this post was submitted on 10 May 2024
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Privacy

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I've been a social media hermit for the past 3 years but recently I've given up and created a few accounts across different apps again. It's unreal how strict the requirements are now.

  1. Give e-mail (ok)
  2. Give phone number (.... eeh, ok)
  3. Use the new account for a while
  4. Account suspended, please upload selfie to continue (no thanks xi). There are also some verification promps where you have to record a video and rotate your face left to right

If this isn't a message to move to indie web I don't know what is

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[–] [email protected] 99 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Yeah. I used to have fake facebook account because i got hooked on one of those mmorpg games. IDK what happened but something did and my account got suspended and FB requested me to upload my face and government ID. Yeah fuck that, uploaded some NSFW images and my account got deleted. Worth it.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 6 months ago

Many years ago I had a Facebook account under my real name, and they blocked it and told me to verify ... I did everything they asked and they wouldn't accept it... I recreated it under a fake name (very obvious it's fake since it uses a celeb name) and have been using it for messaging a couple of friends for like a decade now with no issue

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I used a fake name on Facebook and one day I similarly got suspended asking for government ID. So I photoshopped some fake ID with the fake name, printed it, put it in a plastic sleeve and took a photo of that, and they accepted it.

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They want to be able to make sure they're stealing data from real people and also ensure that your real life offline can be destroyed at any time lol

[–] [email protected] 38 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I mean, they know they're stealingg it from a real person, and no matter how careful you are, they're tracking you.

Even if you don't have a profile, they have a "you shaped hole" and someone somewhere has tagged you in a picture. They still have data on you built from people in any picture you were tagged in, their data gets extrapolated to you.

The ID is so they can sell the data for a higher price because it's "verified" to be yours. Even tho without it they still 100% know it's you.

This isn't about Facebook getting your ID, it's just so the people they'll selling it to pay more.

There's a chance a human never looked at OPs Shrek picture, an AI may have just checked it against real name tagged photos and it didn't match. Even tho OP doesn't have a Facebook account under their real name.

Facebook still knows what OP looks like, and almost assuredly knew the burner account was theirs

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Yep, Ghost Profiles.

Though I'd love to see what they think they have on me.

I'm old enough to well pre-date digital cameras, and of the photos I know I'm in, those people are unlikely to have uploaded pics (very few of those photos are with phones, and those people don't share online with others much anyway).

Genuinely very curious, since I'm such an outlier - it would be really insightful as to how effective FB is at piecing together disparate and tiny elements, including the tracking pixels, etc.

I've never intentionally even been to the FB website - the first time a college kid in the family talked about it, I knew it was bad news, but couldn't convince them.

Maybe I'll spin up a Linux machine off of usb, fire up a VPN, hit FB and see what I can find. I'm kind of curious now.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Do you never join photos when in social gatherings and someone takes a group picture with their phone?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Nope.

I don't remember the last time I was in a group taking photos. Family, years ago, but the older person taking the photo was using a digital camera, not a phone, and would maybe share via text.

No one in my family really uses Facebook, and wouldn't waste their time tagging anyone. Anyone looking at those photos would know who is who - no need to tag.

The photo would have to be tagged by someone I don't even know, like a sibling's friend's kid or something, and there's no reason for them to be viewing these photos, let alone tagging them - they likely wouldn't even be interested in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Unless you mean "accidentally being somewhere in the background of a stranger's photo", yes. I usually opt out of being photographed, was never forced into this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

remember that your searches for yourself feed them data too

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Good point.

I haven't done that in maybe 15 years, lol

[–] [email protected] 74 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I've had that a few times on my accounts (I scrape content so they get suspended relatively often) and I always just grab a photo from thispersondoesnotexist.com and crop out the watermark. It hasn't failed me yet.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Do you have a good recommendation for when they ask for a photo ID? I read about OnlyFake, but its down and I can't find an alternative.

Basically I want thisIDdoesnotexist

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

I've never had them ask for a photo ID so idk.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I know you can get ID deets here, but I don't know any service that turns it into a facsimile of a state ID card.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Yeah basically that plus thispersondoesnotexist thrown into a Photoshop template rendered as a photo on a floor carpet with AI

Edit: I found https://verif.tools but some of them don't look very good.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

can confirm this also works with google account

[–] [email protected] 53 points 6 months ago

Yet all those Instagram bots still exist. Weird

[–] [email protected] 38 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Maybe for app banking app (and even...), it could be understanding but for instagram, NEVER! Even for security reason... Bro they don't care about anything on their network, allow soft porn and all that kind of stuff. And after all of that they are going to come to say that it is for security reasons 😂 Stay on the "libre" web, Lemmy is a great start! 👌

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I've only done it on government websites because I had to

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

And government website already know who you are

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

i mean, unless the bank already knows what you look like or could cross reference with an existing id photo, i cant see how it would be any more secure.

[–] Steamymoomilk 34 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Follow up message be like

"Hi this is mark from instagram, so a face scan wasnt enough to verify your account. We sent you vials to fill with your dna, so we can be 100% sure.just to verify that you are who you say you are thanks!."

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago

Several years ago I took an extended break from Facebook and when I tried to log back in, they wanted a copy of my drivers license to prove my identity. I declined and made a new account. Unfortunately, I still needed an account for local stuff like neighborhood info, local businesses, kids sports leagues, schools, etc. After a couple years, my son got a Quest 2 and without even trying to log in, my original FB account was magically available once again.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 months ago

This is how I ended up getting my account deleted as well. 3D scan of my head was a immediate nope.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

lol good!

Fuck stalky social media. Instagram is just there for farming engagement for ads and make you scroll for hours.

If you want to look at truly great photography or art go to a museum or exhibition.

[–] notthoughtsjustcrabrave 5 points 6 months ago

There's hardly any photography in there nowadays...it's all reels.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What ? You did not obey the surveillance capitalism overlords ? :-) /j

Thanks for sharing, good to know!

Is PixelFed https://pixelfed.org a good alternative for privacy minded people out there ? I know that PixelFed users can be followed from Mastodon which seems nice to me.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

It's open source and can be restricted to private followers. If you self host it'd be as private as possible for an Instagram clone

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's right up there with random requirements to upload government photo id to suppliers in a different legal system. Hard Pass.

(I'm looking at you, PayPal, Airbnb and Stripe)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I've been using PayPal and AirBnB for years but if they ever start req... excuse me, WHEN they start requiring government ID I'm out.

I never tried Stripe

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Here in Australia, they were attempting to force us to provide Government Photo ID on Airbnb several years ago, we stopped using them instead.

There's a Know Your Customer (KYC) legislation that keeps being interpreted by numpties as requiring that they store these documents, rather than identify the user, create an account and dispose of the documents, which is making these companies rich hunting ground for infiltration by groups wanting to monetize personal data and provide identity theft services.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

That sucks. Sorry you have to deal with that.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago

They didn't delete your account. They deactivated it. It's still worth money to them

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I had one of these with a new account recently. I forget what platform it was, but it wasn't anything from Meta. Didn't need to move your face in any specific way, but it was obviously doing some checks for signs of life so a simple photo wouldn't work. I found a video of some random dude on YouTube just staring at the camera, and I pointed my camera my computer screen while that played. Difficult, considering they only allowed the front-facing camera to work.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

the australian government (i know, slightly different level of security and requirement) does an interesting thing where when you take a photo in their identity app it flashes a bunch of different colours very quickly. i assume it takes several photos with different colours to help ensure that shadows are behaving correctly (perhaps it also helps with adding detail for facial recognition and rejection?)

… kinda unrelated, but i’ve always found it fascinating

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Instead of my ID, I submitted a picture of dolphins and the text "So long and thanks for all the fish!". And never came back.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

I'm a little gutted that I lost my Facebook account, if only because it was so old I had a username. Instead of my profile only being facebook.com/, my profile was like facebook.com/tweak. People were really surprised by that.

However they blocked my account because I used 3rd party web wrapper apps and once had a poor internet connection in a remote location. It asked me to log in again, I did, then it said "you've done something strange" and demanded government ID. I actually complied (although I taped up most of the info, like it said I could) but it kept automatically rejecting it. I think it was because my profile used the shortened version of my name, which I go by on a day to day basis, while my ID uses the full version.

One of these days I might twist their arm with GDPR and get them to grant me access, however my local ICO has been pretty toothless under the current right wing government. I don't really miss Facebook, but there are friends and family on there I'd like to contact, and I was a member of a particularly good meme group.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

absolute_win.gif

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

That's actually crazy.... I have had an Instagram since like the start but have no posts on my account. I guess I have a pfp but that's it. I also don't really get on it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

How did you get in contact with them? They locked my account 2 months ago for unknown reasons.

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