[VexorLoophole]

Using the web and it's services really feels more and more like tedious work which is simply not worth it anymore. I don't want to sound like some old grunt (not even 30 yet), but every modern service uses some kind of automatic banning system and everything you invested can be gone in seconds.

To spice things up, all these services also stopped providing any kind of support regarding these kind of problems. Ever tried to get into contact with anybody about a banned account?

Just some weeks ago Discord decided to ban my 6 year old account out of nowhere. I didn't used Discord for 4 weeks, since I was on vacation. Also I am pretty sure, that it wasn't hacked, because I used MFA and no other account was affected.

I tried to contact the support, but only got a template response, that they don't talk about reasons and my account data will also be deleted in 14 days. I tried to contact them again, but they simply blocked my mail after that.

I didn't do any suspicious on discord ever. So I really had no clue why this happened. While talking with friends and coworker I've heard similar stories. And everybody of us changed their hardware multiple times beforehand (for example to test a specific component or for overclocking). Gotta love automatic banning systems...

[akudha]

Last year, some idiot opened a bank account in my name. I was lucky to find out - I tried to get in touch with the bank. Zero human contact - the only way to communicate with them is via email. No phones, no chat, no in-person - nothing. Just email. Ultimately they closed the account (at least they claim they did). If this is the situation in a highly regulated (supposedly?) industry like banking, then how can we expect social media companies to fare any better?

I don't know what the solution is. I don't use social media (except HN, I don't know if it falls under social media category) and I don't feel the need to. It is super easy to not use Facebook, Twitter etc. But I have to use banks, insurance etc - there is no way to vote with wallet there, as almost every bank is as bad as the next one. I know of at least one college who post their class schedule, events etc only on Facebook, forcing their students to have a FB account. The level of stupidity...

[miloignis]

I agree, it's a huge problem. Generally for services that are "free" - I highly recommend finding alternatives for anything you consider important, either paying for it or running it yourself. FastMail works wonderfully for me, and I self-host Mastodon for myself and Synapse(Matrix) for communicating with my family.

I don't ever want to be trapped in a Kafka-esque trial by corporate automation!