Let’s Stay Friends!

UPDATE: This morning on Facebook – on both my “Aisling D’Art” personal page and my business page – I’d linked to my free cloth doll patterns article.

Facebook deleted both posts. They said that linking to a freebie was spam. I still have my Aisling personal account there, but I’ve closed my business account. (If I can’t link to my current projects, what’s the point..?)

When I clicked through the related links at Facebook, this was their explanation for why my post was considered spam:

(Is it just me, or does their use of  the phrase “the technology,” as if it’s a third person, seem just a teensy bit like “Big Brother Is Watching You”?)

Here’s what you might need to know about Facebook…

Online, many of my friends use pen names, stage names, maiden/childhood names (or nicknames), etc.

Sometimes it’s for privacy. Sometimes it’s for convenience.

It’s how we find each other, even if that name isn’t the “everyday name” on our respective driver’s licenses, passports, etc.

Facebook has now made this a liability. See Meta’s Terms of Service, effective 1 Jan 2025. (You must “Provide for your account the same name that you use in everyday life.“)

In fact, they’ve already started implementing this.

If you’re a friend and may be at risk of losing contact with me, let me know how we can stay in touch. That might be social media, an email address, or a website.

(Leave a comment, and if you’d like that to remain private, let me know. I manually review all comments before anyone else sees them and will respect your choices.)

Here’s where I am (besides at this website)

• You can find me at Bluesky as “ThatArtist,” aka @thatartist.bsky.social
• For now, I’m also at Substack, as Art and Other Things.
• If you’re a childhood friend, you’ll find me at Classmates.com with my childhood name.
• (In the future, there will be more ways to connect, such as my Eibhlin dot com site, which is a mess while I turn it into a gallery for my fine art.)

And… the backstory

In June 2024, Facebook banned me, saying it was because I was “using a name that wasn’t mine. ” The company said the decision was permanent, and I couldn’t appeal it.

Well, I’d been using my childhood name… before I married and changed my legal name.

Several other classmates are doing the same. As I said, it’s been convenient.

Yes, I appealed the ban anyway. I even (stupidly?) provided my birth certificate, plus legal paperwork from when I changed my name (after getting married), and so on, proving that it was my name, and one that childhood friends would most readily recognize. Despite that, Facebook wouldn’t budge; I was banned.

Thankfully, I still had an older Facebook account (not used in over a decade), but I know that account may vanish (with no warning) in the next few weeks, as well.

It’s frustrating, but if this is Meta’s blanket way to resolve the proliferation of fake accounts… Well, I think it’s a big mistake. (Then again, maybe the Zuck didn’t learn from his “Hot or Not?” experience at Harvard…?)

And really, I HATE losing contact with friends, especially when I’m not sure how else we can remain in touch.

So, let me know where to find you—aside from Facebook— so we can stay in touch, okay? (And now I’m going back to making art and improving this website.)