Is Facebook Going Out of Business?

Tens of thousands of users are having their accounts deactivated: no customer service

iPhones with Facebook by stas111, licensed from Adobe Stock

On December 20, I went to check my Facebook account and could not log in.

A disturbing message appeared.

Screenshot from Facebook login attempt 20 December 2024

When I pressed “Log into your Instagram account,” I could not do so. “Nisaldebora9543182” deleted their account just as I looked at it.

After wasting an hour trying to obtain some type of information about this, I stumbled on a 22,000 member Reddit group: r/facebookdisabledme. The majority of people posting on the group experienced the same thing that I did. Reading messages, I learned that the only possible direct recourse was to use my still-existing Instagram account to apply for Meta Verified, where living staff members might be able to help.

Some of the messages in the group were heartbreaking: young people trying to help elderly, housebound relatives who used the social media service to stay in touch with family and friends.

Screenshot from r/facebookdisabledme

The only reason I used Facebook in recent years was to stay in touch with cousins and other extended family; we’d also discovered a positive, beneficial use for Facebook locally. Our area of SW Florida has several active women’s friendship groups, as well as community information pages.

We don’t have much of a local newspaper and the one we do have is paywalled to the extreme; local news, information, and above all, especially in recent years, calls for help in the wake of hurricanes all took place primarily on Facebook.

What’s the story here? How did this happen?

I was quickly able to locate messages from 2022 on X (Twitter) referring to how to exploit Instagram login codes to ‘login’ to someone’s Instagram, set up a new account, use it for ads, spam, pornos, and then delete it. These messages had complete pictures of the code and step-by-step instructions.

The process bypasses anyone’s two-factor authentication and Facebook/Meta’s security features. Facebook’s response is to deactivate any accounts linked to the exploited/hacked Instagram.

I still have my old Instagram that I seldom, if ever, used.

I don’t have my 6500 follower monetized Facebook account. The company had just paid me that very day. That night? Poof!

I didn’t receive any messages about someone trying to log in to my Instagram because they didn’t. Everything was done outside the platform exploiting this security vulnerability.

If you put any information about this on other social media, particularly X, but also Bluesky, you will be inundated with scammy, spammy messages offering to help you get your account back.

I now have a new Facebook account with 12 friends and I was able to successfully sign up for the Mrs. Roper event going to Fort Myers Beach in February. This event has been closed and at its limit for months; but a spot miraculously opened up on December 20.

Ironically, it seems to have opened up when Facebook deleted the legacy 6500 follower professional writer and “creator” account that I’d had — for better or worse — since 2009.

I had dozens of school friends on that account, over 100 relatives by blood or marriage, many readers, and hundreds of local friends and acquaintances. If I had not made my husband a co-administrator of our local music group page, that would be gone along with all my book pages and publisher pages.

I’ve filed a complaint with the Florida Attorney General’s Office, and also filed a grievance with the Author’s Guild.

I wasn’t getting lot of money each month from Facebook. But it wasn’t nothing, either.

More to the point, I was an administrator for these local friend groups that keep members engaged and using the service.

So they can — you know — charge them for ads and stuff.

Lawsuits are Underway

I learned that there is a multi-billion-dollar class action lawsuit against Meta/Facebook for violations of user privacy and it has been settled, although of course, “checks are delayed”. In the United States, our privacy protections are minimal, but this isn’t the case in Europe.

More than 40 U.S. state attorney generals have sued Facebook because the company knows that its services are potentially addictive and harmful to children under age 13.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sued Facebook for ‘illegally maintaining a monopoly’.

Another class action lawsuit for more than $37 million was concluded in March 2024, related to Meta/Facebook’s unauthorized use of user location data.

Facebook: No Customer Service

I’m sure you’ve had a friend who may have posted something they wished they hadn’t on social media, then claimed to have been hacked, but Facebook helped them out. I certainly have had more than a few of them.

If I ever hear this about Facebook again, I’m going to laugh in their face because Facebook has no, none, zero absolutely nada customer service. There is no working email, phone number, or process for individuals not just in my situation, but in virtually any other situation where they’d need help.

Meta/Facebook laid off more than 20,000 customer service employees in 2022 and 2023, a fact I learned from reading the Reddit groups comprised of thousands of disgruntled users.

I located one of the forms of malicious code that enables backdoor access to Instagram accounts that are linked to Facebook accounts in a 2022 X post (at the time — Twitter). And of course, Meta/Facebook has just announced that it is laying off 100 engineering staff. Because the platforms are so secure.

I now have a brand new, 12 friend Facebook account, which I made to reconnect with my family, school friends, life friends, and most importantly our local groups.

Over the years, social media and especially Facebook, became a virulent, hate-filled place that most of us recoiled from, but I discovered to my surprise, that moving to a more rural area — there was a social aspect, as well as a community support function.

This can’t be trusted, of course, any more than our electronic devices can or would work in case of a nuclear attack or an EMP.

One of my fellow victims on Reddit suggested that Facebook/Meta is acting like a business that thinks it’s going to go out of business, like an old car which has seen better days and won’t receive any more regular upkeep or maintenance, much less any improvements.

Facebook installed LLaMA, its AI, on my husband’s phone and it writes messages for him that he doesn’t want or intend; apparently LLaMA cost us a music gig when it wrote nonsense to a local venue owner without Bruce’s knowledge.

I opened my new, small account, but … I wouldn’t be much disturbed if Meta/Facebook went out of business.

Nearly every city, county, state, and even many neighborhoods have Facebook accounts. There are 700 condemned homes in my small community in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton; our local beach will not be open until next summer.

Facebook is a very frail, thin, poorly-operating platform masquerading as a way for people to stay in touch and support each other throughout not just daily life, but in case of ever-increasing natural disasters.

Mark Zuckerberg is supposedly using fraudulent tactics to buy up family properties on Kauai’s North Shore and is building a $270 million compound with a 5,000 square foot underground bunker.

I hope the creep goes into that bunker and stays there.