Are we in an abusive relationship with social media?

They control us, gaslight us, and threaten us. They have free reign to manipulate us, and even sabotage our earnings. But social media giants face few consequences. Their abusive behavior goes unchecked.

Your account will remain banned

“Thanks for writing in. Your account has been banned from Tinder for violating our Terms of Use or Community Guidelines.

“We take violations of our policies very seriously, and do not offer an appeals process at this time. Therefore, your account will remain banned from Tinder, and you will not be able to create a new Tinder profile using your Facebook account and/or phone number.

“Please refer to our Terms of Use and Community Guidelines for more information.”

And that was it. An account I’d used for years, with hundreds of matches and conversations, was gone. The only recent connection I could continue was the one in which we’d already exchanged phone numbers. All of the memory-lane content I’d saved in the app simply vanished. (Months later, I found out that one former partner assumed I’d purposely unmatched him—and that I no longer wanted to be friends.)

No appeal, no reasons given.