One day in late November 2024, Earl Dax found he had been logged out of his Facebook app. When he tried to login, he was told that he had entered an incorrect password. Weird. He went to his password manager, copied the password for Facebook and pasted it into the app. Again it said he had entered the wrong password. Friends soon began texting, “Are you into crypto now?” He realized his account had been hacked and the password changed.

He tried everything he could think of to regain access to his account, but it proved impossible to reach a human being, not even a useless chatbot. The “HELP” sections of the Facebook website were a Kafkaesque nightmare.

Question: Can you log in to your account?
Answer: No
Response: Log out of your account.

How can you log out of an account you’re unable to log into?!?!

Earl tried to report the hack to Facebook and Meta. Friends of his did too. In the meantime he needed to access Facebook for work. (He manages the page of a nonprofit arts organization.) He created a new Facebook account under his name and linked it to his email and phone number. He added a few friends and joined some groups with a focus on natural building and intentional communities. A few days later this second account was suspended! He challenged the suspension and completed the requested facial scan. A couple days later he regained access to this second account. Meanwhile the hacker was posting up a storm on his original account.

A few days later, the second account was suspended again! Again he challenged the suspension and completed a facial scan. This time, his challange was denied. He was told that his account would be permanently deleted. A day later the same thing happened to his Instagram account.

Nearly 2 decades of social media history eviscerated in an instant without explanation and without recourse. A social media homicide committed by the social media platforms themselves and their parent company, Meta. A Meta murder.

During this process he learned about other people who had experienced similiar things and were never able to retrieve their social media accounts. His individual anger and frustration led him to create the ZUCK SUCKS campaign as a DIY effort to publicly shame Mark Zuckerberg and pressure legislators to introduce meaningful legislation requiring social media platforms to provide basic customer service, consumer protections and recourse if they believe their accounts have been unfairly suspended.