Some background information might be in order. In the early days I was a little slower than some to get a facebook account, but eventually I joined my friends in the land of “what’s on your mind?” From the get-go I had a love/hate relationship with social media, despising myself for spending hours mindlessly scrolling, trying to think of something exquisitely clever to add to the general milieu. This environment gave insecure people like me ample opportunity to compare my inside to other people’ outside (look at all the happy people with their beautiful healthy children/pets/grandchildren/vacation property; and compare that to sad sack me) and to get into fights with rank strangers over the simple error of confusing fact with opinion.

I cancelled and renewed my account multiple times. Occasionally, I accidentally on purpose got my birth date wrong.

Maybe that’s the seed of my facebook-related troubles.

Things got really annoying when I was hacked. Somebody lifted my profile picture and created a new account using my name. For two full years the imposter sent inane messages and duplicate friend requests to my list of friends. It may have reached its nadir when it began asking old people for money.

You should report the fake account, I hear you saying. Oh, I did. Every time it crossed my radar I put in a report. When someone messaged me to ask if the friend request they just received was legit, I vigorously encouraged them to report it also.

Nothing happened. The imposter continued to sniff for scraps and annoy my friends.

So I quit. Done with stupid facebook.

But still, the imposter raged on, wreaking minor annoyance wherever it could.

Then one day I decided to renew my account, only to find out that I, the innocent victim of low-level identify theft, had been blocked from the platform! What did I do? Nothing, there’s your answer. Appeals, letters, and mobilizing my friends to renew the onslaught of reports were all for naught. I was blocked permanently. Life in no man’s land, never again to answer the question, “What’s on your mind?” When I asked why, I was glibly referred to the seven-thousand page “Community Standards,” to see if I could glean what I had done wrong.

Recently, finding out that my email address was still blocked, I attempted, and succeeded, to sign up using my phone number. Aha! So there, Schmacebook! I’m back in business, and that usurper had better watch its back, lest it lose its accursed head*. 

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For your further edification:

Sometime you might want to check out “that Scottish play,” known outside of theaters as Shakespeare’s MacBeth.