UPDATE 7:46AM: I just made enough lucky guesses on the pictures to get back into the account. Thanks for your kind messages.
-----------
My ace tech wizard, and the man responsible for the site's sharp redesign last year, Charles Nolan, has fixed things so that Jihad Watch posts go up automatically on my Facebook page, and considerable numbers of people read them only there, and contact me there as well.
So this is a note to those of you who are Facebook Jihad Watch readers, and who may have sent me a message there that has gone unanswered: I can't get into my Facebook account. Last night I got in from Sweden, where I was invited by the pro-freedom Sweden Democratic Party to speak at the political festival Almedalen 2010. (It was there that I picked up some handy Islamophobia pills -- take two, and the Twin Towers didn't go down, Aqsa Parvez didn't get strangled to death by her father and brother, and the Muslim Brotherhood has no plan of "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.")
I tried to access Facebook from Sweden, but got the notice that as I was logging in from an unfamiliar location -- a hotel in Sweden -- I would have to answer some questions to verify my identity. The questions, however, consisted solely of identifying photos of various of my Facebook "friends," of whom I have nearly 5,000 and most of whom I have never met, since they are not personal friends but Jihad Watch readers. Accordingly, I failed the test, repeatedly, and am locked out of my account.
Please note that this is not a content or censorship issue. I am not blocked or banned or anything of the sort. I'm just locked out of Facebook by a blind security procedure, and I can't figure out how to fix the problem. If anyone has any idea, or a contact at Facebook I could ask about this (I can't find one), please email me at director[at]jihadwatch.org. Also, if you have tried to contact me on Facebook and I haven't answered, email me at the same address -- although I beg your indulgence, as I get over 1,000 emails daily.
And in the meantime, Facebook Jihad Watchers, please read the site at www.jihadwatch.org.
Take hostages, Robert.
Yes... that security feature of Facebook is really not suited for "public" accounts like yours.
You can try to log-in again from your usual location.
In case you can also try to signal your problem to facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=photo_recog_roadblock
Robert--
Always keep a spare key under the front bumper.
Mario
I am back in the Jihad Watch offices in Secure Undisclosed Locationville, and I have tried, and am still locked out -- that's why I wrote this post.
Thanks for the link. I submitted a request for help there, but immediately got the automated reply back saying they probably wouldn't reply!
So we'll see.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
I have a feeling that this is a censorship issue. Geert Wilders' account is closed. Strange coincidence?
"I have a feeling that this is a censorship issue. Geert Wilders' account is closed. Strange coincidence?"
I have that feeling, too. Hmmm...it just happens to be Robert Spencer...hmmm
Mighty suspicious if you ask me.
Facebook uses dirty tricks to censor anti-Jihad accounts on a regular basis.
I don't think it's censorship in this case.
Is just a badly designed security feature :(
no, it’s not a Spencer or even a Facebook thing, I get this crap every time I shift country, I learnt best thing to-do (for me) is use a proxy server in the UK for anything like that. Now I am mostly in Canada I will have to review.
I only have 5 friends on FB (ahhh), so it’s just the hassle.
I would also guess your account gets a lot of unwelcome interest, hacking attempts etc, so they might be a bit trigger happy with your security.
I started to sign up...at some point in the process seven photo's and names of people I could be friends with appeared...I never heard of three of them, the others I know and don't want to be friends with them...That turned me off...
Duh swami is a mythological character, and that's the way it's going to stay...
Well, it sounds damned annoying—better clunky technology and a surfeit of faceless bureaucracy than dhimmitude, though. I hope that's all it is...
I only opened a Facebook account myself to participate in "Everybody Draw Muhammed Day", and haven't really used it since.
Robert, how about setting up VPN (Virtual Private Network) from Secure Undisclosed Locationville (SUL)? This way, no matter where you are in the world, your communications are automatically routed through SUL, so that the URL seen by Facebook would appear to be from there and this problem would not occur. I use Cisco's VPN package and it works like a charm.
It's a pain in the butt security feature. It's not a problem for me since I don't have over 5000 "friends", lol. Usually it takes me to some screen where I have to type in the "name" of the computer I'm signing in on, and once "named" you just keep typing that in and in you go.
Mr. Spencer:
Don't sweat it; it's merely the equivalent of being locked out of a sewage processing plant. We know who you are, and will stand with you until hell freezes over.
BOYCOTT FACEBOOK
Immature geek Mark Zuckerberg is a wannabe Bill Gates with designs on a monopoly in social networking, which would result in a new Dark Ages like Gates did with operating systems. His whats-in-it-for-me practices trampling personal and privacy rights to position himself for riches no matter whom he hurts are despicable, and are indicative of much worse to come, and he must be stopped. If you could go back to the early 1980s and buy Microsoft's competitors' operating systems, wouldn't you? The only way to stop Zuckerberg is to boycott Facebook by deleting your account after telling your social network to do ditto, in hopes that a saner, safer, more democratic alternative will arise. Already Google is working on one.
Learn more:
http://boycottfacebookblog.blogspot.com/