My War with Facebook

So, I've been at "war" with Facebook lately regarding my alleged violation of their TOS and their inability to explain to me, specifically, where I went so awry that they were forced to disable my account with impunity. Below is the threaded conversation (for the most part), dated new to old from top to bottom.

I've detailed this account on Facebook as well: (http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php#/note.php?note_id=101702679726)

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RE: Misuse of "Features"???

Friday, July 17, 2009 12:51 PM From: "Tom"
To: disabled@facebook.com
Johnna,

Are you an IT person? I can't believe you don't have any real numbers on this.

I'm a software engineer. I work with numbers and logic for a living. Please give me boundaries within which to keep so that I don't inadvertently trip your algorithms again. I imagine this erroneous limitation frustrates users much more than people who post "too quickly". It seems to me you are much more interested in having people sign up for Facebook than actually use its features. Check with people on my friend's list. I'm not a spammer, I'm not selling anything - all I do is chat and share information in order to provoke thoughtful discussion. Where are the blocks for people who post streams of mindless nonsense in response to critical information?

Your IT folks have programmed your filtering and spam-detection logic with too many flaws in order to provide any feeling of confidence in using the site for which it was intended. Unfortunately, I've personally built my entire online social life within my account (meaning, I find your site completely useful even though taking advantage of it's purpose is punishable by warnings) so I hope your measures for detecting spam vastly improve before you anger more of your user base. Online blogs are FULL of this type of backlash. If Facebook wants to seriously compete with Twitter, they need to lighten up the strings a little for people who type more than 5 words a minute.

Please read. I'm one of many who desires much clearer policy. http://getsatisfaction.com/facebook/topics/who_to_contact_when_facebook_ignores_you

Cheers,

Tom

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Re: Re: Warning: Your Facebook Account

Thursday, July 16, 2009 12:49 PM From: "The Facebook Team" To: Tom
Hi Tom,

Please note that you received this warning because Facebook determined that you were going too fast when writing on Walls. If you have also been blocked from writing on Walls, please note that these blocks can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Also note that this is not a glitch or bug with the site as Facebook has these limits in place to prevent behavior that others may find annoying or abusive.Unfortunately, we cannot lift the block for you. When you are allowed to resume using this feature, please proceed with caution to avoid reaching the limit again. If you have any further questions, please visit our Help Center at the following address:

http://www.facebook.com/help.php

Thanks,

Johanna
User Operations
Facebook

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From: Tom ()
To: Facebook (notification+p_-5ukw_@facebookmail.com)
ArrayCC: appeals+dy2opay@facebook.com (appeals+dy2opay@facebook.com), appeals@facebook.com (appeals@facebook.com)
Subject: Re: Warning: Your Facebook Account

And again. I am not using the site any differently than I have in the past - even less frequently in fact. Please correct this glitch in your system before I lose everything in my account due to a trigger-happy algorithm.

Tom

Call me for further questions, screen shots, even screen captures of my usage habits.
***-***-****

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From: Facebook p_-5ukw_@facebookmail.com>
Subject: Warning: Your Facebook Account
To: "Tom"
Date: Thursday, July 16, 2009, 10:24 AM

Hi,

Our systems indicate that you've been misusing certain features on the site. This email serves as a warning. Misuse of Facebook's features or violating Facebook's terms of use may result in your account being disabled. Thanks in advance for your understanding and cooperation.

Please refer to http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=421 for further information.

The Facebook Team

15 Reasons I may either Unfollow or NOT Follow you on Twitter

Updated to 15 on 5/29/2009, newest entries first.

As I've come to better understand the massive potential of Twitter, I've also become more particular about whom I follow and why. Along the way many of my Followees have managed to slip under the wire as my own personal filters have been sharpening.

New to Twitter as I may be, I've been an active participant and developer on the net since before it was made available to the mainstream, and the way people communicate has changed little. Even back in the days of Usenet and IRC, spammers, pornbots and hackers were prevalent much the same as today. Spotting the difference between a User and a Luser wasn't much different.

So, this is the short list. I could extend it to 100; maybe even much further, but starting with 15 basics is a good primer and won't harm readers who suffer from the epidemic spread of ADHD.

15 Reasons I may either Unfollow or NOT Follow you on Twitter

1. You talk partisan politics often, angrily and offensively.
   I love talking politics, whether face to face or on the web, and I'm sure Twitter is a great medium for folks to do the same. That's not my personal use for Twitter. To each their own - for me, sorry, I don't need it in my stream.
   
   
2. You constantly refer to yourself as a social media guru, or Twitter pro.
   I remember when people started tossing around the term "Webmaster" because they'd learned a bit of HTML. Social Media in it's current forum is much too new and changeable for anyone to have been able to lock down a definitive system well enough to produce metrics for any amount of time worthy of statistical forecasting for a solid business model. Too wordy? Of course. I'm a "pro". Next!!
   
   
3. You're selling religion.
   Be spiritual, non-invasively. If you use your own faith as weapon to judge my own, you're out.
   
   
4. You go on about your blinged out phone, your Benz, your 7 houses in the Hills and one in the Hamptons...
   You obviously care, but no one else does.
   
   
5. You can get me 2 billion followers in 7 days and I'll get rich off of em, just like you did!
   (Thanks to @marcmawhinney for this suggestion.) You're a liar if you think you can do THIS for me. Need I say more?
   
   
6. Your picture hasn't been set.
   Or it's a pile of cash. Hey, maybe it is you, but look at that: you're naked. Sorry. Best of luck with all the sticky followers.
   
   
7. Your name is comprised of words like:
   Money, cash, free, sex, porn, livecam, nude, viagra, etc. I think you catch my drift.
   
   
8. You auto-DM me when I follow you.
   Hey, I already did you the solid of bringing you into my fold - why do you have to mess that up with such impersonal automation? OK, some auto DMs seem innocuous enough. "Hi, thanks for following!" is much better than "Thanks for following, click here to get 8 million followers in three hours."
   
   
9. Your tweets are full of foul language.
   The occasional F-bomb I can handle. If you decide to be nauseatingly foul for no good reason, POOF!
   
   
10. You constantly lash out at me or others.
    Be nice. People don't like to follow assholes. There, that's my one racy word for this segment :)
    
    
11. You constantly push your own product, service or blog, and tweet about nothing else.
    'Nuff said.
    
    
12. You're never positive. Ever.
    Nobody likes doom and gloom all the time.
    
    
13. Your bio is empty and you live "nowhere".
    So, what are you trying to hide? Next!
    
    
14. You haven't Tweeted in months.
    There isn't much value there, is there?
    
    
15. You are never "Live".
    Many of us use some or other form of automation to get our tweets out there, but please stop in now and then and be human. Thank folks for their Tweets and their reTweets. People can absolutely tell the difference.
    
    

Facebook Applications Should be Raising Big Security Concerns for Users

--[ UPDATE - ORIGINAL POST BELOW ]--

A trusted friend of mine recently sent me a Quiz request. Just out of curiosity, I decided to go ahead and see if I would find any security issues with this particular quiz.


Aha, a "bonus question". Looks innocent enough, and because many of my friends have a great sense of humor, I'll bite :)

D'oh! Burned again!

Results URL: http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/officialiqquiz.com

Don't blame your friends, folks. I expect Facebook to be more vigilant than to allow unscrupulous apps to weasel their way into their system.

Tom
5/21/2009

--[ ORIGINAL POST ] --

So, the latest rage in Facebook applications appears to be the Quiz. "What's your purpose in life?", "What are you destined to do?", "What kind of flower are you?", and on and on... they are seemingly endless in number, most likely because anyone who clicks through to take one (because they've seen another FB friend's results in their "stream"), is greeted with the option to create their own.



Nice! Now anyone can create a quiz that may or (more likely) may not be anywhere near the truth depending on how you answer. And the reason? Money of course. Not for the creator of the quiz, but for the creator of the Quiz Application platform, and for Facebook too, if that's even possible as they've had a terrible time thus far making money off of anything they've tried. See: "Facebook has no business model".

So, because of all this, I generally ignore the quizzes. HOWEVER, there is a much more important reason that avoiding these types of quizzes on Facebook may just save your hide. Observe. And FYI, I am using Mozzila Firefox 3.0.10 on Windows, with the Web of Trust (WOT) Firefox add-on.

So, here goes.

In my stream, I see a quiz a friend has taken that grabs my attention:

I click on "Take this quiz" , agree to add the application with all its disclaimers, and am presented with the first set of questions.



OK, let's go... but wait, at the bottom. What's that?



Hmmm, it seems as though one of my FB buddies has taken another quiz, and has not only scored well, but has decided to do some trash talking to get me into a little competition. Since I have a few "Mike's" on my FB, I decide to hit them up to give them a little back, all in good fun, right?

Low and behold, to my (utter lack of) surprise, not only weren't they baiting me, they had never taken any such quiz on Facebook. Ever. So... now I'm intrigued. Out of my natural curiosity for all thing people/technical, and being confident of warding off many kinds of web-related attacks, I'm all for clicking that link. And I do. And here is where WOT steps in to prevent me from stepping in someone's crap that Facebook apparently endorses (or at least tolorates).



I've unwittingly been taken to a web site with all kinds of security problems including reports of Spam, Popup Ads, Fraud, Scams, and Phishing. Please read for yourself here:

http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/officialiqquiz.com

For shame, Facebook, for allowing such unscrupulous marketing to find its way into your most popular applications. I, for one, certainly won't be taking any more of your quizzes, and will be hard-pressed to install any future applications without doing some investigative research beforehand.