Mom's been disabled on Facebook... now what?
November 17, 2010 6:34 AM   Subscribe

Facebook disabled my mom's profile and won't re-enable it. Now what?

My mom is a very casual Facebook user. No games, just connecting with some friends and family. Yet, the other day when she tried to login, her account had been disabled. She sent them a message via their contact form and received the following terse reply:
"Hi,

Fake accounts are a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Facebook requires users to provide their real first and last names. Impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited, as is maintaining multiple profiles on the site. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate this account for any reason. This decision is final.

Thanks for your understanding,

The Facebook Team"
I mean, c'mon. This is my mom. No chance she was impersonating anyone. And she's smart about not clicking on stupid links, so it's unlikely her account was hacked (and even if it was, shouldn't Facebook be a little more accommodating and helpful?).

What really gets me is the callous "Unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate this account for any reason. This decision is final." with no specific explanation of what happened. She is clearly her -- her e-mail address (firstname@lastname.org) obviously matches her name.

Is there anyway to appeal this or shame them into fixing it?
posted by laze to Technology (16 answers total)
 
I think they may be having technical issues - I have 2 facebook friends that have had their legitimate accounts disabled for the same reason within the past 24 hours. 1 has been turned back on. Not sure what's happening, but it's definitely not just your mom.
posted by elvissa at 6:37 AM on November 17, 2010


Has she attempted any contact with them after receiving that form letter?

My next stop on the shame train would be Consumerist. They love stories like this, and their soapbox is big.
posted by thejoshu at 6:37 AM on November 17, 2010


Best answer: This seems to be a bug in the fake account detection software that Facebook uses. Oddly, it has only seemed to have affected women.

They're apparently now contacted affected users by email and asking them to scan in a government ID that proves they are who they say they are.
posted by inturnaround at 6:39 AM on November 17, 2010


This old post might be of use to you.
posted by theichibun at 6:39 AM on November 17, 2010


My Facebook chat has been disabled for over a week for "improper use." I can accept that, if by improper use they mean never used, because I never use it.

So I think it is highly possible that Facebook is having technical difficulties. Maybe something related to to roll out of the FB messaging stuff fracked other parts of the system?
posted by COD at 6:46 AM on November 17, 2010


My account was also disabled yesterday for the same reason, and I received that same message this morning. However, my account was reactivated prior to the message being sent.

Has she tried logging in since receiving the message?
posted by statsgirl at 6:48 AM on November 17, 2010


Response by poster: Thanks for the info about the bug elvissa and inturnaround.

Asking to send a government ID? That's really creepy. Why should this become her problem?

Facebook really f'ed this one up.

(Incidentally, it's pretty fascinating this bug only affects female users.)
posted by laze at 6:58 AM on November 17, 2010 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: (Oh, and her account has still not been re-enabled at this point.)
posted by laze at 6:58 AM on November 17, 2010


My son (who I am pretty sure isn't female) recently had his account disabled. He hadn't logged in for a good month, and his password is pretty complex. We were just going to create him a new account, but after reading this, I'll give the contact thing a shot.
posted by routergirl at 7:05 AM on November 17, 2010


My dad's account was disabled too (I have the "Unfriend Finder" thing running, and it popped up.) He doesn't use it that frequently, so I assumed he just decided he didn't want to use it at all anymore, but this might not be the case.
posted by Lucinda at 7:14 AM on November 17, 2010


Allfacebook post on the issue.

Incidentally, it's pretty fascinating this bug only affects female users.)

Over the ~2.5 years I've had a FB account, I've received about a dozen obviously (to me) fake spammy friend requests, all from accounts claiming to be women. It's not that different from the fact that I get a good amount of "see hot women" email spam but no "see hot men" spam.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:59 AM on November 17, 2010 [1 favorite]


Looks like the major news orgs have picked up on it (here's CNN and MSNBC). Consensus seems to be a nasty error on Facebook's part and that the permanent disabling is...not so much.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:08 AM on November 17, 2010


Response by poster: It looks like she's back into her account now, without any lost contacts. Some settings settings seem to be borked, though, as I don't see her profile photo and can't click through to her profile. (Her privacy settings are set as they were before.)
posted by laze at 9:21 AM on November 17, 2010


DevilsAdvocate - I've noticed the same thing, but with male profiles. For some reason it's always men in the Arab world. For a long time I thought that maybe this is what dudes in the Emirates did for fun, especially since at one point one of my profile pictures showed me wearing hijab on the grounds of a mosque. But I gradually realized it had to be some kind of scam.
posted by Sara C. at 10:17 AM on November 17, 2010


For what it's worth, my father *did* disable his account, so don't take my accounting as a data point anymore.
posted by Lucinda at 5:22 PM on November 17, 2010


Response by poster: Just to close things out, my mom's account is now fully visible again.

Thanks for the fun, Facebook.
posted by laze at 7:44 AM on November 18, 2010


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