I got it wrong

On July 30th my Facebook account was closed down, with no reason given. Associates of mine got in touch with a kind lawyer (@Steinhoefel), very experienced in exactly this kind of case, and he offered, pro bono, to negotiate with Facebook on my behalf. I appreciated his generosity and accepted his offer. He approached Facebook and received no reply.

Because no reason was given for the shut-down, and no reply to the lawyer’s overtures, I am sorry to say we jumped to the wrong conclusion: might it have some connection with my contemporaneous stand against genetically male boxers fighting women in the Olympics? I then tweeted what turned out to be a false suspicion of Facebook’s motives, and I deeply regret this.

On August 10th , I received an e-mail from an official at Facebook, saying he was looking into the question. He sent me a second e-mail the same day giving a full explanation. Facebook’s records showed, he explained, that one of the admins with access to my account had been hacked as long ago as June 22nd, and the hacker added “a flurry of unauthorized admins”. Their subsequent behaviour alerted Facebook, who closed the account down while they worked on the problem. My Facebook account was restored on August 11th , and I am very grateful.

We knew none of this until August 10 th , eleven days after the account was shut down. Now I am left in the mortifying position of having unjustly imputed an ignoble motive to Facebook. I must say it’s a pity that whoever decided to close my account (certainly not the kind official who eventually was brought in to investigate the problem) omitted to get in touch at the time. Nevertheless I accept responsibility, and publish this to correct the record and apologise.