For a litany of legitimate reasons, all sorts of celebrities seem to be waging war against Facebook. Much of this stems from Sacha Baron Cohen's amazing takedown of Mark Zuckerberg and his company. Among the celebrities with issues with Facebook is legendary radio host Howard Stern. Although, Howard's issues with the social media company have very little to do with the biggest complaints that Sacha, Leo DiCaprio, and the like have. Frankly, Howard's issues with Facebook are a lot funnier...
Facebook Has Been A Part Of The Howard Stern Show
Fans of SiriusXM's The Howard Stern Show are well aware of Facebook's part in one of the funniest bits in the history of the show. This was when Howard's producer of 40-years, Gary 'Ba Ba Booey' Dell'Abate decided to 'unfriend' Howard on Facebook.
According to Gary, he did this because he was sick of Howard goofing on some of the things he'd post. Of course, all the goofing would be on-air for the sake of the audience. Unfortunately for Gary, his choice to 'unfriend' Howard ended up in him getting goofed even harder.
"You don't unfriend your boss," Howard said to Gary in 2015.
"Do you really care?" Gary responded.
"Yeah!" Howard exclaimed. "There are people [that] I hate, I don't unfriend."
While in 2008 Howard claimed that he didn't have Facebook, in more recent years he's spoken a lot about his experience using it. For the most part, Howard uses Facebook to communicate with his three daughters. It's also a way for him to correspond with other family members, friends, and to reconnect with acquaintances from his past. This is something that he does for one specific reason... He wants to see how bad they've aged.
"Like I'm friends with people on Facebook from different eras of my life," Howard said in 2021. "Girls I knew from summer camp, mostly. Guys I knew from summer camp. I like to see how badly they're aging because I think I'm aging horribly but then I look at these guys and I go, 'F***. I look f***ing gorgeous.'"
Howard was also brutally bullied throughout elementary school and high school and is open about how he likes to see if all the people who rejected him (both romantically and as friends) have aged poorly. But lately, his utterly honest and somewhat sadistic pass time has been compromised by Facebook itself.
Facebook Accused Howard Of Impersonating Himself
"I don't go on Facebook a lot, but I have Facebook," Howard said on the April 12, 2021 episode of his show. "So I log on and it goes, 'Your account has been suspended. You are impersonating a celebrity.'"
Howard couldn't get his head around the fact that Facebook cracked down on him as they thought he wasn't who he said he was. Of course, this is an element of security that Facebook uses to locate catfishers posing as famous people... of which there are a lot.
"I'm impersonating Howard Stern, I guess," Howard said. "They don't care that Russie interferes with the election, but they're worried about my account? That I'm impersonating a celebrity."
"Yes, the worst thing you can do is pretend to be a celebrity," Howard's co-host, Robin Quivers, said.
Howard went on to explain that Facebook told him to get in touch with them if they had made a mistake about their termination of his account. So, Howard wrote them and two seconds later he got a code to put in.
"So they go, 'Okay, so far so good. But now, to prove you're a celebrity, send us a picture of yourself, so we can look it over to see if you're really who you say you are. But no other people can be in the picture with you.' So, now I'm getting really suspicious. First of all, I'm like, 'If I'm impersonating a celebrity, can't I just go online and find a picture of the celebrity I'm impersonating?'"
Instead of going on the internet, Howard decided to send a personal one. But he didn't have a picture of himself available. His wife, Beth did. However, the picture was of Howard with his cat. While Facebook said not to include anyone else in the picture, Howard thought it would be okay.
"I send them the picture. Then they say, 'Okay, now you did the code, now you did the picture, [but] now we want a driver's license or your passport and we have the right to keep it up until a year,'" Howard said. "This is now way out of control. I'm not giving Facebook my driver's license!"
The sheer amount of hoops Howard had to jump through just to prove that he wasn't impersonating himself caused him to decide that he would no longer use the social media site.
"I said, 'Screw this!'"
"That's taking things way too far," Robin agreed. "Your passport is definitely your whole identity and now they're you, for all intents and purposes."
"Facebook, you're not that great [that I would do that]. They're such a**holes," Howard said.
Unless Facebook realizes that they've mistakenly accused a celebrity of impersonating himself and make things right, it seems they have made an enemy out of Howard Stern.