How To Get Out Of Facebook Jail

Testimony From A Real-Life Escapee - Me (Messed-Up But Managing #26)

I’ve never been to jail. County, state, or federal. I’ve never worn inmate orange, never been shanked in the shower, and never had to trade a Honey Bun for protection. (Actually, I might’ve had to do that once in middle school.) Nevertheless, I’ve seen things. I visited family in jail when I was a kid. I’ve walked past cell blocks in Alcatraz and some other places. I’ve helped lead classes in juvenile halls. And I’ve watched enough episodes of Prison Break to know I’m not built for incarceration. I’m not even built for a mattress with springs.

So when I found myself locked up in Facebook Jail, I kinda panicked. One day I was posting a reel, the next I was in solitary confinement in the Metaverse with no food, no phone calls, no visitation rights, and no idea why I was being punished. Facebook didn’t read me my Miranda rights or give me any explanation. It was a lockdown then silence. But at least I didn’t have to worry about that whole soap-dropping thing or sitting to use the restroom. But I digress…

To be clear, I broke zero rules that I know of. I didn’t post anything offensive. There were no recent rants, no rage, no nothing. But all of a sudden, Bam!!!, blackout. My Facebook page was gone like it had entered witness protection without telling me. Meanwhile, Instagram still worked. It was like getting blindsided by Dog the Bounty Hunter minus the nice little speech about Jesus he often gave to his arrestees.

But it all made no sense to me because Facebook and IG are owned by the same company (Meta). It’s like the guards at County told me I was on lockdown but somehow I could still roam free in IG’s rec yard. Odd! When this all started, I got an email from Facebook saying I had to appeal the decision by submitting a video of my face. My first thought: Is China behind this? My second thought: Well, I guess I should do it anyway. So, I did it immediately. I looked forward, backward, up, down, left, right, like some kind of hostage or hiring event for the Chinese government. Afterward? Nothing happened.

Week one? Silence. Week two? A new email: “You need to appeal!” I clicked the link in that email, which said, “You already appealed.” That’s when I realized I was in The Shawshank Loop and the Warden wasn’t letting me out. Every link took me back to the same screen. Every email taunted me with hope. “Only 160 days left to appeal.” Yeah, no problem guys, just let me use the imaginary appeal portal! #Stupid

I half-expected Morgan Freeman to start narrating my situation: “Michael tried that appeal link every day for three weeks. And every day, the Facebook Warden reminded him who really held the keys.” You see, you can’t talk to Facebook. There’s no phone number. There’s no support chat. There’s just an email that comes from noreply@facebookmail.com. It might as well be WeHateYou@facebookmail.com.

But there is one sect of Meta that will talk to you. Guess who? Their Enhanced Support Team. Ever heard of them? I hadn’t either. Until now. And it took me weeks to find them. And, well, like a gold-digger, they’ll only talk to you if you pay. Turns out, freedom isn’t free. With Meta, it’s $14.99/month. I paid $24. Why? No clue! I’m still waiting on a receipt for that.

This all feels like one of those situations where an inmate saves up and saves up, then bribes the guard. The inmate hands over the goods and the guard says, “I’ll see what I can do,” then walks away with your commissary funds and shoes. So, as I tried to explain to and convince my wife that I need to pay, it felt like I was being put in a different jail. She’d never had to pay to use Facebook or IG, so why should I? She kept saying it felt like a scam. I agreed but what else could I do. Once she got annoyed enough for me to pay, I did.

I got “verified,” which I had actually looked into a couple weeks before my ban. Why? Because a comedian friend of mine had done it. Had they been keeping tabs on me? Certainly. They have history of every move you make on their platform and, sometimes, beyond. Of course, they knew. The question is: Was this a setup? I still don’t know.

I do know that paying allowed me to contact “Enhanced Support.” I know, that sounds like a fancy rehab program. But it’s not. It’s just more steps. I sent my message to them explaining that I’d been put in Facebook Jail and stuck in a never-ending loop. Well, in response, Enhanced Support kept sending me vague updates that had no sense of “enhanced” about them. They said numerous times, for instance, “We’re actively working on your case.”

I also discovered the only way to do this was to use the phone app. And, once again, I had to submit more videos. I also had to scan my ID, sync my email addresses, and match my profile pictures. It was like I was my own co-signer. It was odd. I was half expecting them to ask for a DNA sample and some sort of blood oath to Mark Zuckerberg.

Week three came and went. I was still in the loop and still trying to figure out how to appeal the thing I already appealed. I was out of options. I felt like Andy Dufresne with a spoon. There I was trying to scratch through the wall of Meta’s Terms of Service hoping to find daylight. Around the start of week four, without warning, I was back. I was free. No apology. No explanation. No restitution. I was out of jail. I was instantly back on the digital streets like nothing ever happened. It felt like a time warp or the matrix or something.

At this point, I have nearly twenty years of content stored on Facebook. That’s like twenty years of family photos, memories, connections, and dad jokes sitting in Mark Zuckerberg’s personal lockbox. So, I’m telling you right now, if you haven’t downloaded all your content yet, you should. Because, evidently, there are many others out there going through what I have just experienced. Just read Reddit or watch a couple YouTube videos and you’ll see. If they decide to toss you into the same hole I was in, you’ll get no trial, no jury, and no one will know what you did wrong. You’ll just wake up in digital cuffs and no timeline.

Maybe they just wanted my money. Sure seems that way. Maybe their algorithm flagged my face as a potential threat to society. That might be most likely. Or maybe I’m paranoid. I don’t know. But if you’re reading this and still free, download your stuff. You honestly never know when the KGB-like algorithm’s gonna knock on your door and say, “You got 1 minute to grab your memes.” In the end, I really don’t think Facebook Jail is ultimately about rules or breaking them. I think it’s probably about squeezing a few bucks out of as many people as possible. So, after all the years of seeing Facebook reiterate that it’ll always be free, well, this trickery I’ve just experienced seems like the real crime.