5 Comments »Last week’s drama over Robert Scoble being kicked out of Facebook generated a ton buzz in the blogosphere ultimately resulting in Scoble being able to rejoin Facebook. We already know that blogosphere buzz is a critical factor in Facebook decision making as we witnessed with the Facebook Beacon fiasco. On a regular basis I receive emails from people who claim they were falsely accused of violating Facebook’s terms of service and can no longer access the site.
Just yesterday, a reader emailed me from Brunei Darussalam after receiving the following message from Facebook:
Hello,
Our systems indicate that you’ve been highly active on Facebook lately and viewing pages at a quick enough rate that we suspect you may be running an automated script. This kind of Activity would be a violation of our Terms of Use and potentially of federal and state laws.
As a result, your account has been disabled. Please reply to this email with a description of your recent activity on Facebook. In addition, please confirm with us that in the future you will not scrape or otherwise attempt to obtain in any manner information from our website except as permitted by our Terms of Use, and that you will immediately delete and not use in any manner any such information you may have previously obtained.
We reserve the right to take any appropriate action in connection with any activities that violate our Terms of Use and/or applicable laws, including termination of your account and pursuit of legal remedies.
Please reply to this email.
Thank you,
Facebook Customer Support
This is the exact same thing that Robert Scoble was banned for. While I cannot guarantee that this individual was not scraping Facebook pages, he appeared surprised that he was being accused of anything that would violate Facebook’s terms. This individual may not be as fortunate to have his account reinstated as Robert Scoble did. The funny thing is that Robert Scoble was in complete violation of Facebook’s terms and was reinstated within 24 hours.
While Robert Scoble may not have known what Plaxo’s code was actually doing, after having his account reinstated he paraded around and preached about how he is ultimately untouchable by the Facebook staff. It was a less than mature way of handling things and ultimately I think he should have his account banned. What reason was there for reinstating Scoble’s account other than the fact that he has a lot of readers on his blog?
The only other thing going for Scoble is that he’s in the valley and friends of friends work at Facebook. That’s the way the real world works. They help out friends of friends. You would hope that this wasn’t the case for one of the largest and fastest growing social networks on the web. Then again, I surely hope that Facebook would make the same decision if I ended up in a similar situation as Robert. Do you think Facebook has a double standard?
Facebook isn't public property. I'm sure there's a double standard, and I think that's okay.
Maybe not the best practice, but I won't be calling the BBB.
Facebook isn’t public property. I’m sure there’s a double standard, and I think that’s okay.
Maybe not the best practice, but I won’t be calling the BBB.
There's one thing that just doesn't quite add up with this Plaxo/Scoble scandal. You can't tell me Scoble's account was the first one they ran this script on. This had to have been planned. And I'm sure it worked out just as they both liked. Plaxo probably ran it a few times on a few test accounts, had them banned and hit a brick wall, so where better to turn… I have read for months of people being banned and not really knowing why. Facebook should have stood up to Scoble and Plaxo, seems they had public opinion behind them..
There’s one thing that just doesn’t quite add up with this Plaxo/Scoble scandal. You can’t tell me Scoble’s account was the first one they ran this script on. This had to have been planned. And I’m sure it worked out just as they both liked. Plaxo probably ran it a few times on a few test accounts, had them banned and hit a brick wall, so where better to turn… I have read for months of people being banned and not really knowing why. Facebook should have stood up to Scoble and Plaxo, seems they had public opinion behind them..
My most recent experience is that Facebook is happy to make false accusations but gives those victimized no recourse. It has been removing my most recent two videos, claiming copyright infringement, even though I have written permission and the owners have made no complaints about these uploads. A warning about my supposed illegal conduct is now permanently on my home page on Facebook. And the form they claim you can fill out to make a counter-claim is never accepted, so the accusation hangs over you. A form linked from the form (which is apparently the one you fill in if there is a bug) also never makes it to Facebook. In fact, there is no means at all to contact Facebook.
I know US common law has a presumption of innocence. Facebook, it seems, never got that memorandum.