I Lost 15,000 Friends In 5 Seconds
The week of the recent global computer outage, my cyber world also crashed. “Your Facebook account was suspended because your Instagram account doantantao57444 doesn’t follow our rules,” the notice on my iPhone blared. “You have 180 days left to appeal. Log into your linked Instagram account to appeal our decision.”
What? Who? But I had a new book and class I needed to promote! I went to my Instagram “account center,” and when I clicked on “profiles,” it showed that along with my Insta and Facebook memberships, there was a new address — doantantao57444 — listed. That account, which featured pornography, certainly wasn’t mine. Freaked out, I deleted The Porn Hacker, as I came to call it, from my profiles, but it didn’t matter. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, still suspended my Facebook accounts.
Decades of curated profiles and professional content instantly disappeared into the ether. I was the type who double-locked the door and never lost my keys, phone, a single text or email. How could I have misplaced 15,000 friends in five seconds?
Using Facebook’s “Help and Support” tab, I insisted that The Porn Hacker’s account wasn’t mine. Meanwhile, my pupil Orlando reported to me that the page for the beloved student group I led eerily remained without me as its administrator. Orlando, who was still an active member, posted the event fliers I emailed him, but I was completely locked out of my own clique.
If your body broke down, you’d rush to a doctor at urgent care. If your car was in disrepair, you’d see a mechanic at the auto shop. Since my Facebook presence had fallen apart, I went right to the source: CEO Mark Zuckerberg. I messaged him on social media: “My Facebook account was hacked by a fake Instagram account and my Facebook was canceled. How can I fix this asap?”
Despite Meta’s illusion that we’re all in this together, Zuck was not my friend, fan or first responder.
“I’ve been hacked and expelled!” I blasted on my other socials, inadvertently motivating messages from tons of alleged cyber-sleuths who claimed they could fix my problem for $100 to $500 paid by wire or Zelle — suspiciously, not with a credit card, which would have protected my transaction.
“Don’t!” warned my brother Eric, an IT guy.
Suddenly, many people I knew were texting, instant messaging and emailing me their nightmares of scams, phishing schemes and unjust cancellations. As I went down the rabbit hole reading Reddit’s horror stories of Facebook and Insta bans, restrictions, deactivations and lawsuits against Zuck’s business, my anxiety grew.
Eric’s colleague, a Meta employee in the Midwest, offered to help me, as did an ex-student who worked at Meta’s New York office, which, was oddly visible from my apartment. But the company itself didn’t provide me any assistance beyond telling me to submit an internal help ticket and wait. A week later, I received an email from Facebook’s support team asking for information about my situation, which I provided.
Alas, they didn’t reply.
Ironically, for years, when colleagues bemoaned the evils of social media — from addiction to fake news to online scams to bullying — I was the one defending it. Moonlighting as a college writing prof, I’d seen it as a miraculous career tool to keep connected with the students I’d met over the past 25 years. I’d repost the powerful pieces they published and share my pride when they secured agents and editors who championed their book projects. As an author, I used it to send invitations to readings and panels that drew big audiences across the country. Posting online was critical to my career, and I deemed myself worthy of a multitasking medal.
Although I’d stopped smoking, drinking and doing drugs, getting 'likes,' hearts and going viral can be addictive for grown-ups as well as teenagers.
Maybe I was so keen on social media because, as a self-proclaimed luddite, I’d come to computers late. I was typing chapters on my debut memoir, “Five Men Who Broke My Heart” on my black IBM Selectric typewriter in 2003 when my husband and brothers chipped in to buy me a laptop for my 40th birthday. Completely unsure of exactly what I was doing, I saved each chapter in separate files I sent Eric, who then put it all together. I was so amazed by my computer’s powers, I had labeled the blue folder that held the contents of my manuscript “5Men1File.”
I imagined I was hip writing essays about my experiences with modern technology and the internet, including “Anti-Social Media,” about my husband refusing to be my Facebook friend, and “My Only One Night Stand Found Me On LinkedIn.” I flirted with YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter/X, Zoom, WhatsApp, TikTok and Threads, but only between in-person jobs, meetings and socializing.
As an awkward kid, I was never popular, so I made up for lost time and friendlessness virtually. I reached Facebook’s 5,000 friend limit, garnered 6,000 more “followers,” and made three author pages to reach different fans for the books I’d coauthored. When I switched to teaching online writing classes during the pandemic, I increased my private student group to almost 2,000 members across the globe.
Reigning over my little rarified universe, I felt like Facebook royalty. As I reposted pieces by talented protégés in consortiums of literary agents and editors, helping their poignant work go viral, I fell under the delusion that being a good literary citizen would protect me from all negativity and naysayers. I added publishing tips, self-deprecating self-promotion and GoFundMe pages for tragedies, never worrying that hacking could happen to me. I hadn’t paid for ads, but I had joined so many author and journalism groups that I once boasted I could reach 1 million people in one minute.
Then — poof. It was all gone.
“If it seems too good to be true, it is,” my dad used to say.
He was right. Now a neurotic New York woman scorned, I web-stalked myself hourly on my iPhone, laptop and my husband’s computer, sweating through withdrawal from my digital kingdom. While plugging a book I wrote that shared the wisdom of forgiving, I was becoming a discombobulated rage-ball. Determined not to be left out of the pixelated party I’d been hosting adeptly for two decades, I started over in a panic. I created a new profile with a new photo, stronger passwords and two-factor authentication. I asked to join my own student group, but since I was the only administrator I couldn’t approve my request — a maddening twist on the old Groucho Marx joke about not wanting to be in any club that would have me as a member.
Trying to re-friend former contacts triggered an alert that read, “It looks like you may not know this person. Send requests to people you know personally,” to continually pop up. I desperately attempted to reconnect to my mother, brothers, nieces and nephews — who share my last name — but I was dealing with a dim-witted, hostile algorithm that divorced, deserted and kept rejecting me.
The better I knew someone personally, the less likely it seemed I would be able to request their friendship, and many of my connections from the last 20 years ignored or avoided me, fearing my account was contaminated. Humiliatingly, I DM’ed, emailed, texted or called instead, explaining my pathetic dilemma, and begged to be reinstated into their circles.
I heard Coldplay’s famous song about someone who used to rule the world — but was now sweeping the streets they used to own — constantly playing in my head, and overidentified with the lyrics. One minute, I too, “held the key,” the next minute, the walls closed in on me, erasing my existence. How could I mourn the enigmatic loss of 15,000 cyber-comrades? Rebuild my realm on Substack or Alignable? Cold turkey it? Go back to therapy?
“What is this here to teach you?” my shrink annoyingly used to ask after a trauma.
I was lucky the rest of my identity wasn’t stolen, that nobody infiltrated my online bank accounts or corrupted important computer files. I knew it could have been much worse. As it turned out, it was nice reconnecting with real friends on the phone and real life.
I was still proud that I’d conquered my technophobic tendencies and embraced cyberspace. Yet in retrospect, I reread the studies that showed too much screen time can harm kids and saw it was also unhealthy for adults to rely on mini-machinery more than human interactions. Although I’d stopped smoking, drinking and doing drugs, getting “likes,” hearts and going viral can be addictive for grown-ups as well as teenagers. As my therapist once warned me, “Beware all excitement because it takes you out of yourself, and you always have to go back to yourself.”
Was this an important life lesson, instructing me to untether myself from my tech havens and find socializing and solace elsewhere?
Of course, just like a bad boyfriend, the minute I realized I might be able to handle the loss and move on, Facebook came back. Ten days after all of my old pages disappeared, they all miraculously reappeared. My heroic IT Musketeers had saved me.
I immediately triple-secured my original Facebook and Insta accounts with a new password and better security, praying I wouldn’t ever have to go through that banishment again.
I decided to keep the recent backup profile I’d made, too. I promptly accepted my other self as a member of my student group so I could continue posting there, just in case, and then I made Orlando the co-administrator of the page. It felt like a way to bridge the old and new — like Biden appointing a younger successor — wondering what the hell took me so long.
Susan Shapiro, a Manhattan writing professor, is the bestselling author/coauthor of books her family hates, including “Five Men Who Broke My Heart” and “American Shield.” Her memoir “The Forgiveness Tour,” is now out in paperback. You can follow her on Instagram at @profsue123.
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