Dear Facebook: may I have my life back, please?

Filed under: Security, Features, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Dear Facebook: may I have my life back, please?

by Gordon Finlayson Sep 24th 2007

On Saturday night Facebook took my life away, now I'm asking nicely, can I have it back please?

As a blogger for Download Squad I've followed the rise and rise of Facebook with fascination as the social networking site has expanded on the scale of an influenza pandemic. I watched with avid interest as my inbox was bombarded with Facebook friend requests from seemingly every part of my life and every corner of the globe.

Succumbing to the Facebook phenomenon, I was quickly drawn in by the combination of applications, messaging and of course the competitive instinct to rapidly gather a vast following of like minded friends who would be able to share with me the excitement of online photo albums, holiday maps, interest groups, online graffiti or the simple pleasures of turning fellow Facebookers into zombies, vampires or pirates (arrrr).

And then, on Saturday night I was framed for a crime I didn't commit, and now I'm on the run Richard Kimble style - trying to clear my name of one of the worst crimes that an Internet user could be accused of - being a spammer

It all started innocently enough (I'm sure that's what they all say), I was researching an article on Facebook developers and thought that the best place to start would be, Facebook. Using the top applications list, I found the names of six or seven of the top Facebook developers, people responsible for the pokes, the zombies, the trip maps and other online apps, and set about emailing them some basic questions for my article.

Big mistake.

After about five or six emails both my research and my Facebook world came to a shuddering halt as a message appeared telling me that I had violated Facebook's terms of use, and since I was clearly a nasty spammer my account would now summarily be suspended.

As none of the people that I was sending the emails to were on my friend list and since I was sending a fairly similar email to each developer it would appear that I triggered off Facebook's anti-spam mechanisms.

While I'm more than happy for Facebook to protect its system from real spammers, I was more than a little surprised that the first action taken by the system was immediate suspension from Facebook. Facebook appears to only take one metric into account when detecting spammers, without looking at other details of a person's account (friends, applications, login patterns) and immediately and automatically suspends their account, rather than perhaps taking an action like suspending the users email.

So now I'm in Facebook limbo, my account, my friends, photo albums all inaccessible. I can only wonder if I'll ever get to finish that Scrabble game with Benj, whether I'll ever see my travel map again, and I certainly now doubt that I'll ever get answers for that post I was going to write.

And what do my Facebook friends think of my sudden absence, have they even noticed? Were they notified that: 'Gordon is suspended because he is an evil spammer' or perhaps I just ceased to exist on their friend lists at all? Did they notice at all? Are my friends offended that I've disappeared, thinking that I had de-friended them for some unknown slight, online offense or quirk of my (clearly suspect) character? Perhaps they think that I've moved on,
to a new social networking site like Quetchup or perhaps a retro move back to Friendster or MySpace.

I wrote to Facebook on Saturday politely requesting that they return my online existence, but as of Monday there's yet to be a response. So, like the Fugitive I remain on the run, my name yet to be cleared, out of sight and out of mind to my Facebook friends. Things are getting desperate and I'm wondering where to turn for my social networking fix? Am I desperate enough to look to go back to Friendster? Boring enough for LinkedIn or Plaxo? Or desperate
enough to jump into the Second Life abyss?

Dear Facebook: can I have my life back, nicely?

Tags: facebook-blocked, facebook-can-i-have-my-life-back-please, facebook-spam-blocked

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

NukeAssault said 1:21PM on 9-24-2007

Thats a bit rediculous. I wonder if its timed. You know like if you send a message every 3-5 seconds it sets it off.

rTwelve said 1:22PM on 9-24-2007

I'd stay put. My friend was similarly banned for no reason and he was back right away after an email. Plus this post will probably help.

Lisa Hoover said 1:41PM on 9-24-2007

Geez, I hate to tell you this, Gordon, but Facebook wiped you right off their virtual map. You don't show up in my friend's list (you'd think they could at least leave *that intact), and when I search your name, you're --poof! -- gone. We've started a Free Gordon F! group at Facebook for you. ;-)

Victor Agreda, Jr. said 1:47PM on 9-24-2007

reminds me of an old B. Kliban cartoon, where one of the apostles is pushing a raggedy man away from Jesus saying, "don't F*** around with the prince of peace!"

Facebook giveth, and Facebook taketh away

Eric M said 2:34PM on 9-24-2007

That's what you get for sending me all those mortgage offers! I don't need them anyway after you set me up with that Nigerian prince that is paying me untold millions to hold on to some prized possessions. I'm going to be so rich.

ToddZ said 3:34PM on 9-24-2007

"Dear Facebook: May I have my life back, please?"
"Your account has been disabled by an administrator."
"Thank you!"

stephen said 7:27PM on 9-24-2007

Try getting banned from Google AdSense when you are completely innocent - it's a little more important than Facebook.

mp3elv said 11:19PM on 9-24-2007

i would say, sue them man, and get filthy rich in the process i think it's only ur american right to sue them to oblivion

finally said 11:52PM on 9-24-2007

Well now you can get back to real life and have several meaningful relationships with actual people instead of hundreds of useless online friendships.

It's a blessing in disguise for you my friend.

Dan Berkovitz said 11:52PM on 9-24-2007

This happened to me to. Facebook disabled my account. It was my fault but it was for something ridiculous. I was adding too many friends too fast, and so they disabled my account. I mean come on, I'm not a spammer, and yes I do meet many people.

Hamburglar said 12:05AM on 9-25-2007

Great post, shows how readily some have posted all of their information into one place and the reliance they then put on this one site that holds their sole means of contact with friends, peers and valued friendships or relations.

We really shouldn't trust Facebook as much as we do, and we really shouldn't isolate ourselves to just communicating to one site. I await for Facebook's demise with a grin on my face, and burger (which I stole from someone else, I am the hamburglar after all) in hand.

Cedric said 1:47AM on 9-25-2007

Get a life and stop whining.

Don't take me wrong. Facebook are closing their doors on you? Well screw them and go get some real, meaningful relationship instead. And thrust me, you don't need facebook for that

justice said 3:10AM on 9-25-2007

This fellow got his Yahoo account reinstated after a summary suspension with a brilliant legal threat. http://gimmejustice.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-i-got-my-yahoo-answers-account.html

Dawg said 5:03AM on 9-25-2007

That's not the kinda nice we like.

& why does Cedric want you to "thrust" him?

Will Boyce said 6:18AM on 9-25-2007

In response to comment number 8 ("sue facebook"):

Are you fucking stupid? You don't have a leg to stand on. Read the facebook Terms and Conditions - they can remove you account, without reason or notice, whenever they please.

AskTheAdmin said 7:36AM on 9-25-2007

We had exactly the same thing happen to us @ digg. The guys over @ http://www.askTheAdmin.com were doing some experimenting with Digg Submission Headlines and popularity - nothing that would violate their terms...

Long story short they did not like us submitting 10 articles from the same site - we sent snail mail, email, faxes and made phone calls - NO RESPONSE!

It has been over 2 months now and NOTHING! Let us know if you have any progress!

Karl G!

Just someone said 8:27AM on 9-25-2007

While suing Facebook may be an option, an effort should be undergoing to build a *distributed* social network, who runs a constellation of web servers on every desktop and is not owned by any company whatsoever.

E-mail is distributed, as it only depends on DNS. However, the amount of closed applications is on the rise: ICQ, Livejournal....

Percy Whiteman said 8:32AM on 9-25-2007

Yesterday I received a email from facebook saying "Hello,

You uploaded a photo that violates our Terms of Use, and this photo has been removed. Among other things, photos containing nudity, drug use, or other obscene content are not allowed, nor are photos that attack an individual or group. Continued misuse of Facebook's features could result in your account being disabled."

But guess what all of this is false and they disabled my account.

They never reply back to your emails I have always sent them emails about accounts & no reply so FACEbook can FUCK OFF!!!

Matt said 11:15AM on 9-25-2007

I've been kicked off of facebook twice about a year ago and I still have my account. It all started when a friend of mine and I were having a 1-on-1 poke war. I decided to start a group that was dedicated to poking him. Pretty soon it had about 1,000 members. Well, he retaliated with a group of his own and pretty soon I had about 20 pokes on my home page. So I got an auto poke tool for firefox. Evidently that triggered the anti spam filters and I blew right past it's warning and got my account suspended. A quick email got it right back up though. Later that week, though, my group was hijacked ( I quelled this resistance with an iron fist), and later reported. One report was good enough to get me kicked off again. It took about a week to get my account back, but some friendly emails seemed to do the trick. We called a truce in our "war" and I convinced my friend to hide all of his pokes. Among them was mine, so my secondary goal of winning our 1-on-1 poke war was accomplished as well.

mike said 10:54PM on 9-25-2007

oh boohoo whiner myspace is better anyway

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