simple answer: I didn’t quit Facebook. Facebook quit me, without even the courtesy of a breakup letter. 

Saturday night, upon coming home from a church function, I pulled my phone out to scroll through Facebook. I was a bit confused to find myself logged out and my password not working – but it wasn’t a big deal; that happens, right? My confusion set in when I attempted to reset my password only to get a message that my Facebook account had been deleted. I checked my emails (Facebook was attached to an old Yahoo account I rarely use) and found that, in the space of about 10 minutes, someone had requested an account recovery, a password change and an email change. Some time after that, Zuckerberg and company shut me down. They didn’t even lock me out or give a note that something was up – or maybe they did and it went to the email address that had been changed without my consent – they just closed the entire account down. 

I spent several hours on Sunday trying to rectify the situation, only to be caught in what I can only describe as a hell spiral. There are forms you can fill out to report that your account has been hacked or disabled without your content; unfortunately, they all require an email address associated with the account which, as I’ve said, I do not have. There is a link to confirm your identity with Facebook – unfortunately, it gives me an error because the account I provide is not associated with whatever email they now have on file. I’ve tried to message support through my wife’s account, only to hear someone say it’s been escalated to a “special team,” but they never took my contact information and they made sure I knew they couldn’t guarantee the result I hoped for. I’ve searched Reddit for answers and tried what feels like a thousand of their solutions, but come up dry. And there’s no one to talk to at Facebook about this because apparently a company with 1 billion users has decided none of them should have the ability to talk to a human when their site goes pear-shaped. 

I get that this is a first-world problem. Not having access to a social media platform is not a world-ending catastrophe. It could have been worse; a hacker could have gotten into my bank or credit card accounts. And really, aside from the fact that Facebook is one of the helpful platforms for sharing my writing, I don’t know that I need it. Maybe a break would do me good. I have many friends and family members who get along just fine without an account; just Friday night, a friend was telling me how he and his wife are pretty much unplugged from all social media, and he seemed pretty happy. 

But the reality is, I do use Facebook. A lot. Like I said, it’s where I share my writing. My critics group has a page there, and we communicate through Messenger. There are several groups I’m part of where I’ve come to value the feedback and build strong friendships. And it’s not like Twitter or Threads, where we basically interact on a topic and then move on to the next thing. The personal nature of Facebook means there are several people who I rarely, if ever, interact with in person but who I know intimately through the platform. Old friends who have moved away or fallen out of my immediate social circle. Family members. Old coworkers. We share in-jokes and photos. Sometimes, a Facebook event is the only way we can organize a get together. During the pandemic, when our church shut down, Facebook was a life saver; it’s how they organized virtual services and family events. 

And I know, I could just start a new account and re-request those friends. And, sadly, it could be my only recourse. But I’m not ready to do that just yet because there’s so much of my life that is lived through Facebook. 

I met my wife when a friend set us up; we started talking because she friended me on Facebook. All of our early conversations are saved on Messenger, and I go back and read them at times, just for nostalgia’s sake. We have photos of our early dates, our wedding and our children’s births – and while a lot of that is backed up elsewhere, not all of it is. But as a writer, it’s the posts I miss the most. Facebook replaced the personal blog I kept years ago, and when something significant happened or I just had something on my mind, it was where I would turn to suss out my thoughts. When my daughter came home from the hospital following a weeklong stay because of seizures, I wrote a long post about the emotional experience and the gratitude I had for everyone who visited, prayed for or supported us. It’s where I put voice to my political convictions and spiritual concerns, where I celebrated successes or shared amusing anecdotes. Sometimes, it was just a joy to write something witty and funny, a writing exercise. I’d be gutted to think that 15 years of that are lost. 

I’m sure that there’s a moral here about how we are too attached to our devices and social media platforms, and I don’t deny that. And just as often as my posts show some wit or wisdom, they also showcase my folly or anger. But I’m even thankful for that; revisiting those posts through the Memories function shows where I’ve stumbled, and also where I’ve grown. It’s like a living journal. It really is a big piece of who I’ve been – who I still am. Some people cringe at the idea of their social media posts being shared with their children when they’re gone; I actually love the idea that there’s some record of my journey over the years. 

Like I said, I’ve got a sinking feeling that I’m going to have to rebuild my account; Facebook has been less than helpful in pointing me in the right direction (or the wrong direction; any direction, really). I’m frustrated and ready to give up. And, again, if I have to do that, there are far worse things. But man, I’m sad to think that it could all be gone, because so much of it is the last link to whoever I used to be.