Something peculiar occurred on the night of October 13th, 2020: my personal Facebook page disappeared. It was abruptly deleted by Facebook with the warning that this action was permanent and irreversible.
I have used Facebook since 2008. During these years, I have never received any warnings or suspensions. I am not involved and do not comment on political matters. Mostly, I use Facebook to share my art, poetry, and music. So, I was at a loss as to why my page was removed. The explanation I was given is that, according to FB, I was impersonating a public figure. In other words, I was accused of impersonating myself. Before killing my page, Facebook asked for proof of my identity. I uploaded a copy of my driver's license, and a few seconds later, I was informed that my account was permanently closed, and I was irrevocably banned from Facebook.
I maintained two pages: a personal page with 5000 friends and a professional Artist-page with around 25,000 followers. While my personal page disappeared, my fan page remained frozen in time, with the last post on October 12th, as my connection to the fan page was removed together with my personal account, which administered it. I had no way of accessing or posting on my fan page even though it was still published.
I felt a strange emptiness as if some part of me died with my page. I never considered myself addicted to Facebook, although addicts rarely admit their addiction. Yet, I probably spent far more time on FB than I should have, never realizing the extent that FB had become embedded in my life.
I am a private and introverted person by nature. On my FB page, in the short description about myself, I wrote, “Hermit in search of a hermitage.” As a concert pianist and conductor, I enjoy performing in large halls, leading hundreds of people in an orchestra, and facing 3000-plus people in the audience. I love the magic of being on the stage, but behind the spotlights, I am a hermit, at least as much as my profession allows it. I'm shy. I don't speak much – unless it is a public speech. I don't go to parties, and I'm terrible at small talk. Strange as it may seem, when I'm not on tour, I can spend weeks without ever talking on the phone. Over the last few years, I use email less and less. Facebook became my primary connection to the world; its messenger replacing email and phone.
Yet, Facebook also became an overbearing presence continually feeding information, acting as Orwell's Big Brother – predicting my likes and dislikes with frightening insightfulness, bringing to my attention offers that would feed not my needs but my desires and, yes, seeping away my time and concentration. Often FB’s feed would appear with precise knowledge of my most recent conversations, thus giving an uncomfortable sense of being spied on and analyzed by something or someone on the other side of the screen.
Although FB was stealing my time, it was also a source of wonders and even miracles. It resurrected my dear childhood friend with whom I lost contact for over 20 years. It provided fragile but tangible strings of connections. I built new friendships that spilled into real life. My friends provided a sense of support and gave feedback for my research. Over the years, I built an international network of like-minded people, musicians, writers, artists, choreographers, actors, translators, orchestra directors, art collectors, and poets who inspired and stimulated my work. In addition to music, I'm also a writer and a visual artist. My friends on Facebook often served as first readers or first audience for my works-in-progress.
Facebook is not the real world, but it is one of its mirrors. It reflects different things to different people: it can become an irritable and alienating discourse or a sharing of inspiration. After my life-threatening illness and surgery at the Mayo Clinic in the first months of 2020, immediately followed by the global pandemic, I have been in personal quarantine and complete isolation since February 2020. Four out of five people in our family are immuno-deficient and at higher risk for COVID-19. During this time, Facebook more than ever provided the sense or perhaps only the illusion that I'm not alone.
After my page disappeared, I spent the first couple of days in disbelief. I expected that at any moment, my Facebook page would reappear since it was so obviously a mistake. There was no customer support, no telephone, no email to make a complaint. I asked one of my friends to post what happened to me on her page, hoping that someone from Facebook would see it and do something about it.
“You must have done something wrong,” one of my friends said, “Facebook couldn't just kill your page like that without any warning.” Another friend, a curator, told me that once her account was suspended because she posted a sculpture by Michelangelo, which Facebook considered nudity.
“But my account was not suspended; there was no warning. It was just removed from existence,” I insisted, “besides, I have not posted anything that AI could consider indecent or offensive.”
“Perhaps, it was your poetry,” another friend suggested. I write poetry in the Russian language, and, unfortunately, there is no feature on FB to turn off automatic translation. Automatic translations of poetry are dreadful, and many of my bilingual writer-friends complain about it. My friend suggested that perhaps in its automatic translation, something in my poem could have triggered the AI Centurion of Facebook's morality. But I could not imagine anything in my poems that, regardless of how flawed the translation may have been, could have given Big Brother a warrant for my guillotine.
Over the next few days, I was astounded to realize that every person I shared my story with assumed that I must have inadvertently done something wrong. This reaction was so prevalent that I also started to think that I must have indeed somehow made some mistake and that the verdict Facebook gave me of "impersonating a public figure" was just a cover-up for some deeper-rooted cause. Yet, I could not think of any posts that could have been the reason. I also noticed that whenever I approached someone about my Facebook problems, they seemed reluctant to get involved as if I was infected with a plague, and the plague could spread into their lives.
In its less severe virtual form, the situation reminded me of what my parents and grandparents faced in the Soviet Union. As a child growing up in Russia, I knew all too well that our phone-line was tapped, that every word we said needed to be self-censored before uttering. At that time, when someone was visited by a KGB agent, all friends assumed that he or she must have done or said something wrong. The person would then start suspecting that perhaps he or she indeed said or did something wrong; perhaps, too much was said during a birthday party, or maybe so-and-so could have misinterpreted words, or that a private conversation was overheard. In 1937, the KGB came to arrest my grandfather Isaac and his brother. My grandfather's brother refused to follow them, claiming there was clearly a mistake. The KGB agent said if he refused to go, they would shoot him. He insisted that he was innocent, and it was a mistake, so they shot him dead. Then they turned to my grandfather, asking if he would follow them. He did. My grandfather was accused of being a Japanese spy and sent to Gulag for many years. His only crime was being Jewish. I was not sent to Gulag, but I was removed from my home page of Facebook, banned from re-entering it, without any avenue of appeal for justice. I was accused of impersonating a public figure. By the same logic, I may have been accused of being a Japanese spy as well.
Another friend suggested that perhaps someone did this to hurt me purposely. A couple of years ago, my website was hacked, its contents erased, a skull with crossbones appeared with the slogan "Death to Jews." I don't involve myself in political matters. But I don't hide my Jewish roots. As an artist and a public figure, there are always those that dislike who I am or what I do. I'm not sure what's worse: for this micro-universe, which you have carefully built over 12 years, to be destroyed by a random computer mistake or to be specifically targeted by someone who hates you.
Psychologically, it felt strange being suddenly and permanently removed from the Facebook world I had become so dependent on without fully realizing my dependency. Every time I opened my computer, the Facebook URL would appear, and sometimes, without thinking, I would press the return button only to enter a blank page with the notice that this account no longer exists; or I would touch the Facebook logo on my iPhone only to be reminded of my expulsion. My husband also has a Facebook account, although he doesn’t use it much. We have mutual friends. At times, I found myself tempted to sign into his account just to visit my friends' pages to see what was new in their lives, but I always stopped myself. I did not want a peephole into the lost paradise.
Over the past years, I did consider quitting Facebook more than once, but there is a significant difference between being expelled or leaving of your own free will. The only other time I was away from Facebook for any length of time was during my Svalbard expedition with National Geographic. I was researching my ARCTICA symphony, for which I was commissioned by National Geographic, The National Symphony Orchestra, and the Oslo Philharmonic. There was no internet connection so far North, and I enjoyed a wonderful sense of liberation and isolation – while looking forward to sharing this incredible adventure with my friends. Upon return to Longyearbyen, the most northern airport in the world, I was finally able to connect to the internet, and through Facebook messenger reached my friends in Greenland. On their instant invitation, instead of flying to Miami the next day, I flew to Nuuk to continue my Arctic research. The facility of connection through Facebook made this miraculous change of plans possible.
I read Rilke's line "Excess of being wells up in my heart" in one of my friends' posts. "Excess of Being" became the title of my published book of aphorisms. Another FB friend, David Lehman, a poet and the editor of the Best American Poetry anthology, posted a question about a phrase from Nijinsky's diary, which he needed for his upcoming book. I had recently read Nijinsky's journals, and I answered his question. Later, we became friends and had a joint poetry reading at the well-known KGB poetry bar in New York. On his invitation, I became a regular contributor to the Best American Poetry blog. On Facebook, I met Marilyn Nelson, a wonderful poet who became my close friend and collaborator. In 2021 our joint book of poems for children "A is for Oboe" will be published by Penguin-Random House.
Facebook became not only a source of distraction and procrastination but also a wondrous matchmaker. And now I missed it. I felt a sense of loss as if suddenly I had lost all my friends. During the pandemic, with its isolation and travel bans, losing access to my Facebook network of friends increased the sense of alienation.
Where were my friends? My 5000 friends and 25000 followers?
Did any of them notice my disappearance?
Besides a few people whom I contacted in the hope of reaching Facebook powers to review my situation – nobody seemed to notice my disappearance.
When the execution of my page happened, I was in the middle of a Daily Reflections project: posting every day a newly made recording of my poetry and a new work of art. The project was meant to continue daily for one year – leaving something creative born from each day. Did any of my friends notice that these daily reflections suddenly stopped? (I did not stop the project; I continued posting daily but on YouTube.)
The first person to notice I was missing in action was my father. My parents are staying with me during the pandemic – a rare occurrence since I usually travel worldwide to give concerts. Although we are rather close, they seem to be more informed of what I am doing through my Facebook posts than from life.
– What's wrong with your Facebook? – My father asked.
– It was removed.
My father was in disbelief.
– You need to speak with Mark Zuckerberg!
– How? I'm not on Facebook. Besides, he probably receives thousands of messages.
More days passed. I didn't hear from anyone. Nobody noticed I was gone. Ten days later, a friend called asking why I'm no longer among his Facebook friends. He claimed that I was the only reason he was on Facebook in the first place. A choreographer contacted me. He was wondering if somehow, I was upset with him and blocked him on FB. We were in the middle of discussing and planning our next collaboration when suddenly, all my messages and my account vanished from his view.
Through a mutual friend, I was introduced to someone who works at Facebook. If this person would vouch for me, perhaps Facebook would review my case? But he said he could not vouch for me, and the Facebook system would know that he did not know me personally – we had not corresponded before, and he wasn't among my friends. Vouching for me could cost him his job even though he knows and trusts our mutual friend and believes that I was not impersonating myself, but actually, I am myself and have been myself for the last twelve years on Facebook.
As days passed, the sense of disbelief and anger turned into grievance and loss. I kept on telling myself none of it is real. My real friends are still there. Facebook is nothing but an illusion and, ultimately, a huge waste of time. Still, I felt sadness as if someone, perhaps part of me – my virtual self – had died. And there was no funeral, no closure. My death went unnoticed, as if I had never existed.
On the 21st of October, it was my birthday. Last year I enjoyed over 500 birthday messages. This year besides my family, my birthday remembered three friends, one journalist, and my publisher from Hamburg, who always sends me very thoughtful and eloquent wishes. A day later, one more friend emailed me a birthday card. That's it. I was not surprised. It was what I expected. 500 greetings are an illusion. Six are reality. Yet, I also knew it was unfair to think so. I'm not any better. I have friends but rarely remember when their birthdays are; I relied on Facebook to remind me.
Facebook is a mirror but a mirror that changes its functions. Sometimes it prettifies your world by sending you illusory flowers and kittens. Sometimes it shows you the ugliest side of people whom you thought you knew well – their comments on current events make you wonder how the same person could combine seemingly disparate personalities. The broken mirror of FB works only one way as in an interrogation chamber: Facebook seems to know more about you than you know yourself, yet you have no idea who is watching you and how to contact this invisible someone – or something – to ask for justice.
In the same week my FB page vanished, I discovered that my credit card was hacked, and a large sum of money was withdrawn. Also, the internet connection in our house stopped working. All of these events were unrelated, but altogether I felt more and more isolated and vulnerable. There was life before Facebook and before the internet, I told myself. And not so long ago. We are so dependent on computers now, but in my childhood and student years at the Juilliard School in New York and Hannover, Germany, I didn't own a computer. I managed without it and managed well.
Slowly the internet problems were solved, the fraud perpetrated on my credit card was reported and resolved, but Facebook remained absent. I noticed that I rarely used the internet those days. Instead, I dove into writing. Since all my concerts were canceled in 2020, I concentrated this year on literature. Usually, I would write most of the day with some Facebook interruptions. I write by hand, then type into a Word document and then edit. I enjoy writing by hand, although a computer is a necessity and a very handy tool for editing. Since my Facebook collapsed, I have been writing almost non-stop, filling one notebook after another, changing the ink in my fountain Waterman pen daily. I have finished the second book of my novel, "Note by Note"– memories of my early childhood and started the third. Being fully immersed in my childhood – a world without computers and Facebook – I could fully appreciate how rich and sensitive that time was. As a child, discovering the world through music and art, I felt more present, alive, and aware than now, being split between virtual and real worlds, torn between what appears and what is.
Perhaps, I was indeed impersonating myself on Facebook. If so, who is more real? My avatar-face shown to the world, to my friends, fans, and foes, or the real me – a hermit in isolation, seeking connection, yet also fearing it.
On the evening of October 26th, inexplicably, my Facebook account resurrected. There was no message, no explanation, no apology, no warning – nothing at all. The page just reappeared with its last posts dated October 12th, as if the previous two weeks disappeared from my life. I don't know how it happened and who intervened. I asked several people who might know someone on Facebook to help, but I probably will never know who saved my account from extinction. Whoever you are and everyone who tried to help – my deepest gratitude.
It felt peculiar to visit my page and find it as I left it – as if seeing an old house you no longer live in. In one of his interviews, Solomon Volkov said that he had two immigrations in his life: one from the Soviet Union to the United States, and the other from the USA to Facebook. I don't share his sentiment. Yet, during these days, I realized that most of my professional contacts happened through Facebook. I realized that Facebook is a source of inspiration and support. I also realized that I became too dependent on it, forgetting that I am only a guest there, even on my own page; forgetting that there is the other side of the screen which is not seen in this one-way mirror; forgetting that this mirror is no longer just a tool of connection, but a spider which feeds on your time, who reflects you not the real world but the world you believe in, the world according to your likes, feeding you information that confirms your beliefs to keep you hooked, to keep you hungry for more likes so it can continue to feed on your time.
I looked at my page, but I didn't feel like posting anything. I didn't feel like saying hello to my 5000 friends and 25,000 followers, real or imaginary, who were just fine without me.
I visited a couple of friends whose pages I see more often, but I didn't feel like clicking likes. I felt balancing on the edge of the Matrix, not sure if I wanted indeed to return there, now that once again I had a key into this forbidden garden of social delights. By now, I felt free from my FB addiction, from needing its daily dose of fake relevancy, its noise of the gigantic fugue of voices demanding my attention, crying to be appraised. Was I happier without it, now guarding the entrance voluntarily? I was grateful to be given back the choice and to be able to glance into this mirror, but I also appreciated my privacy and freedom even though freedom doesn’t always equate with joy.
The great choreographer John Neumeier, with whom I closely collaborated in creating three full-length ballets with my music, doesn't have an email. Well, actually, he has an email address, but he rarely uses it, if ever. He doesn't have Facebook or other social media pages. Not having them is a luxury, and sometimes I feel jealous of it. What confidence and inner freedom, what a secure network of friends and colleagues one must have to remain free of virtual attachments. John is over 80 years old, and he is as active and creative as ever – a living legend in his field.
Can I afford the hermitdom I seek?
Indeed, you are not alone--that is, other people (mostly mature, creative, with international connections and knowledge of 20th-century history and literature) have experienced the surveillance, distortion, constraints and consequences of being "cut off" from Facebook. The Harvard booklet that became a social network that became a global giant of digital "connection" has become a faceless dictator, driven by algorithms and perpetuated by clueless programmers (who seem to have the mentality of 14-year-old boys). It chooses our "friends" and cuts us off from reality. It punishes us for misdeeds we don't know we have committed. It cripples our real lives, keeping us addicted to the next "click" and then the next. That process has adverse consequences on our real friendships and families, and on our physical health and professional activity. It creates for us, without our full awareness, an alternative self, a "curated" life. And sometimes it murders that self, as it did to your personal page. I've been discussing these issues recently with several friends of many years, in seven countries on three continents. I'm going to send this post to some of them, including several people who are not on Facebook and have never even wanted to use it. If my page disappears, the latter will know I didn't just fall off the edge of the earth. Like you, I am a "public figure" to some extent--a minor one, a mere poet-editor-translator-teacher but, nonetheless, known outside my immediate circle for my work and influence on others. Like you, I'm the daughter and granddaughter of Jewish immigrant parents (my father's family came from what is now in Ukraine but left when it was still part of the Russian empire). I have degrees in European history (including Russian history) and feminist theology. I know dictatorship when I see it! The big difference right now is that it is a corporation, not a government, that is trying to reduce us all to the state of anonymous workers, useful only for the "data" that we feed to the Great Nerd in his mansion. (And I'm probably older than you are--my parents, both of whom lived past 90, have been dead for decades. Also, I'm not an introvert, so isolation during the pandemic has been a huge effort and adjustment for me.) Thank you for posting this. Keep speaking up!
Posted by: Jacqueline L. | March 20, 2021 at 11:16 AM
Thank you for this most moving, beautifully-written and elegiac essay, which I can personally relate to in so many ways, especially as to my heritage.
I do not participate in any social media. I first avoided all social media because of my technological incompetence and fear that I would somehow, inadvertently, expose my private information to the public. But now, since I am overwhelmed just by email messages languishing in my InBox, including kind emails to which I should have replied a year ago, I have resolved to remain a non-participant in social media. I know I am missing a lot: photos of the beautiful grandchildren of my dearest friend, photos of the adventures of far-flung nieces and nephews, photos of my friends pets (I love dog and cat videos!) But in whatever time I may have left in life, there is no room for social media.
Posted by: Slow Reader | March 20, 2021 at 12:12 PM