成人X站

As 成人X站 Newsradio first reported聽two weeks ago, the popular local history Facebook group Seattle Vintage 鈥� which has more than 150,000 followers 鈥� was hacked and taken over by malicious actors.

If that wasn鈥檛 bad enough, there was no remedy available. There was (and still is) no way to report the hacking to Facebook via Facebook, and no way to get immediate help from Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson鈥檚 Office or from the FBI.

More on the Facebook hack: 鈥楽eattle Vintage鈥� Facebook page taken over by hackers

Erin McAllister-O鈥橫alley became one of Seattle Vintage鈥檚 Facebook group administrators several years ago. Being an administrator of a Facebook group means having special privileges as far as managing the group membership, and approving or rejecting material posted by users. Erin and the other admins are all volunteers, and all bring to their position a passion for Seattle history.

McAllister-O鈥橫alley told 成人X站 Newsradio that once word of the March 8 hacking spread, one of the Seattle Vintage Facebook followers 鈥� just a local person who loves sharing old photos and stories and seeing what others share 鈥� got in touch with her. This person, who she hadn鈥檛 previously known, offered to track down a real-live human at Meta, Facebook鈥檚 parent company, in order to try and get direct personal assistance to reverse the hacking and regain control.

And that鈥檚 exactly what happened. McAllister-O鈥橫alley said it all came together quickly late last Tuesday afternoon.

But it only lasted for a few minutes.

McAllister-O鈥橫alley received “an email from Facebook, saying we have given you control again,” she explained. “However, I had control for about three minutes.”

What happened next, McAllister-O鈥橫alley explains, is that she started acting like an administrator again 鈥� flexing the muscles like she used to do in order to keep Seattle Vintage from being overrun with posts outside its usual territory of local history.

And that鈥檚 what got her into trouble almost immediately.

“I removed a post from somebody who was not supposed to be there, and I was instantly blocked,” McAllister-O鈥橫alley said, meaning she was booted out of the group again, just as had happened when the hack first began. “Apparently, admins can be hidden, they can hide themselves, which none of us knew about (before).”

Erin was so upset at losing control of the page again, she tossed her phone and swore.

Fortunately, through some crazy and almost vertigo-inducing online maneuvers within the Facebook group administrator environment 鈥� and with help from that “Facebook Angel” who had originally reached out to offer to help 鈥� McAllister O鈥橫alley and a core team of longtime Seattle Vintage group administrators regained control, once again, last Wednesday, and kicked out all the “hidden” administrators.

Everything now is slowly getting back to normal at Seattle Vintage, and at , a new alternate Facebook group launched by Seattle Vintage admins after the hacking as a way of trying to reestablish the online community.

News of the popular page being wrestled away from the evil hackers is good, of course, but it also highlights some of the challenges that social media companies haven鈥檛 yet quite figured out how to address.

Social media companies justifiably get a bad rap for many problems that didn鈥檛 exist or didn鈥檛 exist on the same scale 20 years ago, whether spreading misinformation at incredible speeds or supercharging the effects of unchecked schoolyard bullying. It鈥檚 no exaggeration to say that consumers and many experts have a clear sense that social media is responsible for聽 鈥� or at least complicit in 鈥� a lot of bad things.

But as 成人X站 Newsradio has reported, individuals and groups working or participating in local history appear to benefit from social media unlike just about any other sector of the population. Social media and Facebook in particular enable people from all walks of life to share their photos and vintage documents and memories with each other in ways previously not possible, and often to do so alongside, mingled with or in response to similar materials shared by museums, libraries and archives.

More on social media saving local history: How crucial pieces of Northwest history are being preserved via Facebook

McAllister O鈥橫alley agrees, and knows why this is true.

“Because everybody’s walking around with their own history, everybody’s walking around with their own pieces of the thread that tie us together in ways that we didn’t imagine in the old days because it took longer to get those threads together,” McAllister-O鈥橫alley said. “Social media allows those threads to be woven together in a platform that keeps it together, it’s in your pocket.

“If you move to another country, you can have Seattle with you, because all these other people have those pieces together in one spot,” McAllister-O鈥橫alley continued.

Still, positive aspects of local history on Facebook aside, the tale of Seattle Vintage鈥檚 takeover and rescue is a cautionary tale. Erin McAllister-O鈥橫alley says the experience has made it abundantly clear that she and her fellow group administrators can never be anything but extremely diligent and always alert.

It鈥檚 easy to get distracted, she says “when you’re busy and you’re multitasking and you don’t realize that the person [you think] you’re speaking to is not actually the person you’re speaking to because you’re not paying close enough attention.”

“It really can happen to any of us who are aware of how social media works,” McAllister-O鈥橫alley said. “But maybe not all the way aware that there are ways that people can sneak in without you knowing.”

The biggest takeaway from the troubles faced by Seattle Vintage is that Facebook needs to do something to make it easier for groups to get help when there鈥檚 trouble like this. There is currently no online form to report a group being hacked, and no way to even initiate such a complaint.

More from Feliks Banel: Baltimore bridge collapse reminds Washingtonians of past disasters

And while Erin and all the Seattle Vintage admins and members 鈥� a total of more than 150,000 Facebook users 鈥� are probably happy that their 鈥淔acebook Angel鈥� stepped in and found a way to get insider help, that model is imperfect, not sustainable, and just not scalable to address the level of hacking taking place every day.

So come on, Facebook, it鈥檚 past time to do something to make it possible for your users to report hacking attacks like this and more easily get their groups back. That would make history, local and otherwise, and would be something we all could “LIKE.”

You can hear Feliks Banel every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle鈥檚 Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O鈥橞rien. Read more from Feliks here and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks.