Itâs pretty bad that Admiral, which detects whether you are using an ad blocker or not, now advises this with Privacy Badger.
Let me make this very clear: I am not against advertising on websites. I have advertising on our websites.
I am against tracking by people such as Google. And that is all I am blocking: the tracking part. There is a difference.
Frankly, if you need to track in order for your ads to work, then there is something deeply wrong with your model. Youâre actually doing your clients out of exposure.
This goes for the ad networks that work with us, too. If you have Privacy Badger installed and both you and I miss out on ads on our sites, then so be it.
What is so wrong about using the context of the page and delivering ads to suit? Everyone still wins with this model and we donât feel as violated.
So I wonât be disabling Privacy Badger, thanks.
It also means Iâll be happy to charge a premium on advertisers who want to appear on our site because the content is relevantâand because the non-tracked stuff will at least get seen by an engaged public.
Archive for July 2021
Admiral doesn’t understand that I’m not blocking ads, only trackers
21.07.2021Tags: 2020s, 2021, advertising, internet, marketing, privacy, publishing
Posted in business, internet, marketing, media, publishing, technology | No Comments »
It feels like half of Facebook is bot
21.07.2021Hereâs a screenshot from the new members of one of my Facebook groupsâactually the only public one I still have. Since Facebook lets spammers join now, we have to block them manually. Their posts donât make it through to the group as we have safeguards there, too. But Iâm not going to let them inflate, falsely, the member count, which in turn will make it harder for posts to reach group members.
A lot of these botsâthey hunt for large groups and their scripts join themâseem to hide under the guise of role-playing for the Pinoy TV series Halik, and they all chat to each other in automated fashion. As Facebook is stupid enough not to recognize the bot activity, youâd think that at least they could see the script at play here, as these accounts are often new, and they set to work joining large groups and pages.
They donât recognize them, or, they do recognize them and allow the bot activity to carry on with their blessing. Each one of these blocked accounts was reported, and as usual they were found to be perfectly fine.
In this screenshot, there were five legitimate accounts. We used to keep the numbers well down because potential members had to answer basic questions, and even some legit people are too lazy to do that. Back then we would see one legit account joining after weeks or months. I think I preferred that, because it kept the spammers and bots away.
It certainly gives the impression that bots, based on this sample (and others like it since Facebookâs pro-bot policy change arrived with this group), are running at about 50 per cent of the total, which gels with recent research that Instagram is 46 per cent fake (that is, 46 per cent of all accounts are not legit). Nevertheless, I still see far more bots than humans overall: just get yourself into the fake Halik accounts of the Smiths and Montefalcos, and now theyâre branching out into other surnames like Montenegro and Buenavista. Thousands, untouched, the only consistent activity on the wasteland that is Facebook.
Tags: 2021, Big Tech, bot, deception, Facebook, spam, USA
Posted in business, internet, technology, USA | 2 Comments »
Scheduling posts on Facebook and Instagram? Forget it, it’s not worth the trouble
21.07.2021If someone who has never been authorized to have a role on a Facebook page can have full admin access to it, then it stands to reason that a legitimate owner of a Facebook page cannot do what she needs with it.
Thatâs exactly what happened to my friend Holly Jahangiri, who has a Facebook page and an Instagram profile, both of which are connected. She can read her private messages. She can log into both, and she is the admin of both. Facebook has her email address and cellphone number. But she couldnât schedule a post for either, and thatâs when Facebook sent her into a loopânot unlike the one that Google sent me on in 2009, although Googleâs forum person was way ruder.
Facebook kept asking Holly to review her connection and confirm she is admin of her own pageâinformation that they already had. Unless their databases are so shot to hell that even internally they cannot determine this.
She would love to click ‘Confirm’ but the button was greyed out, saying, ‘You must be an admin of the associated Page’s business in Business Manager to confirm the Instagram account.’ But she is the admin.
Even if she tried disconnecting her accounts and attempted to reconnect them, so she could review that connection that they asked for, no confirmation email ever arrived. And when she logged into both Facebook and Instagram, on desktop and mobile, the accounts were indeed linked and confirmed in their Account Center.
It seems a small ask to be able to schedule a post on a pageâmind you, Tumblr wouldnât let me for some time, as every time we got to the scheduled moment, it would alter the day and move it forward into the futureâbut Holly persisted and decided to send them a message through their Business Support Center. She was lucky: she actually got a response. I never have. Or maybe she was unlucky that they responded.
Their first piece of advice was to ask Holly to do what she had already done: disconnect and start over. She proved she did it with the screenshot they requested, and that it still didn’t work.
Then they asked:
⌠in order for us to assist you better, please provide us with the following:
1. A screen recording in which illustrates the steps up to the section where the issue is showing. Please ensure that it is of the entire screen, including the URL bar at the top of the screen. For screen recordings, we recommend to upload the video on Dropbox and email the link to us. Do ensure the URL link is set to public. As in case we may need to forward your concern to the relevant team, this file will be very useful.
2. Page URL/ID where you are connecting your Instagram Account to.
Even though Holly has the knowledge to do a screen recording, she felt this was getting ridiculous, and, like me, she wasnât prepared to upgrade her Dropbox just to host a video for Facebook. And she had already given them (2).
She explained things once again but that Facebook kept asking her confirm her Facebook page and Instagram connectionâand providing her no means with which to do it. And that the Account Center said the two were connected.
She did one more screenshot with URL showing. In it, Facebook is still asking her to âConfirm Your Facebook Page and Instagram Connectionâ but giving her no means to do it.
Facebook responded by saying they still needed a video. And Holly answered that it wasnât going to happen.
Then she received this:
Hello Holly,
Thank you for contacting Facebook Concierge Support. We greatly appreciate your patience while waiting for an update.
We understand that you are unable to provide the video recording of the actual steps you are taking to show the issue being experienced.
What we can see is that the [Hollyâs page, redacted] is added on a Business Manager account where you have no role. Please be informed that if a Page is connected on a Business Manager account, the Instagram account you are trying to link on that Page must also be owned by the same Business Manager account.
If you know who are the admins of the Business Manager account that owns the Page, please check with them if the Instagram account – [Hollyâs Instagram account, redacted], is also added on that Business Manager. Also ask them to grant you admin access on that Business Manager. Once that is done, you can try again linking the Page and Instagram account.
Feel free to get in touch with us if you need any further assistance and we will be very happy to assist you further.
Do not hesitate to find our best support via https://www.facebook.com/business/help for future inquiries. We look forward in making your journey with Facebook a better one.
Thank you for contacting Facebook Concierge Support. Have a nice day!Kind regards,
Yoyo
I would be fuming by now, because Holly is the admin of both, and there was no evidence of hacking. No one else is there as the admin.
She wrote: âSo who BUT me would own that business manager account? If it belongs to someone else, how do I undo that and create my own? How do I straighten this out? If it’s something I did incorrectly, then clearly I’m asking you: HOW DO I FIX IT?â
In classic Big Tech support, it seems Yoyo never read her message. They wrote:
Hi Holly,
Thank you so much for your email.
I can perfectly understand that you are not aware on who is the Admin of the Business Manager. Therefore, what I can do for you is, I will submit and Admin appeal for you by you will need to provide me the with some information and documents as below :
1) A copy of a valid government-issued photo ID, such as a current driver’s license or a passport, of the individual signing the statement. See the different kinds of IDs we accept in the Help Center: https://www.facebook.com/help/159096464162185
2) A signed statement from a person with sufficient knowledge and authority over this matter that includes all of the following:
a) The Facebook email address or profile URL associated with the Facebook account that you wish to have added as the new admin
b) A description of requestor relationship to the Business (and authority to request access to the Business, as applicable);
c) An explanation of your request, and whether there has been a termination of the employment and/or business relationship with the named person(s)/Business, as applicable;
d) The past three invoices/billing statements on the ad account(s) that the Business owns AND the last 4 digits of the credit card(s) on the account(s);
⢠If the BM does not have any ad account, please declare such information in the statement
e) A declaration that the information you have provided is true and accurate (e.g. “I certify that the information provided is true and accurate”) – your statement must include similar language.For any other issues, please feel free to initiate a chat support session at the following link:
https://www.facebook.com/business/help
For any feedback regarding our features within platform, please use the link:
https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/268228883256323
Thank you for contacting Facebook Concierge Support and have a good day ahead!Regards,
Yoyo
If youâve made it this far, youâll know why Holly shouldnât need to provide any of the above. The first paragraph from Yoyo is completely wrong since Holly is aware of who the admin is, but Facebook seems to want to ignore that.
At this point she was prepared to delete the lotâsomething Iâm prepared to do, too, but havenât. Apparently gadgets like IFTTT are tied to my account and they run things on Lucireâs Facebook page, which, based on the decision of the majority, is still being used by the team.
She showed Yoyo another screenshot that confirmed she is the sole admin. And told them that she would not provide any additional documents.
Their response, inter alia (and by this time, Yoyo was calling Holly ‘Yoyo’):
When it comes to data protection and privacy, Facebook does not reveal any information, the documents mentioned are mandatory since you are not the Admin of the Business Manager in which the Page is connected.
We are not advising you to close your account for the sake of your business; rather, we are attempting to assist you.
Please submit the mentioned documents as soon as they are ready so that we can assist you further.
I can hear you screaming, âBut she is the admin!â
Any sane, reasonable person could empathize with Hollyâs reply:
So, the point is, I AM admin of the business account that any of my own pages/account are connected with unless I somehow orphaned them THIS MORNING after my last email to you, and your request at this point is tantamount to phishing. I’m not playing – I will not be sending you additional ID; you have my email, phone number, address, etc. (I have sent my driver’s license to Facebook, in the past, and I now deeply regret it. I will not be doing it again; I do not believe you safeguarded it in the first place.)
âWe are not advising you to close your account for the sake of your business” – what a joke. My business has never benefited from Facebook in any way, shape, or form. I opened the Business account because Facebook led me to believe I had to have one in order to upgrade and maintain my pages. I HAD an ad account, which I deleted, this morning. Ads I ran in the past were basically sent to EXACTLY the opposite of my target demographics and never led to ONE SINGLE SALE, so that is useless to me.
- As an individual, all purchases I have ever made from other “businesses” on Facebook or Instagram have been scams.
- I report fake and imposter accounts and I am told that they do not violate community standards.
- I have reported actual kiddy porn in the past, to be told that it did not violate community standards.
- I can only conclude, at this point, that Facebook prefers bots and scammers and phishers of men, because – I guess – they don’t cause as many headaches and the numbers look GREAT to advertisers.
I am now stuck in some sort of hellspace between your business center and your creator studio and ready to delete my personal profile as well as my pages and groups because I cannot figure out how to disconnect them from your “business center” thing.
In fact, Holly would have added, given the chance (these are her words):
- I have been told by Facebook to download and install their partners’ anti-malware products and run them, despite my having my own premium subscription to Norton; I refused to do so, and was punished by a suspension of indefinite length (ended up being a couple of pleasant weeks away from Facebook);
- I have had my wrist slapped for posting factual COVID info and stats DIRECTLY from the CDC, articles I wrote on Medium.com, and most lately, a link to a Wikipedia article explaining the origins of the classic nursery rhyme, “Humpty-Dumpty”
In other words, I’m not alone with the endless frustration this site causes. Iâm still frustrated and I barely use it, because of all the basics it gets wrong, constantly. And normally I would never take a dig at someone’s name but ‘Yoyo’ describes what Holly went through.
Holly wound up deleting all her ad and business accounts and reverted back to a personal one. When I read the above, Iâd rather have the usual silence than what Facebook thinks passes for âsupportâ!
Tags: 2021, Big Tech, customer service, Facebook, Holly Jahangiri, technical support
Posted in business, internet, technology, USA | No Comments »
Nostalgia in Grenoble
08.07.2021
Andrea Berlese
If youâre around my age with a similar interest in model cars, this mural, Re-collection, by Leon Keer on a block of flats in Grenoble, France, will appeal.
Leon has Tweets with the before and after, and one about the process.
âRe-Collectionâ my latest mural @GStreetartfest Grenoble France, photos before and after #streetart #3Dstreetart #mural #grenoblestreetart pic.twitter.com/4bao3tB36C
— Leon Keer (@leonkeer) July 6, 2021
Mural âRe-Collectionâ progress @GStreetartfest Grenoble France #streetart #3Dstreetart #3Dmural pic.twitter.com/RW3CCat2rR
— Leon Keer (@leonkeer) July 7, 2021
Itâs sad that Lesney (Matchbox) went down the fantasy route to compete with Hot Wheels, whereas the 1970s Corgi and Majorette castings that are represented here are so much better, in my opinion. I had a good childhood; I certainly couldnât complain about the model collection that my parents and grandparents indulged. And what great work from Leon to bring back this sense of nostalgia.
Tags: 1970s, 2021, art, car, Corgi, France, Grenoble, Lesney, Majorette, Matchbox, Mettoy, nostalgia, retro, Twitter
Posted in cars, culture, design | No Comments »