Go ahead, make my..
Back on March 23 I posted up the following from FB: Hi Dennis, through advanced security from Facebook Protect, your account has the potential to reach a lot more people than an average Facebook user. Hackers are often motivated to attack accounts that have a lot of followers, run important Pages, or hold some community significance.
To help defend against these targeted attacks, we require Facebook Protect for your account. Turn on Facebook Protect for your account by 07 April 2022. After that, you will be locked out of your account until you enable it.
•We’ve already turned on advanced login protections for your account.
•To fully enable Facebook Protect, we’ll check your account for vulnerabilities, and help you resolve them.
Please Note that Facebook Protect isn’t available to everyone on Facebook. We require stronger security for your account because it has the potential to reach a large audience. Thanks so much. The Facebook Team
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People lie; people die; people sigh…
To say I was skeptical at the time would be an understatement, bound and determined as I was to be gone from FB on the published date, but having looked into it in rather more detail the past two or three weeks, I definitely feel more comfortable in my assertion to stay put.
For one thing, in looking back over my long years with FB, the sheer volume of activity, great, good, bad, indifferent, etal, is a real indicator of true cause and effect that institutions the likes of FB can allow we writers to run free with. Provided of course, a protective sleeve is there for the covering thereof. Facebook Protect in this particular case being that protected sleeve.
Getting into the minds of somewhere in the vicinity of 200,000+ and counting interested participants isn’t anything to be dismissive of, nor anything to be braggadocios about. In the eternal mind of Sergeant Joe Friday – “the facts, ma’am, just the facts”!
Somewhat hastily I must admit, on the day I received the message, I punched out a piece titled ‘Facebook Protect’ shambolic mess? the first paragraph of which ran:
From multiple sources, and not looking good: A security feature from Facebook is now the target of complaints from some users who say they were locked out on Friday and unable to access their accounts. ‘Facebook Protect’ is a security program used by Facebook’s parent company Meta. The program is designed for people who Facebook perceives to be more at risk of being targeted by hackers, such as human rights defenders, journalists and government officials, among others.
As I further wrote: In an ironic twist, however, an email from Facebook earlier this year, which warned select users that their accounts required Facebook Protect, was sent from an email address that raised red flags for some as possible spam: security@facebookmail.com. “This is a reminder to turn on Facebook Protect by tomorrow, 17 March 2022,” the email read. “After that, you will be locked out of your account until you enable it.”
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The BIG UGLY not as ugly,,,
The email was indeed from Facebook, however, and on Friday several users who neglected – or declined – to enable Facebook Protect complained that they were locked out with no way to regain access. “Anyone else having major issues with Facebook protect?” wrote one journalist. “Completely locked out of my account. Then running into glitches and tech issues when trying to fix the problem.”
This may well sound like a phishing scam, but it isn’t. Facebook really is forcing some users to upgrade the security on their accounts, chiefly by activating two-factor authentication (2FA). Facebook Protect also adds “back-end threat detection so our teams can quickly respond to compromise attempts,” as Facebook/Meta head of security Nathaniel Gleicher said in a series of tweets Tuesday (March 1).
Facebook Protect, launched in 2018, was originally meant to be used by “political candidates, their campaigns and elected officials,” as a Facebook paper explaining the feature states. Now it’s being expanded to political activists and journalists, as a Meta blog post authored by Gleicher back in December said. At that time, 1.5 million accounts had already enrolled in Facebook Protect. [-]
Bottom, bottom line is, please ignore the note I sent out on March 22nd / 23rd beginning “FYI for all my FB buddies … 07 April 2022 will be my last day on FB” … more to the point is that “all former systems are still on GO” albeit with some very tight protections around said system.
To which I give kudo’s to “techy engineer David” who was around as soon as he was able and did a complete system check and upgrade. Gotta ‘luv’ guys like David who always seem so matter-of-fact about everything!
And with that, onward and upward, time for today’s MAGA Pill – Still our warrior-president (with yet another blockbuster rally this past weekend) – Donald John Trump doing his darnedest to keep America Great under the Constitutional Republic of the United States – MAGA! KAG!
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- Yours Truly, March 23: ‘Facebook Protect’ shambolic mess?
- Jason Cohen, PC Mag: The Facebook Protect is Real: What You need to Know
