Who knew, a year ago, that an epidemiologist would be working with a U.S. cyber security firm, the FBI, Facebook security contractors, a private IT guru, and a social media working group on health and vaccine misinformation. But here we are.
The best part of getting my account back was seeing your fight on the front end. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed reading ALL of the comments that the hackers “hid” when you called them out. Or seeing the list of “blocked” warriors that wouldn’t shut up so the hackers had to block you from my account. (you are unbanned now, by the way). I couldn’t be luckier to have met all of you wonderful people.
I can’t believe how vulnerable we are to hackers but also how vulnerable we are to social media giants. I built this solely on a social media platform, which made me completely dependent on them to preserve my identity and my work. Quite frankly, FB is not prepared to fix these issues in a timely manner. I had to raise hell and work with about 10 different FB employees to get this fixed in a week. A week is a long time to do damage.
Because of this, I will maintain my primary account on substack. You will continue to get a free, daily newsletter from me straight to your inbox. No advertisements, no FB collecting your data. Substack is where I will answer questions and (hopefully) get into scientific debates in the comments sections of my posts. I will post my daily newsletter to FB, but it’s important to me that I take control of my content.
I have set up a donation option. My newsletter will always be free. Science needs to be accessible to anyone and everyone. However, researching, finding and developing fresh data-driven content, and managing the trolls has gotten to be a lot for my “night job”, so you will only be able to comment on the posts and engage in scientific discussion if you pay the small fee. Also, women (especially myself) consistently undervalue their work. This is me working on this pitfall of mine.
Thank you thank you thank you. For your support, for your fight, for your help getting my account back. For everything. You guys are the best.
Love, YLE
Welcome back! So relieved you got it back. I tell a dozen patients a day about your efforts and information. I❤️Science! Thank you for making it accessible to all of us!
Missed the whole drama. Would be very interested to hear about this adventure and resolution, maybe a guest column with your "personal IT"?