How to have a facebook account
April 29, 2021 2:37 AM Subscribe
I opened a facebook account solely for the purpose of joining a local kayak club. I was insta-banned for breech of community standards. A new account with my other email address had the same effect. How can I have a facebook account?
I literally created the account, joined the kayak group and was straight away banned.
I went through the appeals process and it came back with a confirmation that I was banned and there was no further appeal.
I would like to know why, but mostly I would like to know how I can create a facebook account to talk to the kayak group.
I have more email addresses available, but if I'm just IP banned or something is that even gonna help?
I literally created the account, joined the kayak group and was straight away banned.
I went through the appeals process and it came back with a confirmation that I was banned and there was no further appeal.
I would like to know why, but mostly I would like to know how I can create a facebook account to talk to the kayak group.
I have more email addresses available, but if I'm just IP banned or something is that even gonna help?
I have a couple of Facebook groups, some fairly large (3000+ members). I get a few joining requests every day from what appear to be fake accounts (my groups were spammed a few times by those people). They are always created a couple of hours or days ago (Admins see this info when approving new members). As a result, I almost systematically reject very new accounts, especially when the is no profile picture, no friends or no info associated with the account. That's probably what happened to you. Best it to tell someone in the group to ask the admin to let you in. They can un-ban you, no need to create a new account.
posted by rom1 at 4:11 AM on April 29, 2021 [19 favorites]
posted by rom1 at 4:11 AM on April 29, 2021 [19 favorites]
A brand-new facebook account with no friends looks like a spammer -- I've been on a lot of Facebook groups where a seemingly-innocent-looking account suddenly starts posting dozens/hundreds of boner pill posts. The only way to really control this is to prevent them from being members of the group, and you unfortunately look like a fake spammer account. Then you kept making accounts, which only makes you look more like an insistent spammer.
Unless you interact with Facebook on a larger scale, you likely will need to get a hold of someone in the group who can vouch for you -- I believe an existing member can send an invite? -- so that you don't end up looking like a spammer again.
posted by AzraelBrown at 4:13 AM on April 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
Unless you interact with Facebook on a larger scale, you likely will need to get a hold of someone in the group who can vouch for you -- I believe an existing member can send an invite? -- so that you don't end up looking like a spammer again.
posted by AzraelBrown at 4:13 AM on April 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: To clarify, I was banned by facebook, not by the group.
The group let me join quite happily.
My entire facebook account was banned.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 4:35 AM on April 29, 2021
The group let me join quite happily.
My entire facebook account was banned.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 4:35 AM on April 29, 2021
I'm guessing that doing nothing on Facebook except immediately joining a group fits a behavior profile that gets you autobanned as a probable spammer
posted by Jacqueline at 4:50 AM on April 29, 2021 [21 favorites]
posted by Jacqueline at 4:50 AM on April 29, 2021 [21 favorites]
Anyone can report a Facebook account as fake. It’s up to Facebook to decide you’re not fake. Usually it takes more than a few days for them to decide. So if this just happened, give it a week and see if they open it up.
posted by amanda at 5:06 AM on April 29, 2021
posted by amanda at 5:06 AM on April 29, 2021
This happened to me about a month and a half ago. I also wanted an account just to join a few activity groups. I had previously had a Facebook account, but deleted it about two years ago.
The first time I was community-standard’ed, and then my appeal was denied. I tried to sign up with another email address, and then a different phone number, about three days and then one week later, respectively. No dice.
So I waited about three weeks and tried again. I used a new (to Facebook) phone number instead of an email address to sign up. And it worked! I still don’t know why! I think amanda is right; try to wait a few weeks, or even a month, and try again.
posted by LakeLimner at 5:25 AM on April 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
The first time I was community-standard’ed, and then my appeal was denied. I tried to sign up with another email address, and then a different phone number, about three days and then one week later, respectively. No dice.
So I waited about three weeks and tried again. I used a new (to Facebook) phone number instead of an email address to sign up. And it worked! I still don’t know why! I think amanda is right; try to wait a few weeks, or even a month, and try again.
posted by LakeLimner at 5:25 AM on April 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
Some people have had this happen when trying to make a required fb account in order to use the Oculus Quest. So if you want to throw money at the problem, you could buy a Quest 2 (choose a retailer with a good return policy); setup a fb account and if it gets banned, then you can go to Oculus Support, and they apparently are faster (though not fast) and actually can get the account bans rolled back these days. Return the Q2 a few weeks later if you don't like it, but have the FB account working.
Other than that, the things that are thought to lead to insta bans are
1) getting rejected with a friend request (I.E. let someone you know on FB know that you'll be requesting a friend account (I.E. if you've always said you'd never get a FB account, and then a friend of yours sees your name trying to friend them, they might assume it's false, and reject/flag it without pre-arranged conversation)).
2) Using a phone number or email address that aren't known by FB. Your great uncle (or someone) likely let FB have access to their contacts on their phone, so your personal cell, and email address are known (hopefully they used a name related to yours). That annoying co-worker probably also did, so that's another phone/email address. If you're signing up for new email addresses, and using that to sign up for FB, that looks suspicious.
3) using a VPN. If you normally use a VPN, disable it for joining FB.
So get in touch outside of FB with a 2-3 people that use FB; let them know your plans to friend them. Sign up with an email/phone that you use to correspond with people. Immediately friend these people. Wait a day or two, and then join the group you want.
posted by nobeagle at 6:02 AM on April 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
Other than that, the things that are thought to lead to insta bans are
1) getting rejected with a friend request (I.E. let someone you know on FB know that you'll be requesting a friend account (I.E. if you've always said you'd never get a FB account, and then a friend of yours sees your name trying to friend them, they might assume it's false, and reject/flag it without pre-arranged conversation)).
2) Using a phone number or email address that aren't known by FB. Your great uncle (or someone) likely let FB have access to their contacts on their phone, so your personal cell, and email address are known (hopefully they used a name related to yours). That annoying co-worker probably also did, so that's another phone/email address. If you're signing up for new email addresses, and using that to sign up for FB, that looks suspicious.
3) using a VPN. If you normally use a VPN, disable it for joining FB.
So get in touch outside of FB with a 2-3 people that use FB; let them know your plans to friend them. Sign up with an email/phone that you use to correspond with people. Immediately friend these people. Wait a day or two, and then join the group you want.
posted by nobeagle at 6:02 AM on April 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
When you go to make a new account, sign up from a different computer. I just had this happen and no matter how many email addresses I tried, as long as I was signing up from my work computer they went straight into the void. First time from my wife's computer....success!
Like you, I have zero idea how the FB gods got upset with my old account that was closed 5 years ago. But here we are.
posted by hwyengr at 6:48 AM on April 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
Like you, I have zero idea how the FB gods got upset with my old account that was closed 5 years ago. But here we are.
posted by hwyengr at 6:48 AM on April 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
This happened to me when I signed up for the same exact reasons (to join a single group which had migrated from their own site to be assimilated into the borg that is FB). In my case, I also explicitly tried to obsfucate myself by signing up with a throw away email account, not connecting a phone number (I think I was forced eventually into connecting my Google Voice number), using a VPN and by using a separate web browser (Firefox) with anti tracking plugins installed as well as the Facebook Container plugin.
Anyway, all that to say that I got flagged and was prompted to add a photo (to be scanned and indexed against their face recognition software or whatever) and then kept getting kicked out. I'm not sure how, but over time I stopped getting flagged, maybe because I slipped up in my anti tracking efforts and supplied them with enough information unknowingly or begrudgingly and eventually they had enough of a fingerprint on me for me to be worth allowing access to their walled garden.
All that to say, good luck and f*** facebook.
posted by flamk at 9:04 AM on April 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
Anyway, all that to say that I got flagged and was prompted to add a photo (to be scanned and indexed against their face recognition software or whatever) and then kept getting kicked out. I'm not sure how, but over time I stopped getting flagged, maybe because I slipped up in my anti tracking efforts and supplied them with enough information unknowingly or begrudgingly and eventually they had enough of a fingerprint on me for me to be worth allowing access to their walled garden.
All that to say, good luck and f*** facebook.
posted by flamk at 9:04 AM on April 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
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Is there any way of contacting someone in the group OFF Facebook and asking them to ask the leader, on your behalf, about why you were banned? I'd do one of those things before trying Facebook again.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:06 AM on April 29, 2021 [1 favorite]