...Because it won't.
WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS A LOT OF CUSSING AND SWEARING AT THE INCOMPETENCE OF FASCISTBOOK.
That said,
My permanent address is in Alaska, and I have lived in Chicago and Massachusetts over the past 5 years, but I am now in Bangkok. During my various moves, Facebook has been a way to remain connected with a large network of friends and philosophical libertarians that I am friends or at least "fellow travelers" with. Not any more though. Some idiot in Facebook has made the terrible decision to lock users out of their accounts if they can't identify all of their friends, and don't have the same cell phone they opened the account with turned on.
Facebook currently won't let me sign in. I have a new phone number here, and they are goddamn disconnecting me from all of my ideological allies on the one single platform I thought I could rely on. Damn Facebook!!! They asked me to verify my identity using two utterly useless non-identifiers!!! OPTION ONE: By naming one of my friends "tagged in a photo" BUT GUESS WHAT??? That tag might not be correct, Or I might have no idea what my friend looks like as an infant, or I might only know this friend by their avatar picture, or this friend's friends might have labeled a picture of the US Constitution or a statue with their name, or I might only know them because of our shared interests or their political writings!!!
YEAH, REAL PEOPLE ACTUALLY ADD FRIENDS THEY CANNOT PHYSICALLY IDENTIFY! (And what about blind people, or people who simply have bad memories for names?) Since Facebook's system isn't an AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), it can't tell when people are actually tagged correctly, (or why the hell you became friends with someone), ...so if FB uses this as a means of identity verification they are royally fucking people over! ...People like me!
Damn Facebook! Can't they just allow people to keep their accounts secure using the time-tested and logical way of sending email confirmations? If someone hacks both email accounts of mine, then they can damned well have my facebook account as well! ...It's certainly useless to me like this!
Moving on: OPTION TWO: (for "verifying my identity") is for them to send a message to my U.S. cell phone number. Well, guess what? I'm not using my 907-area-code cell phone in Bangkok. I have a SIM card here with a new Bangkok phone number that I keep charged with cash(baht)!
And is that any of Facebook's business? NO. I wish they would quit trying to "track me for my own good"! MESSAGE TO FACEBOOK: Just provide the service you purport to provide, and stay the fuck out of my life, OK?
If I can't sign into FB when it is most useful to me, then how the hell does it mean a damned thing to me?
Answer: it doesn't. It minorly fucks up my life by giving me a false sense of traveling connectedness that doesn't really exist, and then denies me service when I need it most: when I'm in a foreign country where I don't speak the native language, and I have no other good means of keeping in touch with my family and friends. Moreover, there are some people I'd really like to communicate with about life here in Bangkok whom I only know from facebook, (beyond the aquiantance stage).
FACEBOOK: SOCIAL NETWORKING ACCOMPLICES TO THE "OVER-REDUNDANT-SECURITY-ABOVE-ALL-ELSE" ASSHOLES OF THE WORLD!
Crack these books, you bureaucracy-minded government-school-miseducated morons:
"Out of Control" by Kevin Kelly
"Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" by Steven Levy (Pay particular attention to the section on the over-securing of computer account passwords.)
Please, Facebook, apply some of the universal principles of privacy, nonintervention, anonymity, and decentralization to your business. Then, you won't lose people like myself as users.
Thanks!
-Jake
International calling country code: 66
Bangkok phone number: 08-9445-3689
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1 comment:
down with facebook!
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