[Chapter-delegates] Suspension of Chapter Facebook pages for "impersonation"

[Joly MacFie]

Thanks for the quick response, Joe.

On our end it is difficult to divine what action, if any, is being taken by
staff, so any update, even "nothing to report", is valuable.

Perhaps,  staff could examine the mitigation steps proposed by both me and
ChatGPT, and comment or modify? Or institute some kind of verification
program?

Joly




On Wed, Apr 23, 2025 at 7:30 AM Dr. Joseph Lorenzo Hall <hall at isoc.org>
wrote:

> Joly, I have been working for two weeks with Meta staff to try and get
> these pages restored. I asked Victor and you to provide the data that the
> review team needs and we've provided that to them. Typically, there are
> very few recourses after an appeal has been denied as with the Mali and
> Zimbabwe pages (please give me the details for the new page suspension
> off-list and I'll get that to the Meta review team).
>
> To be clear, we'll need to keep our expectations low; in my experience
> pages are rarely resorted after appeal. I'm hopeful, especially given our
> collaboration with Meta.
>
> We're working hard on this and so far there is nothing new to report back
> as it's in their queue (I assume). Can you please give us the benefit of
> the doubt that we are trying here? Thank you
>
> --
> Joseph Lorenzo Hall PhD, Distinguished Technologist, Internet Society
> hall at isoc.org | +1-703-483-9504
> internetsociety.org | @internetsociety
> pgp: 3CA28D7B9F6DDBD34B1016075F86698740A9A871
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Chapter-delegates <chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org> on
> behalf of Joly MacFie via Chapter-delegates <
> chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, April 23, 2025 7:01:09 AM
> *To:* ISOC Chapter Delegates <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
> *Subject:* [Chapter-delegates] Suspension of Chapter Facebook pages for
> "impersonation"
>
>
> For ISOC.LIVE video crossposting purposes, I have, over the years, gained
> some admin role or other on 50+ Chapter Facebook pages. Recently a worrying
> trend has arisen of pages getting suspended by FB for "impersonation".
> Requested reviews have been summarily denied.
>
> Apart from making these pages unavailable, this has resulted in me and
> other page admins having our accounts restricted, such that we can't post
> or manage groups. ( I manage several non-ISOC technical groups, a couple
> with 1000s of members)
>
> Suspensions include
>
> *Internet Society Zimbabwe – ISOC Zim*
> https://www.facebook.com/isoczim/
> Suspended: December 17, 2024
> Review Decision: Not restored (January 3, 2025)
> Reason: Impersonation
>
> *ISOC Mali – Le Chapitre malien d’Internet Society*
> https://www.facebook.com/isocml/
> Suspended: March 26, 2025
> Review Decision: Not restored (March 31, 2025)
> Reason: Impersonation
>
> After these two, and since there had just been trumpeted the extension
> ISOC and Meta's partnership in Africa
> <https://www.internetsociety.org/news/press-releases/2025/internet-society-extends-multi-year-partnership-with-meta-and-announces-connectivity-co-funding-initiative/>,
> I reached out to Victor Ndonnang and also Chapter Support to see if strings
> could be pulled.
>
> Victor, as always, was responsive, and concerned about the damage these
> suspensions could do to two of the region's most active chapters.
>
> However Vcitor's efforts appeared to be in vain. I remembered that Katie
> Watson Jordan <https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-watson/>, formerly a
> mainstay of the North America Bureau, now worked out at Meta. I reached out
> to her and she asked for details to pass along to the "review team'".That
> was around a week ago.
>
> Chapter Support did not respond at all. No surprise there.
>
> Today, April 23 2025, comes another suspension, not of  just a chapter,
> but the Asia Pacific Bureau Page, taking out a whole region! I immediately
> appealed this, with the result that, within minutes, the page was totally
> removed.
>
> [image: image.png]
>
> I have passed that to Katie, too.
>
> So, what's going on here? It's not like these pages were full of spam or
> anything...
>
> One possible explanation is that this is an undesirable side effect of
> some other totally legitimate takedown. There are a number of orphaned, and
> conceivably even bogus ISOC pages out there, and which were reported as
> such, and the baby is now being thrown out with the bathwater.
>
> Or, it just could be increased brand vigilance byISOC staff, with the same
> result.
>
> It can't be 100% ignored that staff have systematically carried out a
> program to disengage from ISOC.LIVE, and me personally since removing my
> funding a year back, and this could be part of that.
>
> But, most likely, it's probably just Meta's stupid AI.
>
> Nevertheless, it is a fact of life.
>
> *===========WHAT TO DO?=========*
>
> There are a couple of things Chapter leaders can do.
>
> 1) Review the admin roles on the Chapter's FB page, and remove anybody who
> is not necessary. That includes me(  I am restricted from streaming anyway
> at present.) People can always be re-added as 'task manager'.
>
> 2) Read these detailed instructions from ChatGPT
> <https://chatgpt.com/share/6808c434-0970-8013-a95d-2ce70fae59d7> on how
> to safeguard your page.
>
> These instructions include NOT using the plain ISOC Symbol as an avatar,
> but in turn how to make an alternative that conforms to ISOC's brand
> guidelines is not obvious.
>
> What ChatGPT does suggest is that ISOC itself recognizes chapter pages by
> linking to them from the main ISOC page.
>
> Joly
> --
> --------------------------------------
> Joly MacFie  +12185659365
> --------------------------------------
> -
>


-- 
--------------------------------------
Joly MacFie  +12185659365
--------------------------------------
-
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