Dear face(less)book

An open letter to facebook and its advertisers (including corporations I was recently a "fan" of on facebook):

Dear face(less)book,

A couple of days ago, out of the blue, I was suddenly warned that I was possibly in violation of your terms of use, that I had possibly practiced "wall post abuse", and that my account could be locked (I forget the exact term) or I might be blocked from using this feature if I continued in this practice. That was the gist of the (singularly useless) warning.

Nowhere did you explain what you really thought the problem was. Nowhere can I find a list of the things that constitute "wall posts". Nowhere did you explain what behavior, how much, or in what time frame would result in the account being locked.

I spent some time looking through the FAQs as you suggested. I could find nothing at all that applied to my use of facebook.

I looked through your terms of use. I could find nothing in which I might be in violation.

I looked through your notes on blocking. They were also useless, other than warning me that you could not, under any circumstance, lift a block early. (I'm sorry, but that's just absurd.)

Giving up, I went back to my home page, and commented on someone's status. Surprise! That turns out to be a wall post! A huge banner took over the top of my page, explaining that You Have Been Warned, You Were Bad, Now You Are Banned, You Account Could Be Locked (whatever, still don't recall the phrasing). For some, apparently random amount of time from several hours to several days.

At this point I discovered that you are essentially not really facebook, but facelessbook. You make it as difficult to contact you as possible. All I could find was a "suggestions" contact page, which I used. Several days later, I still haven't heard back. It doesn't surprise me, but it certainly irritates me.

The icing on the cake is that after 24 hours (best guess) the giant warning banner disappeared. Nowhere can I find any hint of whether I am still blocked. I can try to wall post; only after I try to submit do I get a popup explaining that I am still blocked. Again, nowhere do you tell me whether this prolongs the block or increases my chances of having my account locked, or if this is, indeed, the correct way to determine when the block is lifted.

So for now, all I can do to communicate is set status and send private messages. This severely limits interaction. I got onto facebook primarily because I am involved with teenagers and college aged people. Much of this is because I am a youth pastor; in today's culture, facebook and myspace are requirements for keeping in touch and communicating with young people. You have now, arbitrarily, capriciously, and without any useful warning, cut off much of that interaction.

I suppose that since you provide a "free" service (of course, nothing is free, as the ads take time to load and draw my eyes, costing me time, my most precious asset) you feel no need to provide customer service. Until this blocking, I often opined that I would be happy to pay two or three dollars a month to get rid of the ads. But now, having experienced one of the highest levels of "customer no service" I have personally encountered, I am not so sure I would trust you with my money.

As someone who has spent over two decades in software development and IT, as an early adopter of the internet, I understand the necessity of defending against both spam and harassment. But your implementation of these defenses violates many, many rules of usability and user interaction.

I happen to know that I am not alone in this predicament. Quite a few others are in the same boat, including at least one school teacher. I'm sure some of those blocked deserved it. Some of them may even know why they were blocked. But I bet not all of them knew, and I know for a fact not all of us deserved it.

A a premier social media service, you wield great power. With great power comes great responsibility. While you have a responsibility to protect your users from spammers, stalkers and predators, you also have a responsibility to treat your users fairly, and to respond to problems appropriately-- not arbitrarily, capriciously, or without appeal.

You are currently the 700 pound gorilla. But on the net, empires rise and fall far more quickly than in the physical world. If you don't solve these problems, and solve them fairly quickly, I strongly suspect you will have a competitor arise "from nowhere", and take over most, if not all of your market share. You can choose to be reasonable and solve the problems, or to be arrogant and stay the course. In the latter case, you will ultimately be just another failed footnote in the second dot com bubble.

As far as advertisers and corporate fandom goes I certainly don't hold those companies responsible. But I will nevertheless boycott them so long as they support your faceless attitude.

Resolution: I quit trying to do anything that included a possible wall post for over 24 hours (close to 36). Suddenly I can wall post again. Was this the magic needed, or was it just that the random timer tripped? No clue, because facelessbook never responded.