This is not an anomaly, by the way. I've interviewed many multiple Meta staffers (including senior leaders), and can find little evidence that leadership actually read "Snow Crash" and/or even cared about virtual worlds. Even after spending tens of billions claiming they were building the Metaverse.
On one level this is amusing. But what if both accounts are owned by the same person impersonating Neal Stephenson? My understanding was that he was not on any social media. Did that change at some point?
I have been locked out of my account for 5+ months -- and customer support has been a Kafkaesque nightmare. I am still locked out. (Oh, and I've spent $1M+ in paid META ads...)
Yeah, I've been locked out of Meta for a couple of years, just stopped VR altogether because getting the account back turned into a new hobby that I never asked for. Just moved on.
Meta has extremely opaque account policies. For example, I bought the Meta Raybans a month ago. It kept telling me the AI features were not available in my region, even though I am in San Francisco. I joined Facebook in 2006, and I have used my account for the Oculus headset without a problem. But no matter what I did, the AI function of the Raybans wouldn't work.
I ended up creating a brand new account just for that, and it worked fine. No idea why it would work with a brand new account and not with my old account in good standing, never suspended or warned about anything.
Last time meta blocked my account was because I gave away free framing lumber after demolishing my poorly framed basement. Somehow it got flagged and that was that. Thankfully I don’t give a damn, and now never will.
Ps: some couple happily picked up 100 or so 2x4 studs of various lengths to build a greenhouse for their garden with.
I believe I have accumulated two moderation strikes on my Facebook account for (relatively politely) calling out posts for being racist/xenophobic.
Both cases my comments were flagged as promoting hate, ironically. The appeal mechanism is a joke: you press a button, and two seconds later you get a notification saying your appeal was reviewed and denied.
I’ve experienced something similar in attempting to report very explicit and outrageously racist posts and comments. Zero action on blatant neo-Nazism (including specific threats of violence), and several lost appeals. However, far more benign posts and comments that don’t really violate the ToS are often flagged. This is quite prevalent on Instagram especially, which is quite worrying as it’s acting as a radicalisation tunnel for large numbers of impressionable young people. It’s almost as if the algorithm attempts to throw you into a far-right rabbithole because they know it boosts engagement.
That's exactly what happens. The algo does not judge how hurtful a rabbithole may be - it optimizes for engagement with some moderation sprinkled on top. I've tried to make my facebook feed palatable for a couple months and eventually passed up on trying. I'd rather IM my family about cat photos than engage with their fringe political views. Same goes for colleagues on LinkedIn.
After I reported a post, nothing happened, then I messaged the mods, and they agreed with me that the post should be taken down and they did.
A day after it was taken down, I got a warning message from Reddit that my report has been rejected, and I should stop falsely reporting content, or else.
Had a similar experience with meta. Extremely opaque decision making, terrible UX. Account permanently disabled ... did not follow community standards, literally on sign up to get a dx account.
It's difficult after an experience like that to see how they are so successful. Is it because their users are so addicted and ad sellers will do anything to get onboard ? It's probably just a few dark patterns here and there to bump up impressions at will.
If they suspend everyones accounts, the Internet will be a better place.
“Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.”
- Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
I made a whatsapp business account yesterday, started a test advertising campaign. Went to log in to the developer area, "Your account is banned, there is no appeal". And whatsapp customer services says "Your account is fine and there are no issues and this ticket is closed"
I really, really don't understand why you have to make a facebook account in order to get access to the developer area, and now I get to watch my advertising spending tick up with no way of accessing anything about it.
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[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 48.4 ms ] threadSome background: https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2025/05/horizon-worlds-meta-horizo...
What a world we live in.
In the book, the metaverse is a VR version of the internet with an emphasis on accurate sword fights and realistic facial expressions.
I ended up creating a brand new account just for that, and it worked fine. No idea why it would work with a brand new account and not with my old account in good standing, never suspended or warned about anything.
Ps: some couple happily picked up 100 or so 2x4 studs of various lengths to build a greenhouse for their garden with.
Both cases my comments were flagged as promoting hate, ironically. The appeal mechanism is a joke: you press a button, and two seconds later you get a notification saying your appeal was reviewed and denied.
Tentacrul did a good video on it and more across the years https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MPyJBJTHyO0&pp=ygUWZmFjZWJvb2s...
After I reported a post, nothing happened, then I messaged the mods, and they agreed with me that the post should be taken down and they did.
A day after it was taken down, I got a warning message from Reddit that my report has been rejected, and I should stop falsely reporting content, or else.
Some heckler I guess.
“Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.” - Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Stephenson's Facebook account has been restored within the last 1-2 hours. (I've been checking since the morning.)
But the irony goes on forever.
Way too many only post content on Facebook on Goodreads. Or even worse, the only notification comes from Amazon.
I really, really don't understand why you have to make a facebook account in order to get access to the developer area, and now I get to watch my advertising spending tick up with no way of accessing anything about it.