by Joyce Johnson
Far, far away in a vast unlimited space but really in-our-face, Cyber Universe, there is a selfish bully lurking to hook innocent little net surfers posting pretty pictures and funny stuff to entertain her friends.
c Over the past year AI Security has messed with me regarding what “they” think are shifty posts, and twice restricted my page. And I suspect kept it restricted. The first time, I had posted an unusually splendid landscape photo with the caption in quotes, “Proof of God.” And I got this creepy notice: “This post is not in keeping with the principals and standards of the FB community.” I sent another post out telling what happened, and asked friends to just click like if they saw the post, to see who could see my posts now, and I got only 15 reply emoticons of shock [:-O] Then another time they restricted me for some reason around voting time, so I think I can safely say it was my sharing a post of a candidate and caption which was not in keeping with FB’s “political lean.” Alas, a couple months ago, their Security AI demanded that I prove Who I Am, and if I want to access my account give them a webcam photo of my passport or driver’s license. I bared my teeth and said two words not in keeping with my own polite family standards. Just as a footnote, Meta is the Security Agent for Instagram too and when I went to make an account with them recently, they restricted me with a fake accusation which said to my dog appreciation comment, “You are trying to get likes in an unacceptable manner.”:-O
Several years ago, when I was first restricted by FB for seeing God in the landscape photo, a friend’s son who worked in Silicone Valley, said to type in the words “Face Book Security” in the box where you put the name of one whom you wish to block from your page. I did as suggested and what came down was a dozen or more creepy accounts in different languages, with strange symbols attached, of individuals I guess who were following or accessing my page in secret—FB spies, I presumed. I think what happened was that typing in “face book security” hacked their security system. I then quickly blocked each creep, individually. That worked! Until a year or so later I typed in same words just for fun, and got a bigger new download of a different collection of creeps. I did this three times over the years. If one could actually communicate with a real person now and then, AI wouldn’t make a fool of itself. It’s a mystery isn’t it?
Help! Get me out! Whatever the truth, I felt like I was (am?) being watched by an internet gestapo that was blackmailing me for re-entry to my own account. But, I was spending too much precious time messing with all this, so I took my desktop tower to our always calm computer magician, Mike, at Radio Shack and instructed him to fix all the tech errors and crumbled “cookies” caused by my jumping through the wrong hoops to fix stuff myself. I asked him to get me out of Face Book permanently too. But Mike said when I picked up the tower, that he could not. And, that the only thing I can do is to just ignore FB. :-O
So I ignored FB for a couple months, but recently missed my contacts so decided to just start all over with a new account. Compromising of me, I confess, but I now can visit my original account as a visitor, and “snip” pictures from my public galleries at least. I put my friends in the search box, to re-friend, told them the story on my fresh new Home page, and can now use messenger again too, which many of my friends use solely, instead of posting.
Smart (or sometimes I think, dumb) phones, are edgy health-wise: Many people are afraid of the microwaves etc, of their smartphones getting into their skulls so they use “speaker” when they call which is very wise but usually unclearly recorded in messages left. Which my hearing aids just make louder garbledeegook. Also you really should not touch the phone screen, dear friends, for same brain health reason. I use a stylus that attaches to my phone that I got at Radio Shack with a little spongy tip designed for that purpose, that connects at the headset hole in the smartphone. It actually works better and faster than my finger. But I am the only person that does that I noticed. There are some behavior, sleep, and memory issues discussed online regarding our cell phones. For more info, please search brain health and cellphone use or, see the link at end of this column.
But last, and even first, friends, just keep your sense of humor, (in all things) and turn the notification and ringer off and or toss that phone in a drawer now and then. And, get off your butt and go for a walk around the block or better, up into the hills to be in nature, the original, free healer with the most wonderful side effects that is to me... proof of G.O.D. https://www.verywellmind.com/how-do-smartphones-affect-the-brain-2794892