I posted this on the facebook lemmy, but I guess there’s no one there. So maybe I can get help here.

Where I live (Australia), specially in smaller towns, facebook is a requirement. Gumtree is dead, so any second hand products, room rental and even jobs are done only through facebook.

I tried a few times creating a fake account but quickly they lock my account, even if I don’t use it. I’m not sure how they know my data is fake, but I’d rather smash my face on the wall than giving zuckeberg any personal info.

Is there any way? Any specific things I need to look for when creating an account? I tried using believable names and email, but no luck…

This is hard for me. I absolutely hate facebook and I want it to die. But I have to accept that I’m surrounded by people who don’t care if they are ####### over by an american billionaire, and I have to conform if I want to interact with them. So any help is appreciated.

More specifically, I wanted to find second hand objects, jobs and maybe rent a room. All of which seems to be a facebook only thing, unfortunately.

Also, is there like a proxy website where I can do that without going to the actual facebook? Like youtube, instagram and others have websites like this. But when I search for “facebook proxy” I only find people so desperate to use it that they want to circumvent work or school networks that block it.

Edit: following recommendations, I made an account with a burner number I had here (I have a few usually just in case). I’ll update if that still gets me banned. Thanks for all replies!

  • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
    2·
    12 hours ago

    With the proxy websites, it’s more of an alternative frontend where you still need an account on the platform.

    What might be happening is

    • your device or IP address is flagged from your previous attempts
    • they’ve connected it to your real name / shadow profile somehow

    So if you really need to use it and there’s no alternative, you could do one of

    • make the real account, ideally from a privacy friendly browser, and give the absolute minimum info you can. Name and email, no profile image, privacy settings to max

    • make an account on a new device / wifi network, and have it be believable for the kind of person joining Facebook for the first time. I haven’t tried this myself but I’ve heard it mentioned before

    Whether you made an account or not, you can keep an eye out for alternatives. Over here there are a few alternatives, and one of them (Karrot) has been growing in popularity

    https://betakit.com/south-koreas-neighbourhood-buy-and-sell-app-karrot-hits-one-million-canadian-users-builds-toronto-engineering-hub/

    It might enshitify at some point, but it’s been nice so far

    • guismo@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
      2·
      12 hours ago

      Social websites are only worth the people using it. Here it’s only facebook unfortunately. There used to be gumtree which was great, but now it’s dead.

      But so, do I need to use my real name? I imagine they have all sort of features to know if you are fake, and I don’t know what those rules are. I imagine it depends a lot on many things, like location, operating system, etc. I use Linux and Firefox, and just from that they probably know there’s a higher chance that I’m someone who hates facebook and might try to make a fake account.

      I’ve done from maybe 3 different devices, so I don’t think that’s what fixes it.

      They always let me make the account and use it. But on the next day, or even the same day, they block it.

      Oh, but what are the proxy websites? That would already be a nice thing to know. I know I would have to log in on them, but I don’t know if facebook even allows a third party website to log people on.

        • guismo@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
          2·
          11 hours ago

          Thanks for that link, there seems to be a lot of useful stuff there! I can see teddit, which haven’t worked for a long time. But still interesting.

          The less info they can collect on me, the less profitable I am and most likely to be blocked, I imagine. My objective and facebook’s objective are in direct conflict. Not giving them info and still interacting to people who use it is the challenge.