Facebook must respect African users - Lord Kenya criticizes social media giant over hacked fan page

Ghanaian musician, Lord Kenya, has criticized Facebook Inc. over their Support Team's refusal to help him to recover his hacked fan page which was created in 2010 and currently has over 180,000 subscribers on the social media website.

Lord Kenya, who is now an evangelist and currently on a mission trip in the United States of America (USA), said he realized his fan page, "Lord Kenya TV" had been hacked in March 2021 and thus made several attempts to reach Facebook, all to no avail, until his PR team got in touch with a member of the Facebook Support Team in West Africa named, Ebuka Ogbodo through African digital rights advocacy organisation, Paradigm Initiative (PI), organisers of Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum (DRIF).

According to the 2002 Ghana Music Awards Artist of The Year, he has provided all information that Mr. Ogbodo requested, including his original login email, a selfie photograph with an ID card and a new email address which according to Facebook will be used to secure the compromised account.

"After communicating with Facebook for over a month, they have still not been able to get my page back to me even though my pictures are still there together with my contact details, " he said in frustration.

He expressed concern that the hackers are still using his platform to post and share questionable wildlife videos which he knows nothing about.

"I have already informed Mr. Ogbodo that I am a Christian evangelist and I have nothing to do with the content which the hackers are posting, but interestingly, all attempts have fallen on deaf ears as the hackers continue to post their content while the creator and owner of the page still has no access."

"I have also written to Facebook to inform them about advertising content which are being screened in between the wildlife videos on my page. I have made it clear to them that I have nothing to do with those ads and I want the company to investigate and provide me with a report on it, including details on the revenue generated."

Unfortunately, all efforts to regain access to his fan page have been futile and Mr. Kenya is cautioning Facebook not to take their African market for granted.

"Facebook is a leading global tech firm, so ideally, this shouldn't have taken 24 hours to resolve, considering the fact that I have provided all information they requested without delay and offered to engage them in a video conversation or even a visit to their office to resolve the issue."

He said while in Ghana, he made a request to Facebook to permit him to speak to their Ghanaian rep by the name 'Gerald' who was a panel member at the DRIF2021 webinar, because he thought Gerald could be of more help than Mr. Ogbodo, who might not be Ghanaian and probably not familiar with the context, hence his apparent lack of commitment.

Another strange development was when the same Ebuka Ogbodo requested for a new email address from Lord Kenya to secure his account and page, which Kenya provided, but he (Ogbodo) has since failed to link the new email to the account but instead, unlinked Lord Kenya's old email address, meaning the musician cannot access Facebook with any of his login email addresses.

Mr. Ogbodo stated in his last email on May 12, 2021, that he was on break during the Ramadan period and thus would refer the matter to another person which he has failed to do even after requests were made for the other person's contact information.

Coincidentally, one of the main issues raised by African journalists during the 2021 Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum (DRIF), was the almost impossible task of reaching Facebook's support team to deliberate on issues relating to their own community standards.

The journalists noted that even though Facebook generates billions of dollars in terms of revenue from the African continent, their user support system is frustrating and little attempt is made to resolve individual cases.

According to The African Report website, Mark Zuckerberg's social network has built and invested in a myriad of assets dedicated to continental connectivity.

In African communities where internet penetration is low, Zuckerberg has only one idea in mind for Facebook: ensure the content it broadcasts can be accessed quickly, without interruption or delay.

Facebook is closing in on 1 trillion valuations and its infrastructure development in Africa alone is expected to generate more than $57 billion in five years, however, the over 200,000 million active users in Africa continue to grapple with a virtually non-existent human face in terms of customers service.