A few days ago, I wrote an article that was republished a number of times around the internet. In it I detailed a little bit of the angst being felt by people who had been banned or suspended while diddling around in the social network - Facebook.
To a lot of people this is really a non-issue, much to do about nothing. But to the 100 Million who inhabit the fastest growing social network and the several tens of millions who now spend more time inside facebook than around the rest of the internet, this is quite a serious topic. You volunteer to send out 400 invitations to your facebook friends on behalf of your boss and your boss smiles and you hear him say, wow Jim is a real go getter. You can banned after sending only 60 messages and yo partner, your now in trouble...
So, let me see if I got this right - 580 cherished friends of your mother-in-law didn't get their invite and you just got suspended from facebook while in this, the most tedious of chores. Better come straight with your mother-in-law right away, because facebook does not lift suspensions in any "reasonable" time-frame. And as for outright bans, if you were given one of those unjustly, you can try their dispute resolution email, however for all intents and purposes you are better off kissing that account goodbye.
And let us not forget that commercial class of people feeling deep business angst over having lost their list of 3-4000 prospects. Sometimes these are the mom and pop type companies who have decided to use facebook for marketing and sometimes these are sizable mid-sized corporations getting overly aggressive with their grassroots marketing or surveying. In any case, the loss of the profile also means no contact with the prospective customer base.
In that article, I wrote a little about the facebook warning messages which I and many others consider quite bland. I detailed in vivid language that I personally felt that for such an important thing, they facebook could have done a little better in terms of bringing the urgency of the situation to their members.
Ignorance of the Law is no excuse and in the case of Facebook, a faceless engine in the background deems certain activity looks like spam according to their filters and suddenly you are out of there. But here is some detail on activities that you should NOT do, so as to stay out of trouble with Facebook.
Blatant Nudity - for you exhibitionists this is a no no Writing to too many people who are not your friends ( yet ) Writing too much to people who have invited you to be their friend but whom you have not yet accepted. Writing on too many walls in a short period of time - looks like spam
Using images without permission - you are asked about this. Using facebook's email facility as if it were IM or MSN or Yahoo chat. Odd that on a social network you can get banned for that, but there you go. Facebook has a chat facility and they would rather you use that rather than abuse the email in that way. Promotion of racism, hate mail or any of the regular sort of utterances that would have gotten you in trouble outside of facebook too. People engaging in this thing shouldn't be surprised if their accounts are permanently suspended.
And my personal favorites: Spamming your own facebook group 3 or more times per day. After getting a warning, keep doing what you were doing prior. Sending add requests to more than two hundred people that you dont know in one day.
Generally, it would appear that there are two classes of evil that can get one banned or suspended from facebook. Nudity and stealing images and other such types of activity is one class of activity.
The other class of activity is time based. Sending 400 emails in a month is generally ok. Sending 400 emails all in one day is not. When you get a warning about a certain activity, lets say it was writing on walls, you are NOT told how long before you can continue that activity.
Most of the above sins fall into two groups. Either blatant lack of social etiquette or a time based limit that has been exceeded. Inviting two hundred strangers to be your friend in 2 weeks is allowed, but not if done in 30 minutes. If you do run into a problem there is a resolution email on the site but the guys there are really pretty busy.
To a lot of people this is really a non-issue, much to do about nothing. But to the 100 Million who inhabit the fastest growing social network and the several tens of millions who now spend more time inside facebook than around the rest of the internet, this is quite a serious topic. You volunteer to send out 400 invitations to your facebook friends on behalf of your boss and your boss smiles and you hear him say, wow Jim is a real go getter. You can banned after sending only 60 messages and yo partner, your now in trouble...
So, let me see if I got this right - 580 cherished friends of your mother-in-law didn't get their invite and you just got suspended from facebook while in this, the most tedious of chores. Better come straight with your mother-in-law right away, because facebook does not lift suspensions in any "reasonable" time-frame. And as for outright bans, if you were given one of those unjustly, you can try their dispute resolution email, however for all intents and purposes you are better off kissing that account goodbye.
And let us not forget that commercial class of people feeling deep business angst over having lost their list of 3-4000 prospects. Sometimes these are the mom and pop type companies who have decided to use facebook for marketing and sometimes these are sizable mid-sized corporations getting overly aggressive with their grassroots marketing or surveying. In any case, the loss of the profile also means no contact with the prospective customer base.
In that article, I wrote a little about the facebook warning messages which I and many others consider quite bland. I detailed in vivid language that I personally felt that for such an important thing, they facebook could have done a little better in terms of bringing the urgency of the situation to their members.
Ignorance of the Law is no excuse and in the case of Facebook, a faceless engine in the background deems certain activity looks like spam according to their filters and suddenly you are out of there. But here is some detail on activities that you should NOT do, so as to stay out of trouble with Facebook.
Blatant Nudity - for you exhibitionists this is a no no Writing to too many people who are not your friends ( yet ) Writing too much to people who have invited you to be their friend but whom you have not yet accepted. Writing on too many walls in a short period of time - looks like spam
Using images without permission - you are asked about this. Using facebook's email facility as if it were IM or MSN or Yahoo chat. Odd that on a social network you can get banned for that, but there you go. Facebook has a chat facility and they would rather you use that rather than abuse the email in that way. Promotion of racism, hate mail or any of the regular sort of utterances that would have gotten you in trouble outside of facebook too. People engaging in this thing shouldn't be surprised if their accounts are permanently suspended.
And my personal favorites: Spamming your own facebook group 3 or more times per day. After getting a warning, keep doing what you were doing prior. Sending add requests to more than two hundred people that you dont know in one day.
Generally, it would appear that there are two classes of evil that can get one banned or suspended from facebook. Nudity and stealing images and other such types of activity is one class of activity.
The other class of activity is time based. Sending 400 emails in a month is generally ok. Sending 400 emails all in one day is not. When you get a warning about a certain activity, lets say it was writing on walls, you are NOT told how long before you can continue that activity.
Most of the above sins fall into two groups. Either blatant lack of social etiquette or a time based limit that has been exceeded. Inviting two hundred strangers to be your friend in 2 weeks is allowed, but not if done in 30 minutes. If you do run into a problem there is a resolution email on the site but the guys there are really pretty busy.
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Building your business on the social network model? Listen to and or watchDino De Lellis talking about facebook risks
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