By Chris A. Heidelberg, III, PhD. Publisher & Managing Editor
Well I am already getting feedback from some of my 1600 Facebook friends, and they are not happy either. Why? Because they realize that what I wrote was true: you can be excommunicated from Facebook or other online sites on real charges due to lack of knowledge or trumped up charges or a combination of both. Apparently, Facebook is doing this to other people who are not adding too many friends but for other alleged reasons as I found out by reading Digg. Remember MySpace used to be the unquestioned leader, and now Facebook has surpassed MySpace for the first time recently.
One of the reasons was that Facebook was able to compete was that they were the more professional version of MySpace; however, Facebook runs the risk of engaging in the same type of heavy handed tactics that doomed Netscape, AOL, Sony, and to a lesser extent Microsoft. My point is this if you have the best product or service and people love it: work with them. Some of us are digital immigrants who are learning as we go along and other have researched the technology and we still have issues with understanding the terms of use.
So as you read a re-post of the orginal post below, I want you to ask yourself a few basic questions: do you want to be treated fairly; do want the the terms of online agreement clearly explained to you in plain English or your language of choice; and do you want companies to work with you when you make honest mistakes due to lack of knowledge. With great power comes great responsibility, let's make sure that great young companies like Facebook do not get puffed up like the older companies that are having tough times today because they did not do the right thing long term for their customers because they only cared about the immediate profits and not the long term. I guarantee you the company that has learned this well has been Google. They made things simple for their customers and then gave it away for free so that they could charge great advertising fees. Now for the remix!
If you are one of my former 1600 Facebook friends, don't even bother trying to contact me because you can't! I don't exist! I am officially disabled which really means excommunicated! I guess the YouTube videos below best describe how I feel right now. One of the biggest problems of dealing with many online companies is knowing what the terms of your agreement. Like Internet veteran Rob Scobie I recently had my Facebook account disabled after receiving a warning email that I might be disabled. I think that there is a huge difference between getting a warning email and being straight up cut off by the powers that be at Facebook. My "warning" from Facebook turned into being banished from Facebook in a manner that would have made Charlton Heston's Moses look like he was still included in the Egyptian Royal Family. I was kicked out, thrown out, and literally made an example of because I betrayed the terms of my agreement.
Here is a quick quiz: how many of you really understand the terms of the agreement when you signed up for Facebook or any online service. I actually went to law school, have a PhD and deal with legal documents all of the time and I have to tell you that the document that most people routinely scan and click is clearly written in favor of the drafter of the contract because they know that few people will successfully protest or win in a court of law.
My point here is that I love the Facebook platform, but in their zeal to prevent spam they are persecuting amateurs like me who have no intention of spamming and only intentions of networking. Maybe they should borrow from LinkedIn and allow people to network who belong to the same groups. In my case I was experimenting with teaching a class in South Africa and here simultaneously before taking a trip. So I networked through one of my friends and that was considered a violation because I was adding too many friends too fast.
I have written Facebook several times and I have only received an initial response and after that I have received no response email from Facebook. This is disturbing to me that a company of this size would treat its customers like this and not even both to respond to email with at least a form letter. Hey, I work with the government and even they send you a form email to respond to your email. I realize that I will probably not get my account restored for writing this post but after trying to correspond with them and promising to reform from my "wicked ways" that I did not know I had. All I want to do is network with my academic, technology, media and student friends. I am so disappointed because I feel that the heavy handedness of Facebook is a shame because I think it has the potential to become the platform. I have always liked it better than MySpace but it appears that they don't want me.
My real problem with Facebook is that when you try to find out how many friends that you can add they cannot tell you what the limits are. Please spare me the lecture about safety when we know that everyone's data is being mined and used for advertising in the future by Microsoft after that huge deal. If by some miracle that I manage to get my account restored, you can bet that I will be on ten friend limit per day. What is really terrible is that I actually interacted with my friends and used them for both professional and media contacts.
So here are my questions: what does one do when they run afoul of the undisputed king of social networking? What would you do? In the meantime, if you want to contact me by Facebook you may be eligible for retirement by the time I even get a response, so don't hold your breath waiting. Come on Facebook give me one more chance and loosen up because you are starting to act like Microsoft used to act before they re-discovered customer service.
If you're reading this and you are on Facebook, I hope you learned what I did: Facebook can do whatever they want to do; Facebook will cut you from the squad quick and then tell you to read the vague rules that they wrote to protect themselves legally; Facebook will not give you specifics in plain English on how to stay out of trouble once you have run afoul; Facebook will not give you real due process and you will be punished with a snowball's chance in hell of being reinstated with all of your existing friends; Facebook will not respond to your requests for reinstatement even when you promise to change; Facebook has created rules similar to the credit card companies and you know you can't win appeals with them unless you are F. Lee Bailey or loaded; and Facebook has the best social networking site in the world that will make you an addict as I am finding out as I go through withdrawal. Hey maybe we should protest! Yeah right!
Hey I have already lost my privacy, due process, and right to protection against self-incrimination with Facebook. So I better use my First Amendment right while I still have it! I guess I feel like the guy getting lectured to by Clint Eastwood as Clint is holding the gun to him and promising this gentleman to, "Go ahead make my day!" You never get a straight answer when the person holding the gun is holding all of the cards, has cut you off of Facebook, and has already shot at you quite accurately. Don't bet on me getting reinstated, especially after this post!
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