Facebook account gets hacked – now banned on Facebook and Instagram

[xAutobot]

Title says it all, went to bed after a night of games and streams with friends. Dreading getting up at 8am for work on a Saturday. With a few clips to edit and post on Instagram when I get home the next day.

Imagine my surprise when I see an “action needed” email from Facebook that arrived at around 530am. Logged in on the app to see if the email was a fake, and sure enough the app told me my account was disabled.

So I appeal the decision even send in my ID only for them to tell me I’m not allowed to use Facebook.

Found out via one of my friends who was still up at that time, that he saw I had posted 13 pictures all at once, and they were all pornographic images.

Now I’ve been using Facebook for 16 years, and have never been banned, Instagram for 10.

And now because my account was hacked I’m no longer allowed to use either of these platforms.

I was the one who was wronged and I’m now the one being punished for it.

Anyone able to help?

[TekMol]

Why do stories like these, from anonymous 1 hour old accounts get on the front page of HN again and again?

With no verifiability whatsoever I don't see how it is newsworthy.

[xAutobot]

Someone pointed me here as she had a similar situation, she managed to find help here, so I thought I’d try the same thing

[TekMol]

Why do it anonymously?

I mean, it seemed to work to some extent. You are on the HN frontpage.

But usually, to make a point publicly and get help, one has to have an identity and let people see the reality of things.

[logicalmonster]

> Why do it anonymously?

You can weigh the anonymity into your own subjective assessment of the believability of this anecdote of course.

But there's valid reasons, from personal safety to managing career prospects, for anybody to keep information about their personal identity detached from online accounts where they might reveal potentially damaging personal information.

We don't need OP's personal identity to know that Facebook and other mega-corporations are utterly despicable sad sacks of shit when it comes to customer service and decent behavior.

[xAutobot]

I thought it showed my username? Oops

[jimlongton]

I've been seeing more posts like this lately. Does anyone know why?

What is the purpose of this 'hacking'? Is it trolling competitors in the gaming community? Failed extortion?

[CamperBob2]

Forcing the social-media companies to address their abusive policies might be one positive motivation.

[drummer]

Facebook is doing you a favor keeping you off that dumpster fire. Go ahead and stop using whatsapp spyware too.

[_joel]

Did you enable 2FA? If not sucks to be you.

[xAutobot]

I had it on, I disabled it to switch my phone number as I got a new number, but they couldn’t verify the number, it was off for like 48 hours while I was trying to get that sorted, Instagram, twitch and Twitter took it no problem, Facebook however didn’t like the new number

[TheSpiceIsLife]

This doesn't help you now, but why would you turn off 2FA to change a mobile number?

Should delete the old number as a 2FA option, then add another, while keeping authenticaror app / recovery codes / security key enabled.

Even if I did turn off 2FA on my Facebook account, the password is long and complex to the point that it's likely no one other then myself has ever used it in the past, nor will anyone other than myself ever use it in the future, for at least as long as the account exists.

If you are ever able to restore access to your account, I hope these security guidelines help.

[xAutobot]

When I tried to just swap it it wouldn’t authenticate the number, so I had to disable it, and then try to re enable it. For reference my password was very complex, if you saw it you’d think I smashed my head against my keyboard and went “there it is”

[magnet2022]

My sympathy.

Ideally you could have added QR code based authenticator when you removed phone number.

[xAutobot]

I mean yes, I didn’t think about that, but the meat and potatoes is - if you look at my IP you can see I log in from 2 devices, my PC and my phone both in Canada, I was able to go in and appeal it, and saw that the login was from somewhere in China. Almost 5 hours after logged off.

They say “we have no way of proving it wasnt you”

Yes you do - logged out in Canada at 1230am my time, logged in at 523am my time in CHINA, attempted log in at 8am my time in Canada.

Was hoping to find help here, but so far nothing, but I do appreciate that people are understanding, gonna keep trying to get support to answer my emails!

[magnet2022]

At the end since you are a hn user you very well know the way accounts get banned - 2FA or not. Blaming faang does not work.

[bskan]

You didn’t properly secure your account and as a consequence people who added you had to look at pornographic pictures. Facebook had to ban your account. I don’t see how you’re the one wronged.

[jimlongton]

Facebook is happy to host peoples entire online social life to profit from (and experiment on, sell dangerous/discriminatory ads to etc) but not take the least care to ensure they keep access to all their photos, contacts etc. Banning people for one infraction after nearly 2 decades is entirely unreasonable given the amount of data the service holes.

[i67vw3]

The problem in this equation is him being banned on Instagram.

Banning on Facebook is justifiable from every angle but not exactly on Instagram.

There is no universal Meta Account (like google account, apple ID). There are two different accounts for two different services.

Illegal/Unethical banning of OP's account on Instagram.

[xAutobot]

They banned both, personal and gaming account, and I can’t make another one, got my friend to make one for me, logged in on my phone and insta banned

[xAutobot]

So someone can log in from a country that ISNT Canada and Facebook doesn’t see it as a red flag?

I was the one wronged, 16 years on the platform, changed my passwords ever 3-6 months and this so the first time my account got hacked.