A few days ago, I wrote an article that was republished a number of times around the internet. In it I detailed a little bit of the angst being felt by people who had been banned or suspended while diddling around in the social network – Facebook.

To a lot of people this is really a non-issue, much to do about nothing. But to the 100 Million who inhabit the fastest growing social network and the several tens of millions who now spend more time inside facebook than around the rest of the internet, this is quite a serious topic.

If you are one of those several tens of millions of users who have *lost* a facebook friend or relative, you know what I mean. And if are one of those unfortunates who have been banned or have an ongoing suspension that appears to be lasting forever, then the topic is near and dear to your heart.

Oh I forgot, there is another class of people feeling angst too. These are the mom and pop type companies who have decided to use facebook for marketing and who got a little too aggressive with their marketing when they saw that things were looking up.

In that article, I wrote a little about the facebook warning messages which I and many others consider quite bland. I detailed in vivid language that I personally felt that for such an important thing, they facebook could have done a little better in terms of bringing the urgency of the situation to their members.

However, what I didn’t go into at that time was the myriad of ways one can get suspended and banned.

Here they are, and facebook says that not reading the TOA Terms of Agreement is not an excuse.
Blatant Nudity – for you exhibitionists this is a no no
Writing too much to people who are not your friends ( yet )
Writing too much to people have invited you to be their friend but whom you have not yet accepted.
Writing on too many walls in a short period of time – looks like spam
Creating a group inside Facebook with the Facebook name/word in it – its trademarked you know.
Creating a website outside of facebook with the facebook name in it
Hijacking the accounts of others – only a hacker would do this one

Using an image that you do not have the authority to use – tens of thousands do this.
Using the facebook email like its twitter. Its not, there is a chat facility for that
If you are a group admin, spamming your own group more than three times in a day.
If you have just been warned about something. Do it twice more within an hour or so.
Sending Add requests to more than 250 people you don’t know within a 24-48 hour span of time.

Generally, it would appear that there are two classes of evil that can get one banned or suspended from facebook. Nudity and stealing images and other such types of activity is one class of activity.

The other class of activity is time based. Sending 400 emails in a month is generally ok. Sending 400 emails all in one day is not. When you get a warning about a certain activity, lets say it was writing on walls, you are NOT told how long before you can continue that activity. I am not saying that facebook is right or wrong in not telling users, but this uncertainty makes it more difficult for spammers to figure out when they can continue spamming – so some would say its all good.

Read the Terms of Conditions and if you get suspended or banned there is an email where you can try to plead your case. I suspect they get thousands of pleading emails daily, so don’t expect a quick answer. One to three weeks may be the norm for a response.

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