You Can't Kick Me Off Facebook, I Quit

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/09/you-cant-kick-me-off-facebook-i-quit/63653/

by fakelvis • 16 years ago

83 56 16 years ago

zzleeper• 16 years ago

So the guy was spamming everyone with friend requests? Even more, he got warned by the system that he was spamming and he continued along?

I tend to be anti FB, but I do agree that it's annoying to get so many invites from marketeers. Maybe the age difference explains this difference in attitude, but for me it's actually clear =/

grovulent• 16 years ago

Yeah - he's the sort of thing on facebook that makes me hate facebook. That he can't even see that spamming people is wrong is what's astonishing about this article.

But it does really highlight perfectly the way facebook acts as the purest crossover between marketing and socialisng. Disturbing to say the least.

DannoHung• 16 years ago

Bullshit, he thought he was using the service the correct way.

Anyway, he should get a twitter account instead. Twitter's about talking, Facebook is about harvesting your personal data and relationships for better marketing.

sprout2• 16 years ago

He really doesn't understand Facebook.

He also, I think, doesn't understand spam. He comes from a world where paper scarcity offsets the desire of marketers to send out advertisements. The idea that marketing is so easy that it needs to be regulated and avoided unless your targets initiate it is completely alien to him.

_b8r0• 16 years ago

Wow, he got a lawyer to invoke Godwin's law.

Clearly he doesn't understand what the purpose of facebook is, or internet netiquette for that matter. I always felt that Facebook is in an eternal september, I guess this just supports that notion.

wyclif• 16 years ago

If he had been directed to create a Fan page instead of a regular user account, he would have been OK. Maybe Facebook needs to be more proactive in diverting new users who are promoting themselves or their works to the appropriate type of account.

dinkumthinkum4• 16 years ago

There is something to be said for this. The guy is clearly totally clueless about what this whole "Intertubes Thing" is and probably the Facebook rep could have examined the case, seen that, and directed him as such. But his reaction is still pretty ridiculous.

aw3c2• 16 years ago

But even Hitler's sham courts gave defendants a chance to reply to the charges. Facebook justice more resembles the Taliban's.

says the US american "military expert". Fact is, the Sharia allows the accused to defend himself. I am not saying that I think the Sharia is good, but linked article contains gusting fear-mongering.

confuzatron• 16 years ago

Sharia allows the accused to defend himself

Herself, not so much.

scottshapiro• 16 years ago

Since when did Hitler handle 6 million appeals?

dinkumthinkum4• 16 years ago

But isn't having a sham appeal process worse than having no appeal process?

hardik988• 16 years ago

I quite don't see what he's complaining about. Maybe he should've properly learned about all the features of Facebook that help promoting commercial products (Fan Pages, FB Ads)..

DeusExMachina• 16 years ago

I think this rant is out of place. He was just acting like a spammer, was warned about it but continued just because in his mind sending a lot of friends requests to unknown people was "nice". That does not mean that it is nice for others as well.

Complaining he had no right to appeal and comparing Facebook to a nation, or dictatorship (or even the nazis just for a deleted account on a free service) is out of place in my opinion. Facebook is not a nation at all nor it has to behave like one, it is a business, with rules you agree on signing.

akadien6• 16 years ago

Agreed. This behavior is an example of why I left FB. Also, people who bitch about the terms need to remember how much they paid to use the service.

atomical• 16 years ago

It's not relevant whether a user pays for a service or not. They are your customers.

hugh32• 16 years ago

And the thing that really bugs me about all this is that having written this disingenuous article, he's just managed to get a platform to market his book to the thousands of people who are currently reading this article in order to complain about what a tool this guy is.

There's even a handy Amazon link from within the article!

pbhjpbhj• 16 years ago

Funnily enough I've been struck with a block on a "page" from Facebook; the page is for a nearby City.

My crime appears to have been removing spam posts that were advertising affiliate links and pyramid schemes and the likes.

Obviously I've just been blocked from full access with no questions to me and no way for me to enquire if I'll ever get any of that access back or indeed if they plan on someone else taking an editorial view of the page. The page meanwhile is going to the dogs filling with more and more spam.

Obviously my actions weren't nice for some people either - spammers need to spam to make money and I was obviously preventing that.

So, I think my point is it cuts both ways and that Facebook appear to be rather haphazardly managing their monsterlith.

trustfundbaby• 16 years ago

I think the guy is a bit of an idiot, but lets not gloss over the fact that there was no appeal process ... Even Paypal, who are regularly demonized on the internet, have one.

aniket_ray• 16 years ago

I'm actually quited glad that Facebook's spammer detector works so well. Makes me wonder how many other spammers it has kept out of my personal data.

_phred• 16 years ago

Questionable behavior aside there is immense irony in that, by writing this rant, and, given the incredibly popular title and subject matter of the article, he will undoubtedly receive even more publicity and attention for his book than he did before.

rubidium• 16 years ago

Perhaps more than just irony.

  When I discovered this, my reporter's instinct kicked in.

  Success as a reporter often depends more on who you know than what you know. Networking is a core skill. Networking is also Facebook's advertised purpose, so that's how I started using it.

Success as a reporter also means recognizing a good story when you see one. Not to say conclusively that he did it on purpose, but what better story to draw publicity to yourself (and, your prized book)?

pohl• 16 years ago

Yes, striking while the irony is hot.

fourk• 16 years ago

It's interesting to see the reactions people have to perceived facebook spam. When the YC startup I intern at launched a new product, we invited our facebook friends to check out the fruit of our labor.

The two responses I got from friends were "What the fuck is this astroturfing bullshit? Has your account been hacked or are you really just this much of an asshole? ", and "cool! I'll check this out.", by another friend.

Where do you draw the line? Personally I'd say that friending people you don't know definitely crosses the line. For some, clearly the line is drawn at sending anything remotely business related.

ern2• 16 years ago

He is oblivious to the concepts of nettiquette, spam and social networking, but, given his age it's understandable.

I recently helped my father (also in his 50's) join Facebook, and I wouldn't be surprised if he goes on a friending spree. He already has a history of sending "free" greeting cards to anyone whose email address he has. In fact, reading this made me aware of the need to make sure he isn't inadvertently abusing Facebook.

akadien6• 16 years ago

Geez, this has nothing to do with his age and everything to do with his level of web experience. Your comment is pretty close to saying "giving his race" or "given his country of origin".

ern2• 16 years ago

I looked at the wording after I posted the comment, and wondered if it would offend anyone.

It wasn't meant as an ageist statement, but I think it's a safe bet that the majority of older people (hackers aside) are late adopters. His own son told him "If you're on Facebook, it's over."

shadowsun72• 16 years ago

I believe ern's comment was right on the mark. We have to remember that older people - bring their own set of affordances to the table. They're used to thinking about things in a pre-computer world, and have to get used to the models of thinking (unnatural models, I must add) computers force upon us.

shadowsun72• 16 years ago

I believe ern's comment was right on the mark. We have to remember that the elderly bring their own set of affordances to the table. They're used to thinking about things in a pre-computer world, and have to get used to the models of thinking (unnatural models, I must add) computers force upon us.

DisposaBoy• 16 years ago

Just in-case anyone have not seen the system come into use on Facebook. It's like an automated waring system(prolly is fully automatic). First it warns about adding so may people so quickly, it only kicks i if you're adding what appears to be complete strangers. So if you're adding a lot of people and they are mostly a friends-of-existing-friends type of deal or they have something i common like they are in the same school/year/grade network then it not as aggressive. Upon each(yes there are multiple if you keep it up) warning, it states clearly what will happen if you adding people that quickly. IIRC it even says the reason for the warning is that you're adding people too quickly and you should slow down. The next stage is to stop you adding people for a short while, it tells you about this and that you could be banned if you it up. If you stop adding people for say a day or two you slowly regain your ability to add people, if you're well behaved for a while you can start adding strangers again, but for many you will be notified that you can't add them because the system doesn't think you actually know them.

To sum up, if you get banned for adding too many friends too quickly regardless of whether or not you were spamming, i.e adding real friends then you're an idiot. Also, throwing a bitch-fit about how you left before you could get banned is silly, all it does is draw attention to you for being one of the people that are ruining Facebook for people who use it. For the record, I log on to Facebook approximately 15 minutes every couple months on average but I still find it annoying when people add you when the have no intention of being your friend.

megablast• 16 years ago

The guy is deluded: "I was flabbergasted. Going too fast adding friends? Wasn't making friends what Facebook was for?"

He could say the same about spam:

"I was flabbergasted. Going too fast sending messages? Wasn't sending messages what email was for?"

This sort of excuse is weak, and you could use it to justify abusing anything.

hugh32• 16 years ago

It's difficult to see whether he's hopelessly naive or deeply disingenuous.

awakeasleep• 16 years ago

I don't think it's either of those, though he was more towards the naive side of things.

I read this article as a documentary of how a spammer is born. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

No one likes to see himself as an asshole, instead we make decisions without thinking about the consequences to other people, only our benefits.

markkat• 16 years ago

Good on Facebook.

jeffclark• 16 years ago

So this guy's upset that his marketing spam for his first book was blocked by Facebook, eh?

Shocker.

Tycho• 16 years ago

I get some friend requests from people I don't know. It's no biggie... I just let the request sit there unanswered. I suppose maybe they were authors and I should consider sending them a message, but I really only want a certain type of person on my FB, namely work and school friends. Not family, and not strangers. Anyway, there's no way I'd consider the author's behaviour "abusive," I mean get a grip. A level of faux-sensitivity seems to come into play with internet users.

suninwinter• 16 years ago

Just so you know, not rejecting them is allowing them to follow you on their news feed. It will only show them public data, but it will be published to them instead of them having to seek it out.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/20/facebook-not-now-follow/

chopsueyar• 16 years ago

Hi Richard,

Your account was disabled because your behavior on the site was identified as harassing or threatening to other people on Facebook. Prohibited behavior includes, but is not limited to:

Soliciting others for dating or business purposes

Richard's standard reply: "I write about military aviation and I'm the author of a new book on the V-22 Osprey. I like to use Facebook to connect with people who have similar interests and spread the word about my book. I hope you'll check it out on my Facebook Wall.

At the end of the day, shouldn't we be blaming his daughter?

hkuo• 16 years ago

If his article is any indication of what reading his book is like, I'll be staying far faway from it. Leave it to a writer to write 50 pages in what could have been boiled down to one. This seems to be another example of his generation gap, his not understanding that an Internet audience is not so willing to give their precious time to read a wordy and way over long article.

callumjones• 16 years ago

Hasn't this guy heard of Facebook pages? The Friend part of Facebook isn't for marketing, it's for making friends.

Hoff• 16 years ago

This looks to have the hallmarks of a rather successful troll, and I really wish I hadn't gone near the article.

dinkumthinkum4• 16 years ago

Wow, who cares? So he spammed and got some notice of deletion? Whoa! I mean, the only entertaining thing about this article is the "Share on Facebook" badge the top. Mr. Big Atlantic Intellectual doesn't see the fallacy of comparing a private companie's decision about how to handle its own definition of abuse with how the laws of the U.S. work with respect to criminal matters? And Nazis? Really?

lsc• 16 years ago

why is it that people believe that they have a right to use services provided by another entity? What happened to having a right to refuse to do business with others?

motters• 16 years ago

This is really about a clash of culture. As an author he's probably quite accustomed to promoting his books to the widest possible readership by whatever means are available, but it also appears that he has little familiarity with the ways of the internet.

Did I carefully read the Facebook ten commandments before joining? No, I didn't. To a large extent my behaviour on Facebook is a product of my previous experiences of internet etiquette. If you have no previous knowledge of these semi-explicit rules it would be quite easy to commit a faux pas.

rudolfo_amoroso• 16 years ago

to everyone who called him a spammer: I think there's a big difference between a botnet brainlessly shooting out thousands of copies "Your sperm will become self-conscious and start carving - with SpermaMAX" and trying to target people who actually might want to buy the book.

This seems closer to the guy who used AI-magic to find people who'd tweeted about books and to tweet other recommendations to them. Both of them tried to pick people who seemed like they might be remotely interested.

If this is spam, it's a lite form of it, right?

ianferrel• 16 years ago

Maybe.

I think it depends on whether your definition of how spammy something is has to do with relevance or permission. I tend to think that permission has a lot more to do with it.

If I sign up for a mailing list, I've given them permission to contact me. Even if they never send me something I care about, it's not spam (assuming that the email sent is related to what the list purported to be about).

If I have a personal friend who, as an inside joke, likes to send me links to penis enlargement sites, that's not spam, although if it's too common, he might find himself filtered out or not my friend any more.

If someone I have no other connection with decides to contact me with a commercial offer, that's spam. I haven't given them permission to send me that sort of thing. Even if the offer is relevant to me, it's still spam.

Signing up for Facebook pretty clearly gives people who you know to contact you with friend requests. It doesn't give random people trying to sell something that permission, so their doing so is spammy.

You Can't Kick Me Off Facebook, I Quit

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