Locked Out of Facebook: Harassment or Error? is on Bill"s Bible Basics Blog at https://www.billkochman.com/Blog/locked-out-of-facebook-harassment-or-error/
https://www.billkochman.com/Blog/locked-out-of-facebook-harassment-or-error/
Dear social networking friends,
In recent months — August to October of 2019 — Facebook has repeatedly — at least eight times — locked me out of my account. These annoying actions could possibly be intentional harassment by some of Facebook’s employees who don’t agree with my Christian beliefs — which I preach boldly without compromise — or it may be that Facebook’s bots and algorithms are simply making false positives in regards to some of my posts. In other words, they could be committing errors by misidentifying the contents of my graphics. It could also be a combination of both possibilities. Who knows.
At any rate, on the evening of October 6, 2019, I found myself locked out of my Facebook account again. This time, however — and for reasons which still remain unknown to me — I was locked out for a full month until November 7, 2019. In the almost nine years that I have been a member of Facebook, this is the first time that this has ever happened to me. Each time that I have been locked out of my account over the past two months, the “Your Account is Temporarily Locked” window appears on my screen with a warning regarding “suspicious activity”. As you may know, part of the message in this dreaded window states the following:
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“It’s likely that your account was compromised as a result of entering your password on a website designed to look like Facebook.”
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My friends, while that may hold true for some people, I can assure you that it is not true for me. I have been using Facebook since early 2011. I know what their website pages look like. I also know what their URLs look like. I am a webmaster with twenty-two years of experience myself, so I can’t be that easily fooled.
Furthermore, I am very security-minded. I use very long and difficult passwords, and I never ever use the same password on different websites. Each and every one of them is unique. Considering how many times I have been locked out of my account during the past few months — unusually high by anyone’s standard — I can’t help but wonder if Facebook might be using that message as a ploy to cover its blatant discrimination against people it doesn’t like; namely conservatives and Christians. Can I prove it? Of course not.
What I also find extremely odd about this, is the fact that on a number of occasions when I have been locked out of my account, I wasn’t even on Facebook prior to the time of the lockout. In some cases, I will wake up from a night’s sleep, only to discover that I have been locked out of my account while I was sleeping. Why?
As many of you will know from your own experiences on Facebook, each time that I am locked out, I am forced to jump through Facebook’s security hoops. This includes having to upload my personal ID multiple times. Having to repeatedly do this obviously concerns me, given Facebook’s lax security. Remember Cambridge Analytica? What if my ID were to fall into the wrong hands?
When my account access is eventually restored — this time it took a full month — the first thing that I discover is that some of my posts have been flagged because they are supposedly against Facebook’s “Community Standards”. At least so they claim. The last time this occurred, I had to click on the “Appeal” button for TWENTY of my posts, so that Facebook would review them, and then hopefully restore them.
Having said all of that, I don’t the future. Given the current level of harassment, I honestly don’t know how much longer I will be allowed to remain on the Facebook platform. It is anyone’s guess. However, if I should disappear from Facebook for an extended period of time, and you are concerned about me and the Bill’s Bible Basics ministry, you may contact me at the following email address:
Of course, even if I am permanently banned from Facebook someday, you can STILL gain free access to ALL of my work — BBB articles and series, KJV Bible Verse Lists, my original Christian poetry, 4,200+ graphics in the BBB Graphics Library, etc. — simply by visiting the Bill’s Bible Basics website at the URL below:
https://www.billkochman.com/index.html
If you would like to visit my BBB Blog directly — where all of my Facebook content originates — you can visit the following URL:
https://www.billkochman.com/Blog/
And by the way, you will find the Bill’s Bible Basics International Christian Message Forum there as well, where you can communicate with me, and with other Facebook friends without the hassles of Facebook. Sign-up is very simple. Here is the URL:
https://www.billkochman.com/cgi-bin/bbb_forum.cgi
In conclusion, my friends, if you are experiencing similar harassment and discrimination because of your Christian beliefs, don’t let discouragement get to you. Keep fighting the good fight of faith, no matter what. Keep shining the Light of the Gospel far and wide for as long as you possibly can. While the godless forces of this present wicked world may someday silence us, you can be sure that someday, God will silence them, and it will be permanently!
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