We want our new blogging site to reach as large an audience as possible and that means using social media platforms like Twitter & Facebook. Setting up Twitter was easy, but Facebook has turned out to be a pain in the **buttocks**.
You cannot set up an account on Facebook as an organisation or business, you must create an account as an individual and then create a “page”. The problem I have with that process is that I, as an individual, do not use Facebook and have no interest in being on it. I’ve avoided social media platforms for the past 25 years but now I have no choice and I’m not happy about it. If I want WoZ Blogger on Facebook I must sign up as an individual first and that sucks.
Signing up has taken me over three hours so far, and I’m still not signed up. You see, before accepting me (as an individual) I had to give them my email address, which is ok and I understand that, but when they send their confirmation email it never arrives. Mail from everywhere else gets through, but not Facebook!
After waiting 20 minutes for the email to arrive I asked Facebook to resend the confirmation – it also never arrived. Three hours later and still no email.
Anti Spam Measures
Most mail servers around the world employ a number of mechanisms designed to thwart the arrival of spam and junk mail. The most common methods are Grey Listing and Black Lists.
Grey Listing is very simple in its design. Incoming messages are rejected with a code which tells the sending mail server “we are grey listing”. This might seem very simplistic, but it is reasonably effective. Mail Servers use a protocol called SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) and that protocol dictates if mail cannot be delivered you should try again in a few minutes. Mail servers conforming to correct SMTP requirements will disconnect and try again a little bit later. Spammers use badly written mail server processes and because they want to deliver as many messages as possible, they will not waste their time trying again. 50% of junk mail vanishes from our server.
Black Lists are a little different. They contain a list of known spamming mail servers, IP addresses and bogus email addresses. When a mail server configured to use a Black List receives an incoming message it checks the list to see if either the sending server or sender email address is listed. If it is listed, it rejects the email and informs the sender why they were rejected and which black list they were found in.
Facebook are BLACK LISTED
First they were grey listed, but when they tried again they came from a different mail server and were grey listed again. So, I white listed them and asked Facebook to resend the email. This time when they tried it was discovered they had been black listed and rejected.
While trying to resolve this issue the Facebook Page I was on popped up with a message saying they have detected unusual behaviour on my account (which isn’t set up yet). Now they ask for a phone number to send a confirmation code to me. I oblige and give them my personal mobile phone number and respond to the code. Now I am allowed to continue again.
By this time I can log in to Facebook to create a Page for WoZ Blogger. I upload a cover image to use and then another message pops up claiming suspicious behaviour again. FFS!
Now they demand I upload a photo of me so they can confirm I am me, despite them never seeing me before. I upload my photograph and they say “thanks, we’ll check you out and until we do you cannot use Facebook.” WTF!
Here we are, nearly four hours in and still no Facebook. ^$(*%&#* waste of time.