Why your Facebook account will be disabled

This is what happening with the people who are using facebook all around the world: facebook disables the accounts of users who’s submissions are suspicious. Usually as it sounds, suspicious, often means just using the facebook too much. Usually they are warning people and gives them the second chance to change themselves and sometimes they just terminate the account suddenly and permanently. Most of time they turn back the disabled accounts, automatically after a cool down or after sending them the humble request to the facebook authorities. But sometimes they just ban the account and forget it.

Facebook has not sharply outlined about what bad behavior looks like that leads for getting account disabled, and this is the most important reason which makes people confused, angry or desperate when they gets the message Account Disabled. I have tried to list the most common reasons on “why the facebook accounts are disabled?” to help people avoiding their accounts to be disabled by facebook. Remember, this list is not surely complete and as the policies will be keeping changing according to the time, we will have to live with a bit uncertainty when using Facebook.

Here are the reasons that will get you kicked off facebook:

• You didn’t use your real name
Don’t try to use a nickname (or initials)in lieu of the name on your birth certificate, because Facebook will find you and spit you out.

• You joined too many groups
Remember that the maximum limit is 200 groups per user. More than that just looks desperate, don’t you think?

• You posted too many messages on a wall or in a group
Even one of my close friend had his account disabled–in his case for “excessive evangelism.”

• You posted in too many groups, too many user’s walls
You may be axed for being too verbose in too many places. That’s what spammers do, silly. On Facebook it is better–or at least safer–to be seen than heard.

• You friended too many people
Not so long ago this was a prime cause of disabled accounts, but Facebook has instituted a maximum of 5000 friends that should protect you from yourself.

• Your school/organization affiliation is doubtful
The overlords are sometimes not very trusting, and they may accuse you of not graduating from Harvard (or Plum Senior High School). The impertinence! Better have your diploma ready.

• You’re poking too many people
We’ve heard this from multiple sources, and it’s easy enough to avoid. Save the pokes for people you *really* like, as mum always said. But beware the odd FB app that pokes on your behalf.

• For advertising your app on wall posts
The line between spam and self-promotion is a thin one, but let it be known that pimping your shiny new Facebook app is definitely considered SPAM.

• Using duplicate text in multiple messages
Some people paste a generic welcome message into friend requests to save time. DON’T DO THIS! It makes you look like a spammer. (Ironically, pro spammers are probably randomizing their messages to avoid this trap)

• You are a cow, dog, or library
Being a real person is not enough, you must be a homo sapien. Accounts have been deleted for cows, dogs and libraries.

• You are under eighteen years old
According to one report a user’s account was suspended when they suspected her of being under 18. She was required to enter a work email address to prove her maturity, at which point her account was reinstated. [note: other users have pointed out that being under 18 is fine if you're part of a High School group, though underage home schoolers have been told to bugger off]

• You wrote offensive content
Reports of “sudden death” on accounts have been reported by users who were told they had posted offensive content, but were not provided details of the offense.

• You scraped information off Facebook
They have a zero tolerance policy for page scraping (i.e. pulling content off their web pages via a script). Unfortunately, they don’t have a reliable way of proving it’s you who’s doing the scraping (IP matching is probably as good as they can get), so you may find this a difficult charge to defend yourself against.

Finally, you may be disabled for no clear reason at all. One Australian member reported this staggering experience:

“I was blocked for a little while because I was ‘misusing certain features of the site’ Naturally I closely examined their conditions of use etc for some insight as to what I must have done wrong. I couldn’t for the life of me find anything…

“Upon request for clarification I was told that they were not at liberty to divulge which features or of course any thresholds of use. Then they warned me not to do it again or I would be banned permanently without recourse to reinstatement.”

You have been warned. Remember that the hand of justice is swift and merciless.

I’m living in fear

If you find your facebook account disabled for one of these (or other) reasons there is only one resource: you must email Facebook at one or all of these addresses:

- disabled@facebook.com
- appeals@facebook.com
- info@facebook.com

Posted in: Facebook