On Friday, I noticed an unusual check-in on the Facebook page that I run for my studio. Someone named Olawumi Falusi had supposedly checked in there. Now, since I was at home and the studio was closed, I knew that was not factual. Curious, I decided to look at Olawumi’s profile page and what I found there was shocking: this person had spent the preceding 8 hours reposting a variety of the pictures I’ve posted on my public Instagram page, along with trying to copy my captions for those photos as well. To me, this looked like a doppelgänger profile that people use to send friend requests to your unwitting contacts, phish for data, etc.

I immediately reported it to Facebook using their “report profile” option. Right there in the options you can tell them you think this profile is pretending to be someone else. In this case, I selected “me.” I sent it off and then also proceeded to report every single post and photo as well. I encouraged my friends to do the same. After all, this is about as easy as it gets for Facebook to take a look and say, “yep, that certainly looks suspicious - why would someone choose to repost pictures that don’t belong to them AND copy the captions as well if not to pretend to be something they aren’t?”

I mean, really, anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together could see this was a fake profile, right?

Well, apparently Facebook doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together. Because later that evening, I got a message from Facebook saying that they had looked at the page and determined it “doesn’t violate our community standards,” and would not be doing anything to punish the offender.

What?

After becoming infuriated and requesting another review, I thought about what it means when a company as large and profitable as Facebook - one that is supposedly using cutting edge technology - cannot even handle a layup of the simplest kind when it comes to making its platform safer. As far as I’m concerned, my situation with this interloper is like having the football on the half yard line and all Facebook needs to do is quarterback sneak it into the end zone.

But they can’t. And after I requested a review, I got the same response. The profile page - despite being flagrantly fraudulent - “doesn’t violate community standards.” Which is utter bullshit. I repeated my request for a review, because after the first escalation, you can’t apparently escalate it any further, so you have to go back and click the same buttons you’ve already clicked.

Is it any wonder why public sentiment is less than favorable toward Facebook? This should be a simple security matter; but instead it’s mired in some sort of automated AI review process that, to be blunt, sucks. Where are the human eyes overseeing this review process? It wouldn’t take more than ten seconds to see this situation for what it is and boot the offender off the platform. But security processes appear to be relegated to AI and a system of automated checks. I don’t know if there are any humans involved in the review process.

Instead, Facebook apparently spends its time throttling page feeds in an attempt to squeeze money out of its users to “boost” posts. They slap arbitrary judgments and sentences to Facebook jail upon people who share a funny meme. They allow the continued spread of disinformation that only exacerbates the intellectual erosion of our society. 

Perhaps it’s not in Facebook’s best interests to clamp down on imposters and doppelgängers like this Olawumi Falusi? Perhaps Mark Zuckerberg and his crew think it better to keep the platform a churning maelstrom of chaos where scammers are welcome because they’re another set of eyeballs on ads that bring in money? Maybe it’s better business to forever change our news feeds and reorient them to what Facebook wants us to see, not what we want to see? Where the illusion of security is foisted upon antiquated members of Congress who have no idea how technology works and gleefully swallow the promises of a tech giant who knows what to say to get Washington off their backs.

Facebook isn’t a social media site; it’s a diseased system badly in need of corrective measures. Late last year I shut down my Facebook Page for readers of my novels and fans of my acting because Facebook’s algorithm wasn’t showing any of my posts to any more than a dozen people out of the 2,500 or so that had “liked” my page in the first place. Pretty sure that could be called extortion in certain circles. And they make no bones about it: “boost this post for $10 bucks and it could be seen by an additional 34 people!”

As of this writing, the doppelgänger profile is still there, along with pictures of myself, my family, and my friends. Typo-ridden captions are also there. I assume it’s only a matter of time before this imposter changes their name to mine and starts sending out fraudulent friend requests to others. And I assume that Facebook will continue to say there’s nothing they can do about it because of their supposed “standards.”

When clearly, they have none.

On Friday, I noticed an unusual check-in on the Facebook page that I run for my studio. Someone named Olawumi Falusi had supposedly checked in there. Now, since I was at home and the studio was closed, I knew that was not factual. Curious, I decided to look at Olawumi’s profile page and what I found there was shocking: this person had spent the preceding 8 hours reposting a variety of the pictures I’ve posted on my public Instagram page, along with trying to copy my captions for those photos as well. To me, this looked like a doppelgänger profile that people use to send friend requests to your unwitting contacts, phish for data, etc.

I immediately reported it to Facebook using their “report profile” option. Right there in the options you can tell them you think this profile is pretending to be someone else. In this case, I selected “me.” I sent it off and then also proceeded to report every single post and photo as well. I encouraged my friends to do the same. After all, this is about as easy as it gets for Facebook to take a look and say, “yep, that certainly looks suspicious - why would someone choose to repost pictures that don’t belong to them AND copy the captions as well if not to pretend to be something they aren’t?”

I mean, really, anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together could see this was a fake profile, right?

Well, apparently Facebook doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together. Because later that evening, I got a message from Facebook saying that they had looked at the page and determined it “doesn’t violate our community standards,” and would not be doing anything to punish the offender.

What?

After becoming infuriated and requesting another review, I thought about what it means when a company as large and profitable as Facebook - one that is supposedly using cutting edge technology - cannot even handle a layup of the simplest kind when it comes to making its platform safer. As far as I’m concerned, my situation with this interloper is like having the football on the half yard line and all Facebook needs to do is quarterback sneak it into the end zone.

But they can’t. And after I requested a review, I got the same response. The profile page - despite being flagrantly fraudulent - “doesn’t violate community standards.” Which is utter bullshit. I repeated my request for a review, because after the first escalation, you can’t apparently escalate it any further, so you have to go back and click the same buttons you’ve already clicked.

Is it any wonder why public sentiment is less than favorable toward Facebook? This should be a simple security matter; but instead it’s mired in some sort of automated AI review process that, to be blunt, sucks. Where are the human eyes overseeing this review process? It wouldn’t take more than ten seconds to see this situation for what it is and boot the offender off the platform. But security processes appear to be relegated to AI and a system of automated checks. I don’t know if there are any humans involved in the review process.

Instead, Facebook apparently spends its time throttling page feeds in an attempt to squeeze money out of its users to “boost” posts. They slap arbitrary judgments and sentences to Facebook jail upon people who share a funny meme. They allow the continued spread of disinformation that only exacerbates the intellectual erosion of our society. 

Perhaps it’s not in Facebook’s best interests to clamp down on imposters and doppelgängers like this Olawumi Falusi? Perhaps Mark Zuckerberg and his crew think it better to keep the platform a churning maelstrom of chaos where scammers are welcome because they’re another set of eyeballs on ads that bring in money? Maybe it’s better business to forever change our news feeds and reorient them to what Facebook wants us to see, not what we want to see? Where the illusion of security is foisted upon antiquated members of Congress who have no idea how technology works and gleefully swallow the promises of a tech giant who knows what to say to get Washington off their backs.

Facebook isn’t a social media site; it’s a diseased system badly in need of corrective measures. Late last year I shut down my Facebook Page for readers of my novels and fans of my acting because Facebook’s algorithm wasn’t showing any of my posts to any more than a dozen people out of the 2,500 or so that had “liked” my page in the first place. Pretty sure that could be called extortion in certain circles. And they make no bones about it: “boost this post for $10 bucks and it could be seen by an additional 34 people!”

As of this writing, the doppelgänger profile is still there, along with pictures of myself, my family, and my friends. Typo-ridden captions are also there. I assume it’s only a matter of time before this imposter changes their name to mine and starts sending out fraudulent friend requests to others. And I assume that Facebook will continue to say there’s nothing they can do about it because of their supposed “standards.”

When clearly, they have none.