{"id":5026,"date":"2017-07-05T12:21:47","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T16:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.highedwebtech.com\/?p=5026"},"modified":"2017-07-05T12:21:47","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T16:21:47","slug":"locked-out-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highedwebtech.com\/2017\/07\/05\/locked-out-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"I was temporarily locked out of Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a holiday weekend here in the USA, so many people were sharing photos and videos of their parties, fireworks, kids, and more on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. I was no exception, throwing up some firework slo-mo videos and a few shots from my Phantom 3<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I was posting and liking content on both my phone and laptop, on mobile and wi-fi, in two states and 3 cities. It was all fine until I went to add a new friend. Somewhere in a Facebook data center, an alert was probably set off and I was temporarily banned from Facebook. This is first time this has happened since I created my account in 2005 – you know, back when you had to have a college email address to join.<\/p>\n

Yes, blocked from using Facebook. They said I had “suspicious activity,” and I could not log in. People who tried to visit my profile got a 404.<\/p>\n

Facebook’s solution to get my account unlocked: i was told to upload a picture of myself to prove my identity. Here’s the prompt:<\/p>\n

\"Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

I found a selfie I took this weekend and uploaded it. And waited. There was no feedback from Facebook on why I had been locked out, possible causes, or the timeline for having the photo I uploaded reviewed and my account unlocked.<\/p>\n

When I would try to login to my account, I received this message:<\/p>\n

\"Facebook's<\/a><\/p>\n

I waited. I took a walk and enjoyed the beautiful weather. I checked Instagram. I waited some more. Folks on Twitter weighed in:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

enjoy your vacation from fbook!<\/p>\n

— Ed Webb (@edwebb) July 4, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n