Social Media and the Web Archives

An example of my advice to NOT depend on a single social media platform

July 21, 2025July 21, 2025 Carl Setzer

A webcomic I follow recently ran afoul of Instagram’s TOS. Their 100k+ followers evaporated instantly. They appealed, Meta denied the appeal. So, their option is to rebuild or quit. Now, one way to rebuild is to launch under a slightly different handle, but really, the damage is done. Regaining that many followers will be hard. They are now launching a website to rebuild their connections.

Now, for years I’ve advised folks who do business online to NOT depend on a single platform, not Meta, not YouTube, not Twitch…no, not any of them. The main thing is that you are dependent on whatever decisions they opt to make. We, as customers, have no real influence over the business. Perhaps, if we have enough followers, we can force an action (ie: Linus Tech Tips and YouTube). But keep in mind that Linus has other channels to engage and enrage his followers.

So, the main gist of my recommended social strategy is to drive people to your website. Have them subscribe to the site or an email list. Then you are decently insulated from any capricious decisions by those companies.

I can hear some of my good friends saying “the 90s called and they want their technology back”. Or, even better, “yo, web dev, not everything is solved with a website”. However, I stand by my strategy and, as time goes by, I recommend it even more boldly.

Check out more of what I have to say about Social Media here. And if you like what I have to say, please consider liking and subscribing.

An uptick in Facebook & Instagram Spam Messages

February 26, 2025February 26, 2025 Carl Setzer1 Comment

scam alert letting text on black background

Last June I wrote about a scam running through my Facebook accounts. Well, I’ve now seen this a few times over the months. However, starting overnight last night, several of the pages I managed have been inundated with the message. I think I’m up to 7 or 8 on one page alone.

Here’s a screenshot of the message:

Meta Scam message: We have detected that a Facebook page associated with your Instagram account may be violating Meta policies.

Ultimately, it’s a phishing scam. If you click on the link, it’ll either ask you for your credentials or download malware…or both. Dear friends, DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK!!!!

Part of me takes delight in reporting these…people…for spam and getting their accounts blocked. However, in the end, it’s just a game of whack-a-mole. Clearly, they are able to create new accounts as fast as they get deleted. A part of me wants to kick these folks in the gonads.

Anyway, I wanted share this ASAP and I’m sure there are some people alarmed and, thus, more likely to click on the link. Please be safe out there in cyberspace!

Social Media, Communications, and Career

February 5, 2025July 21, 2025 Carl Setzer

close up photography of yellow green red and brown plastic cones on white lined surface

I just updated my LinkedIn pro f ile language to “maximizing the potential of technology”. I’m trying to capture my belief in the positive potential of technology while acknowledging the risks and downsides. My career focus will be technology focused, as a good chunk of my life has been. I’ve enjoyed the past few years of IT being my center focus and am eager to keep that going. A fun aside with this: IT is not that narrow a focus! Data, AI, networking, web development…all of these are so much more are encompassed by the umbrella of “IT”.

As I’ve been building a career plan, my research keeps driving home the importance of networking. Not in terms of information systems, but human connectivity. Now, this is not a new notion to me. And during my years in Real Estate, I saw so many times that it was connections that cemented business success. The main challenge in this: genuineness. Most people aren’t fans of being hit up only when someone wants something from them. “Hey, I don’t know if you remember, but we worked together 10 years ago. Can you help me get a job?” I know it’s wearying.

I’m taking this as a reminder to maintain connection with people I care about. For 2025, I’m making it a point to reach out to those my contacts and start with simply saying “hi”. Folks shouldn’t be in there unless I care about them, right? Now, I have hundreds of people in my contact list. Everyone I’d worked on a project with, was part of team with, all that sort of stuff ended up in my contact list. So, for the first step of this project, I’m going through and cleaning things up. If we worked together on a project 10 years ago, and we haven’t talked since, I’m just going to delete the contact. And I’ve been so bad at managing my contact list that there were people who’d died years ago in there. Yeah, this is a critical first step!

I deeply value my friends, and want you all to be more than potential sources of revenue. Being deliberate about maintaining these connections is but a first step. Yet this is an area that I really want to grow. It feeds my soul.

Some Thoughts On TikTok

January 14, 2025January 14, 2025 Carl Setzer

The Law of Unintended Consequences again applies as the US Government is preparing to ban TikTok for data privacy and security concerns. I expect the expectation was for all those TikTok folks to just bop over to Instagram, Facebook, Threads, or X, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. At least, it’s not as simple as that. It looks like many Tiktokers are migrating to “RedNote”, the Chinese answer to TikTok. So now we’re playing a game of whack-a-mole. Fun.

As wiser people than me have pointed out, a TikTok ban will not do much of anything in terms of security and data privacy (here’s a good piece on that). These sorts of things happen when legislation is crafted by people who don’t understand the technology they’re trying to regulate. Anyway, I understand there’s the possibility that the Supreme Court will weigh in on this, so I guess there is a slight possibility that this ban be halted, but I’m not holding my breath. So, it’ll be interesting to see how the policy implications shake out. I doubt anyone has a solid grasp on how this will ripple out.

With this, I know some folks whose businesses are highly dependent on TikTok who are scrambling to work their way through this. As I’ve written before, you should NOT set your business up highly dependent upon a single platform you can’t control, or have little to no influence with. I always recommend driving people to a website that you are in control of, and then having them sign up for a newsletter. Email lists are very portable, as are website signups. If you can email even 70% of your followers, something like a TikTok ban becomes less life-threatening to your business. Keeping the risks your business faces in mind is crucial for sustainability.

2025 is shaping up to be a very dynamic year for business in the digital realm.

Making the Internet Personal Again

January 6, 2025January 6, 2025 Carl Setzer

I’ve been on the web for years. I started this blog back in 2005, though before that I messed around with hand-coded sites. Reading Justin Cox’s post from early 2025, “Let’s Make The Internet Personal Again” reminded me of those days. The internet was a quirky place, with sites ranging from the cerebral to the downright weird, ie: Dancing Hamster.

In his post, Mr. Cox writes about Lost and its impact on the blogosphere. Though I didn’t get into Lost, I did have my sets of interests and found my own focused sites.

On a 2023 post, “The End of Centralized Platforms is Over“, he states:

You put the distribution into the hands of a company without your interest in mind.

I deeply agree with this point. Build your own site, build your own community. Even in the heyday of the platformed web, I promoted the notion of using social media sites to drive people towards YOUR site. Don’t let a third party control your community! I can point to Twitter and YouTube, amongst others, who seemingly capriciously de-platforming people, people who depended on that community for a living. They were left in professional limbo. A benefit of pointing people to your website, to your email list is that if you’re kicked off a platform, or that platform fails/goes out of business, your community can still find you, can still maintain that connection.

Personally, I’m going through a minor struggle. Should I hand-code my main site (like this page of mine), should I focus on THIS site (which is WordPress)? Or some other option (Joomla?)

What are your thoughts? Do you focus on a single platform? Do you maintain a website/blog? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Some video work today

September 13, 2024September 13, 2024 Carl Setzer

I spent some time this morning trimming this video out of Trinity’s service last Sunday. A local choir, the Evergreen Ensemble, performed with us; their music was stunning. As I was watching (I was running media that service), I thought “I want to pull this out and post it on our socials”. So, I whipped open Premier Pro and made this little piece to share (posted on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok).

I am always pleased when I get to create fun projects, even small ones like this. Though I’m no master of Adobe stuff, I enjoy getting in with this stuff. For a bit of creative diversity I used Canva to create the thumbnail. I’ve come to deeply appreciate Canva’s simplicity. It makes creating something like this fast and clean.

I do love creating content and managing websites and social media. I find this work delightful and fulfilling. I guess I should find ways to get more of this in my life.

Facebook Account Access Issues

June 21, 2024June 21, 2024 Carl Setzer1 Comment

close up photography of smartphone icons

Over the years, I’ve helped a few people regain access to their Facebook accounts. Most all of those times were relatively easy since they were simply forgotten passwords. One was more complicated where a former social media consultant basically vanished and ghosted the business owners. The main challenge for me entailed getting copies of the business license and then a letter from the business owner. The hardest part (for me) was the waiting. It took me a fair bit of googling to track down a way to make the request, and then I had to wait for Facebook to respond. A few minutes of work that took weeks to complete due to slow communications.

So, now, I am working with someone whose account was compromised/taken over by someone else. Facebook’s knowledge base was a series of loops that accomplished nada. Frustrating. I then reached out to a friend who worked at Meta, who let me know that they’d risk termination if they tried to route me outside of the “normal channels”. So, as I value my friend, I opted to not push it. But, man, it’s frustrating. All of this to state that my experience with troubleshooting Meta issues has gone from clunky to infuriating.

So, when I read this article on Engadget, “How small claims court became Meta’s customer service hotline“, I groaned in recognition. I can see why people are using law suits to push Meta to act. I expect that they hope that this level of agrevation will deter people from seeking help and they just give up. However, I doubt that’s really going to be the case. Besides, I would expect that Customer Service Reps are much cheaper than attorneys. This seems to be the most expensive way to navigate this situation.

Since this article is posted on a major blog, I wonder if more people will seek Meta customer service via small claims court. Perhaps it will become painful enough for Meta to finally staff their customer service department adequately. Perhaps…

This strikes me as an element of Cory Doctrow’s “Enshittification”. In particular, the notion of “too big to care“. For so many folks, Facebook is an 800 pound gorilla. And they know it and are hard pressed to care.

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