Why is Facebook banning people?

Two of my friends have had their Facebook accounts disabled in the last few weeks with no warning and it's a head shaker.

The first person chucked out was Mitch Joel. His situation was detailed on his podcast, Six Pixels of Separation, a few weeks ago. The quick version is that he was reconnecting with a bunch of old friends and adding them as contacts. Apparently he added too many at one time and Facebook viewed him as a spammer and disabled his account. I'm all for spam measures but let's at least have a warning pop up!

The second account I heard was from Yakov Cherkassky. His story is really bizarre. The full summary and copy of the email exchange is over on his blog. The Coles notes version is that he exchanged a few emails with Facebook customer service about a feature of the site (only being able to add 5 employers). This exchange ended when they emailed him and out-of-the-blue said he'd violated the terms of use because he knowingly provided a fake date of birth when registering.  This really seems quite random. Why would a customer service exchange suddenly turn into an issue about his date of birth? And if it really is that big an issue why not just tell him he needs to update his profile or his account will be suspended.

Disabling user accounts with no warning or grace period seems an awfully harsh line to take. Can't really think of a good reason why they'd be doing this. Anyone have any ideas?

Comments

[Chris Clarke]

Hi Kathryn,
I understood it that Mitch was actually adding people who signed up for his 6POS Facebook group, many of them people he didn't know, which is fine. Facebook has a lockout mechanism if you add a certain number of people in a short period of time. I would rather have them be safe than sorry and turn into the next MySpam...er, MySpace.

[Judy Gombita]

My recruiter friend (the Recruiting Animal), pointed me to this post:

All Your Face(book) Are Belong To Us: Facebook Bans Recruiter:
http://www.stlrecruiting.com/2007/08/all-your-facebo.html

[Kathryn Lagden]

Interesting link Judy - thanks.

I hear ya on the spam issue Chris. I'm just really surprised that there isn't a warning or some sort of interim step before banning someone. It seems like a drastic measure for what's often a relatively minor situation.

[Chris Clarke]

Kathryn, I'm pretty sure the Mitch-man was suspended, and not banned. A ban implies that his profile was removed and/or he was no longer able to sign up. I'm pretty sure he just had his account suspended. You would also think there would be some sort of warning, but that would only help spammers, wouldn't it?

[Kathryn Lagden]

Good point Chris - i think the title of my post is misleading. In both these scenarios i'm talking about a suspension, not a lifetime ban.

as for helping spammers...with or without a warning we have to deal with spammers. as a user i'd prefer a heads up before my account was disabled, even if it was just the first time i was performing that particular action. But perhaps that speaks to how much i use FB. it has replaced email as my main communication vehicle with a lot of people so i'd feel very cut off if i was suspended.

[Dwight]

who does facebook think they are big brother f****k them. They pissed me off for blocking me for no apparent reason assholes

[Larry Hobson]

I was banned from face book for what I dodn't know maybe speaking out against Obama. Has it come to this.

[Lester]

My original account got disabled for the same spamming reasons nut I was keen on getting it reinstated so I wrote them a letter of appeal like 3-4times asking for reconsideration. I haven't got any reply or feedback of some sort so u gave up.. After 3-4 weeks, I gave up and just made a new account ibon the email u used to write to them. Earlier, I finally got a response from disabled@facebook. And they responded by also .BANNIng my current account stating it's not allowed to have more than one accounts(dude! My
first Account was gone)... Come on! How cold and insensitive... What's insulting is that they responded to my original message of plead...

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[Debbie]

Got this from a FB friend. Never met her and may never meet her, but I'm glad we've met via the internet and FB.

Samantha Andrews August 20 at 2:02am Reply
Lone Svane August 19 at 10:59pm Reply
Received this from Michael Friedman thanks again for sharing.

FYI== ATTN: ALL MEMBERS AND FRIENDS

You might want to lay low on profile pictures and have your real one up for a few days. Here's an email that was sent out to a banned account.

Hi,

Your account has been disabled because we have determined that you are not representing yourself authentically on Facebook. Fake accounts are a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. All accounts must abide by the following policies:

• You must provide your real first name and last name.
• Impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited.
• Profiles created to represent celebrities, pets, ideas, or inanimate objects are strictly prohibited.
• Profiles created for the purpose of spamming or harassing others are strictly prohibited.

People on Facebook want to interact with their real friends and the people they know in the real world. Since fake accounts can damage the integrity of this environment, they are not allowed to remain on the site

Unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate this account for any reason, nor will we provide further information about your violation or the systems we have in place. This decision is final and cannot be appealed.

Thanks for your understanding,

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