Disputes in business are pretty common and can happen for almost any reason.

Customers often complain, leading to disputes.

Businesses even argue among themselves when one feels the other may have let them down.

I’ve just been through a month or more of dispute with internet giant Google, about my recent article on The Nude Blogger, Jessa O’Brien.

Google forbids advertising on content that promotes sexual behaviour, and issued me a “please explain” notice to remedy the alleged breach.

I stood firm, and Google eventually woke up and smelt the cheese, and my ability to run ads here remains.

My article on The Nude Blogger wasn’t sexual in any way, and nor is the content published by Jessa O’Brien herself sexual in any way, yet when computers are left to decide issues in dispute, it often takes a human to save the day.

Jessa OBrien found herself removed from Instagram, and it took her to make one hell of a noise to have her content restored.

That’s how easy it is to find a business dispute online these days, when computer algorithms are left to make decisions that humans would have usually made.

During the past month or so, I’ve found myself dragged into yet another business dispute between a multi-million dollar business based in Geelong and internet giant Facebook.

This Geelong based business is no small fry, and they spend a lot of money on the Facebook advertising platform.

It’s a stalemate, with Facebook losing, and the business losing as well.

Not that Facebook would care, with their advertising revenue raking in billions every month, but when you spend money with a business, you expect fair play.

Here’s the problem and why I’m smack bang in the middle of it…

In a nutshell

In 2013, I provided social media consulting services to a new business who set themselves up in Geelong.

I’ve known the business owner personally for some time, and if I told you who it was, most of Geelong would know them as well.

They’re that well known, with a very high public profile.

Who they are right now isn’t important, but what’s important is the problem they are facing – caused entirely by an internet idiot – due to no fault of their own.

The business concerned here needed a social media presence, and asked me to provide it, which I did towards the end of 2013.

Within a week or so of their social media launch, they had several thousand people from Geelong liking their Facebook page.

They came roaring out of the gate at top speed, and I delivered exactly what they needed, social media, with an audience of reasonable size.

They were ecstatic, and I recall them running inside their home to check the growth and reporting back to myself while I feasted on their brilliant thank you BBQ outside.

That’s how you keep customers happy…  you under-promise and over-deliver, and you’ll always keep people on your good side.

Time to sink or swim

As this new business was not confident to manage their social media presence, I retained administrator rights and left them as an editor so they could learn the ropes.

As an editor, they could post to their page, but not make any major changes.

Pretty standard practice… as the saying goes…

“To err is human, but to really fuck things up requires the administrator password!”

Until they were confident I held the keys to their social media page.

And then our first snag arrived…

In mid 2014, I served a term of imprisonment and disappeared off the face of the earth for a 4 month period, leaving the business to fend for themselves.

There’s no Facebook in prison folks, and while in prison I was unable to assist them in any way.

They had to now learn the hard way, sink or swim style, to manage their Facebook page alone.

And manage they did, exceptionally well, and I wished them all the best and told them if they ever needed anything further to give me a yell.

Happy days.

Cracking the nuts

Just on a month ago now, that business called me back requesting urgent assistance.

Facebook had locked them out of their social media page which they rely upon heavily.

As administrator of their Facebook page, I held the power to make their required changes.

As they are only an editor, I held the power to make changes they require, and nobody else.

But there’s just one problem… Facebook disabled my account, leaving their page without an administrator.

During the period above from 2013 until now, I was also the founding administrator of the Geelong Facebook Page, along with many other pages of a similar nature.

On May 16, 2016, Facebook took the Geelong Facebook Page offline.

 

Several days later Facebook also disabled my personal Facebook account which I’d used without a single issue for 8 years previously since 2008.

And with my personal account disabled, Facebook had effectively disabled every single page I held administrator rights to.

The Geelong media had a field day, blaming myself for all kinds of crap, but they lied and eventually deleted everything they had to say on the topic once I decided to hold them to account.

For bonus points, Rob McLennon of BayFM and KRock even posted a screenshot showing who was feeding him the lies.

Fools will rush in where angels fear to tread…

The community pages I launched in 2012 are all safe… I had them backed up by multiple administrator accounts in case anything like this ever happened.

In the case of the business above however, my administrator access was only ever meant to be a short term solution, and my personal account was the only account with the keys.

The business concerned now has no administrator for their social media page and cannot make required changes they urgently need.

Their Facebook page, a major part of their business, is now effectively useless.

Facebook are hard enough to deal with on even their best days when it comes to customer support.

Most of the Facebook support functions are actually automated, and unless you go have a whine on their public community forum pages, you’ll mostly receive nothing but automated nonsense back every time.

I don’t care that my own personal Facebook account held since 2008 is disabled, but I do care about my friends when they’re losing business, and lots of it, due to the actions of an internet idiot.

So what happened, and just how did an internet idiot create a problem that has now become one very costly one?

Nobody but yourself to blame

You’re probably thinking around about now that I must have been a bad boy of some kind to warrant Facebook disabling my account.

In the eyes of Facebook, I sure was bad.

Several hundred warnings were issued by Facebook aimed at myself, for copyright violations.

The copyright violations originated from a local Geelong chap who I cannot name for legal reasons.

Copyright violation complaints then started flowing in from organisations such as the Geelong Regional Library Corporation, Geelong College, and even the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA for short.

That’s right, NASA, the United States space agency who fly astronauts to the fucking moon!

That NASA!

Even they complained about the Geelong Facebook Page!

That’s a pretty far fetched story you’d think, but I’ll tell you something for nothing before you suggest I get my head checked.

NASA didn’t complain at all… and nor did anyone else for that matter, apart from the idiot who started the reporting game.

NASA had their identity spoofed, or faked, just like everyone else.

Identity theft, internet fraud, call it whatever you like, but that’s what happened, and that’s exactly what took my personal account down.

And each and every single report of a copyright violation results in an email being sent to the account holder, with email headers intact, which verify the emails were sent to myself from Facebook, and not faked.

So before any internet idiot wants to begin the “he’s crazy, and he’s blaming me again” game, just understand, it’s not me wanting blood, it’s the poor business who’s been cost plenty by the actions of a psychopathic cunt.

And since that same business had no issue in paying a lawyer to notarise documents requested by Facebook, at a cost of several hundred dollars, i see them having no problem whatsoever in spending further money to fix the overall problem legally.

There’s another old saying you know, along the lines of…

“There’s always somebody bigger than you…”

Our internet hero who wasted hours bullying the Geelong Facebook Page has just bitten off a lot more than he could ever chew!

While I cannot name the internet idiot for legal reasons, there’s nothing whatsoever from stopping me handing over my own private emails to another party.

After all, said internet idiot was stupid enough to begin his reporting spree by reporting 17 images using his own identity.

That’s evidence enough to demonstrate what began the problem before he decided to shift blame using fraudulent means.

I can barely wait to see the outcome of a battle between a piece of cowardly cyberbullying shit up against one of the most highly respected families doing business in the entire city of Geelong.

Who just happens to be a very good long term friend… who is losing money, because a poor little idiot couldn’t restrain himself from childish internet games 🙂

“Well, I don’t know why I came here tonight
I got the feeling that something ain’t right
I’m so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I’m wondering how I’ll get down those stairs
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right,
Here I am… dah dah dah dah dah dah dah…”