P.S. Your Social Media Isn't Actually Yours

 I don't think we can be reminded of this too often.

We call it "MY Facebook account" or "MY Instagram account," but it isn't really.  This matters the most, I think, when we think we can use social media as our photo storage.

I had a slap-in-the-face reminder recently that my social media accounts don't really belong to me, and it's *the perfect* example of why we shouldn't count on it for anything, really, but especially not our precious photos and videos.  Let me tell you what I mean. 

Why Your Social Media Isn't Really Yours

It's got your name on it.  You log in to it with your own password and username.  You post and share whatever you want to.  It kind of seems like it's yours, right?

Not at all.

Social media is run by algorithms and advertising.  Like when you Google "swimsuit coverup" and then you see ads on Facebook for swimsuit coverups.   It's also--thankfully--run with some standards.  I'll use Facebook as an example.  Facebook has Community Standards which state that you can't post hate speech, threats, nudity, cybersecurity risks, etc.  I love this.  This is great.

But when Facebook determines that you have gone against Community Standards, they don't ask you about it.  They just remove your content.  This happened to a colleague recently. 

Poor Cheryl. 

It seems to me that posts like these are not removed by real people (employees) who have read the posts.  It appears to me to be a bot thing, or an AI thing.  It happened on a massive scale to a company in Australia.

Which leads us to the crux of this blog post--the whole reason I want to share with you that your social media isn't yours.  

It's easy to assume that social media will always be there, and that we have control over what we are posting.  Because of that, it's easy to think that it's a great place to store our photos and videos.

Please.  Do.  Not.

Social Media IS NOT Photo Storage

Social media is set up to connect people, but there's a good deal of advertising and other things behind it.  That doesn't make it evil, it just makes it something we need to be aware of.  

I wrote in this article that there are three main reasons we should not think of (or treat) social media as cloud photo storage.  Read all the details there, but the main points are:

1. Social media sites can change policies, shut down their sites, and--as we have learned--delete your posts.  As I'll explain in the next section, it's more than just deleting your posts; you may not even be able to access your account if a social media site flags something you've posted, even if they are mistaken in doing so.
2. Social media sites compress the size of your photos so they're easily accessed from the site.  (That's why you can scroll social media fast--you don't have to wait for photos or videos to load.)  Great for them, bad for you if you ever want to download those photos back (which they don't actually guarantee you'll be able to do).
3. Despite your privacy settings, your photos and videos aren't necessarily private.  Other people might not be able to see them, but the social media site can.  Your images and posts are subject to data mining, which is the process of sorting through data to identify patterns, which they use to their benefit.  Again, the reason you Google "swimsuit coverup" and find ads for them on Facebook.

Social media is one of the most precarious and dangerous places to "store" our photos and memories.

And so we should know that!

It Happened to Me: My Experience

I really love social media for sharing inspiration and information about photos, stories, videos, memories, scrapbooks, and more.  I get to post things like this

and this

and this!

But in May, something like the Australian Humanitix error happened to me.

I got messages like this, repeatedly, for days.

And it wasn't just me.  Like Humanitix, some bot thought that all Facebook posts related to Forever, the company I love and use and recommend for memory-keeping, were a cybersecurity threat.  

You know, those posts about photos and family memories and making connections through photo-memory books and how good they are for your heart and soul.

It affected all pages and posts, including corporate ones.  

I couldn't access my Photo and Story Treasures Facebook page for a few days, and I contested the posts with Facebook.  However, I have no idea if they ever saw or cared about what I sent them.  I'm confident, however, that the only reason it "only" took a few days for my posts to be restored is because Corporate was involved.

And then it moved to my Instagram account.  My account was COMPLETELY inaccessible.  All I could see was that it appeared to remove all my followers 😰 and even everyone I was following.  

I emailed Instagram about it and heard nothing back.  I waited a week and then Googled how to contact Instagram about problems with your account, but all of the suggestions required you to access it through your Instagram app, and by then it was just a black screen for me (not even what you see above).  I couldn't access it AT ALL.  

I guess that's just too bad for me. 

I couldn't contest their decision that my posts were "bad" since I couldn't even login, but about 3 weeks later my account was somehow back up and running.  Who knows why.  Their timetables, their decisions--not mine.

And it's not even because any of my posts actually went against any of their community standards or I shared inappropriate links.  It was because one of their bots thought I did.

I knew it before, but this is the day I really learned it:

My social media is not mine.

Anything can happen at any time, and there's nothing I can do about it.  It is entirely out of my control.  Social media doesn't owe me anything.  It's a free service with absolutely no promises to me at all.

But I'm glad that at least I know.

Here's What We CAN Do

If you want to make sure your photos, videos, and memories are always accessible and are both private and secure, you're not looking for social media.  You're looking for a company with public interest where you're a shareholder in the vision to keep your photos and videos safely stored in the cloud, guaranteed yours for generations to come.

It's why I use and recommend what I use and recommend.

Plus, with Forever I can "store" my photos in print, too, like photo experts recommend.  The quality is unbeatable (literally) and I get to make make photo-memory books my way (with another option for people who prefer quick & easy without having to spend a long time learning a computer program)!

NOTE:  I am a Forever affiliate (a decision I made because I love it so much), so you will find affiliate links in this post, from which I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you.

I hope you never go through what I went through with social media or what Cheryl went through.  The debacle with Facebook mistaking a legitimate business website is one thing, but remember--the first post I shared with you here was from Cheryl who got the same actions against her from Meta based on sharing family photos in a private group and what ice cream flavor she likes.  

I really don't think there are real people looking at individual posts to use their brains to determine if a post goes against a policy or not.  I'm sure it's a sweep involving bots, algorithms, and probably AI, but if they make a mistake, it's YOUR problem.  Because your social media isn't yours.  It's theirs. 

All I'm saying is: don't trust your photos, videos, and memories to it without making sure they're also somewhere that's safe, protected, and private.  

Get started here, and then share this post with someone you care about using the share buttons at the left, or this Pinnable image for Pinterest.  This is something EVERYONE needs to know!  💙

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