Facebook

Thankfully this hasn’t happened to me.. but it’s a very real possibility, depending on how you’re using the popular social networking site, Facebook. I was recently notified by one friend that her account was disabled. Happily, she wrote a letter to the powers that be at Facebook, and her account was reinstated quite quickly… but this has not been the case for many others.

Alexandar Alaric is one case in point:

I followed Alexandar and one of his groups (TaggZilla) which had over 1200 members in it, and he had 3 other groups as well. Alexander himself had over 3000 friends in his list.. all of which are now blocked to him, as Facebook disabled his account without any warning.

Craig Daitch is another:

On January 16th, he received notice that his Facebook account had been disabled, no warning, no email, no other communication from Facebook giving him a reason at all.

There are several problems here:

1. Facebook isn’t even providing a warning to it’s users prior to disabling accounts.
2. Facebook isn’t communicating with disabled users on a large scale basis – though some have had success in having their accounts re-activated.
3. Facebook isn’t properly communicating changes in their policies to it’s users.

Although having your Facebook account deleted regardless of whether you are using your account for fun with friends, or to as a business tool, this isn’t a fun situation to find yourself in. Personally, I would be totally and completely lost without my hourly Facebook fix, but I’m a self-proclaimed addict :)

Even superstars like Lindsay Lohan haven’t been immune to this problem, so the big question here is how can we all avoid having our accounts wiped out?

• Apparently you should be careful when adding new friends .. go SLOW, and add unique messages to each friend request. Definitely do not use any type of automated software, or even Roboform when adding friends. You may find yourself in danger of being disabled if you add numerous friends .. sometimes only 10 friends will flag your account (judging by research I’ve done on others that have had their accounts disabled). It may also be that your internet connection plays a role in this – super fast connections will process your Facebook requests much faster than slower connections – strange, but true – and it appears to play a role in Facebook’s issues. Also remember that Facebook has a maximum friend limit of 5000 – there is a petition group to have this limit raised/abolished as many people are now hitting that limit.

• If you have set up your own Facebook groups that are used for business networking, beware of sending out emails to group members that contain links and business promotions. According to Alexander Alaric; “In talking with one of my contacts he said he’d seen about 8 groups deleted because the group admin was consistently sending promotional e-mail communications to those groups”.

• Ensure that you are using your legal name .. as mentioned, Lindsey Lohan at one point had her own account disabled as Facebook Admins didn’t believe it was really her. This is something that I have to discuss with my daughter, as she just changed her Facebook name, and could end up having her account disabled because of it. In my new music niche, I’m coming across tons of “rock stars” on Facebook. Are they for real? I have my doubts .. and I’m quite sure they’ll be weeded out in short order, considering the lengths that Facebook is currently going to in order to re-gain control of their community.

If you discover that your account has been disabled due to a “fake name”, it should only entail submitting a document proving your name.. a scan of your drivers licence or a utility bill etc. This is presuming of course that you can open the lines of communication between yourself and Facebook.

Santa Claus was shut down last year:

WIRED Magazine blogged about my experience with Facebook late last year. My legal name is Santa Claus, and I’m a Christian Monk and advocate for millions of vulnerable children in dire circumstances. At first, Facebook refused to let me open my account with my legal name, then did allow it. Within several weeks, I had 5,000 “friends.” A Facebook administrator blocked my account, then advised me of Facebook’s 5,000 friend limit. Well, now there are almost 9,000 potential “friends” whose friend requests are pending. Facebook says that there is no way for me to access and respond to those requests, or to refer those members to my Facebook group, “Santa’s Nice List.” So, thousands of Facebook members are, essentially, in limbo — believing that I have ignored them (for months). The Facebook administrator I’ve spoken with was considerate and tried to be helpful; however, he has been unable to resolve some technical issues. One would think that Facebook (or any other social networking host) would enjoy having Santa Claus as a member and would find a way to capitalize on it. It’s an enjoyable site; however, it, like almost everything and everyone else (including me), has its shortcomings. I think there’s a lot to be said for asking Facebook to be proactive and notify its members before it pulls the plug on an account (unless there’s a safety/criminal issue involved). Blessings to all, Santa Claus (TheSantaClausFoundation dot org).

– Santa Claus | Incline Village, NV (Source: Advertising Age)

Unfortunately the internet is full of stories about Facebook account deletions – don’t let yours be one of them. Make sure you read the Terms of Service, and play nice.. use groups & events to contact multiple people (without promoting of course uugghhh lol).

If you do run into trouble with Facebook, try contacting them at the following addresses:

• disabled@facebook.com
• appeals@facebook.com
• info@facebook.com

And finally, take a look at GetSatisfaction.com few more reasons why your Facebook account may be disabled.

Facebook Warning

***UPDATE***

A Twitter friend let me know about her story:

I’m a recent Facebook “addict”. In November, I started using it regularly and got hooked. Originally, I went on “for business research purposes” (I work in book publishing) when I took on some online marketing responsibility and saw that many of our competitors are using Facebook as one way to reach readers online. Before long, I was on everyday connecting with old friends and communicating with colleagues. About three days ago, I tried to log in and I got a message about site maintenance that stayed up for several hours. I don’t know if that has anything to do with my account, but I hadn’t seen it before. The next day, everything seemed normal. I updated my status and confirmed one friend request. I saw that that friend’s sister is on Facebook so I sent a request to her and … poof! I was logged out. When I went to log in. I got the message that said my account had been disabled. I emailed the address they provide: disabled@facebook.com and received the following automated response:

**************

Hi,

The Facebook Team has received your inquiry. We should get back to you soon. In the meantime, we encourage you to review our Terms of Use (http://www.facebook.com/terms.php) for more information.

info@facebook.com

appeals@facebook.com

customerservice@facebook.com

but have heard nothing further from Facebook.

This is such bad timing as I’m supposed to be coming up with a social media marketing strategy in which Facebook was to play a big part. It’s hard for me to know what to do at this point since I don’t want to take my group down the Facebook road, knowing that any of our efforts could be turned off without notice. I’m also very disappointed that I couldn’t take part in the inauguration events with CNN and Facebook yesterday. It sounded really cool and I was looking forward to it.

I’ll let you know if I have any updates. I’m still hopeful that my account will be restored since I did nothing to violate their Terms of Use.

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