Banned From Facebook? How To Avoid this Fate
ByTable of contents for Banned From Facebook
- Banned From Facebook? How To Avoid this Fate
- Banned From Facebook? Part 2
- Banned From Facebook? Part 3 – Other Things You Should Know
Monday morning I saw a Tweet from internet marketer Kathleen Gage; she’d been banned from Facebook. I was surprised to say the least. I know there are spammers and unethical types on Facebook and elsewhere on the web, but Kathleen isn’t one of them. I’m connected to her in multiple social media sites and know she’s one of the good guys (gals?).
So how could this happen?
The problem is that Facebook has some written and unwritten rules about what is and isn’t allowed. If you break one of these rules you may get a warning, or you may get banned without warning, as Kathleen did.
On a site like LinkedIn, they make it very clear that if you don’t follow the rules you’re out. It’s difficult to connect with people you don’t know on LinkedIn. And they have a pretty standardized system of dealing with those who stray. As a result, people are more cautious about what they do on LinkedIn.
But Facebook is different. It’s a little more freewheeling than LinkedIn. There are so many ways to connect with people – search, groups, your friends’ friends, the “people you may know” box – that it’s easy to forget that Facebook does have some rules in place. Add this to the fact that most of these rules seem to be “secret” it’s surprising more committed networkers aren’t banned.
How To Avoid Getting Banned
If many of the rules around networking on Facebook are unwritten, and you can get banned without warning, does this mean you should avoid Facebook? Of course not. Facebook is too valuable a networking tool to avoid. If you learn from the mistakes of others you can avoid the shock of getting kicked off.
Your Facebook account can be deactivated if:
- You send “too many” friend requests in one day/session/week.
- You make “too many” wall posts in one day/session/week – especially if the posts have identical content and links.
- You copy and paste the same friend request message “too many” times.
- You send “too many” identical emails to individual friends and/or friend lists.
- You send messages to your Group members “too many” times.
- You “poke” too many people (please tell me you’re not poking people!)
- You message your Event invitees “too many” times.
- You join too many groups.
- You post too many promotional links
Notice a theme here? It’s not what you do, it’s how many times you do it. If you do any of these actions too many times, you look like a spammer in the eyes of the Facebook police. This is something you must never do.
So how much is too much? Come back tomorrow for some tips to avoiding banishment from Facebook.
Andrea J. Stenberg
Have you been given the boot by Facebook? Received a warning? Please leave a comment and share your story here so others can learn how to Facebook safely.
[...] And if you missed it, I’ve written a three part series about Getting Banned on Facebook. [...]
Andrea…I am looking for the “tomorrow” where you said you will talk about how much is too much and I cannot find it on your blog. Please give me the link.
so i was on fb yesterday and this morning i wanted to get on to talk to my friend nd i tried to log on and fb banned me
how do i get my account back
i tried logging onto my facebook account yesterday and it said it was disabled. I shot them an email asking why, since the only thing i could find on their site was my account could only be disabled if I was impersonating someone or using a fake name/account. I asked them to explain how they came up with this conclusion that i am not who i say i am. But I never got a reply email. Just out of curiosity, I googled my name to see if my information and pictures were still out there for people to see and sure enough, my facebook information popped up and there was my account…so strange!
best thing to do is to email facebook to see why your account was “disabled”
how can u get on facebook @ school,even though asd blocks it?
after debating on a fan page off and on for around three days in a row, i was given a warning. shocked me. did not know fb considered this as possible harassment. Also realized that if you upset someone unintentionally, and they report you, rather its justified or not, you can be banned. Also, while debating, a lot of my ‘friends’ kept hitting like on my comments, which i encouraged, however facebook did not ‘like’ it at all, since it brought into question rather or not these people were real,or simply fake accounts with fake names.
Christina,
Yes, Facebook can be rather heavy-handed sometimes. That’s why it is wise to be careful about what you do, how you do it, and to ensure you don’t have all your marketing eggs in one basket.
Also thanks for the heads up about Facebook not being happy with having friends “like” all your comments. It does illustrate that you need to be authentic in everything you do online. One option would be for you to get them to only hit “like” on some of your comments, while also adding their own comments and occasionally “sharing” your comments. Perhaps that way Facebook won’t see their activities as blatant promotion.
Best of luck with it.
Looks like I’ve been banned today from FB 07/15/11. Basically the only thing I’ve been doing is posting Bible verses for 2 or more years & few major news events. The truth is not popular in this day & age.
i too have been banned from facebook, as they said i was impersonating someone, total crap if you ask me. the stuff they want me to send to prove my identity is stupid.
i dont have access to a camera, for j peg images what ever… i dont have my original birth certificate. i dont have a library card or a picture i.d. card. oh the list is endless
so i told them just close my account. then. i know why its all because i used my middle name not my first name when i set the account up, due to my ex husband who was sending me filth in messages… i reported him and he wasnt banned….. i hope one day they close facebook down for good…..
They put me on a 15 day warning! Incredible, said i was spamming,,,i didn’t even know what spamming was! i had been sharing “love” back for fb page “likes”. sheeze.
I’ve also heard that if you send out too many friend requests that go unanswered this can trigger a temporary ban. It would be nice if they published the actual threshold values.
I haven’t heard about the unanswered friend requests but it doesn’t surprise me. And I agree, it would be a lot easier for all users if we knew exactly what the expectations are. LinkedIn is very good about making the rules clear. I think part of the problem is that Facebook was created for students and business use of the tool wasn’t part of the original plans so they don’t have a system in place to deal with how people are currently using it. However, it doesn’t help people who get into trouble. The best bet is to take it slow, be a true networking, don’t spam, and don’t put all your marketing eggs in the Facebook basket.
Thanks for sharing this info with us..
Can you get banned from uploading a profile picture that say for ex. is a picture of Eminem? Someone plz respond?
I’ve been banned for arguing with some stranger in a page. Well it’s only temporary. Thank God it only lasts 3 days. I’ll be more careful. I’ll read this post very thoroughly. Thanks
))
a friend who is a very popular musician got thousands of birthday wishes, he thought of answering them all, he got to 100 and was warned to not do that again!! this was on his fan page! he said “just answering my birthday wishes ” they said DONT DO IT AGAIN!
I deactivated my account 3 times in two days and apparently Facebook doesnt like that…they told me that I couldn’t get back on for 24 hrs.