Is It Fair for Facebook to Permanently Disable Accounts?

I receive numerous emails every day from users looking to have their accounts re-enabled. After informing that I can't do anything about it and forward them Facebook's email address, users typically have their account turned back on. On a few rare occasions, users are permanently banned for violating spam policies or any other number of terms. It's unfortunate because many users have become substantially dependent on the "social utility". Yesterday I received one such email from an individual pleading for help since they were informed by Facebook that they won't be able to get their account back. Most of the time users don't specify what their violations were, simply that they are looking for a way to get the account turned back on. This user also failed to explain what was wrong but I assume that Facebook had their reason for shutting off the account. If Facebook is truly a social utility though, should they be shutting down accounts so frequently? When was the last time that you had an email address disabled? Anybody that decides to send out spam from their server typically has little issues because the hosts don't care how you are using your servers for the most part as long as you aren't affecting other customers. The bottom line is that when you get an email, sign up for hosting, or get any other type of service you can use it how you'd like and rarely are accounts shut down except for those that have blatantly disrupted the service. Facebook has a relatively low threshold for disabling user accounts both temporarily and permanently. For instance if you start adding a ton of friends when you register for the site you'll immediately get a warning that you are adding too many friends and that your account could be disabled. Often times users don't pay attention to the warnings and their accounts are soon unusable. Most of the time they have nobody to blame but themselves. If Facebook is really supposed to be a communications utility, should they be disabling accounts so frequently? I remember AOL had similar policies back in the 90s, regularly disabling accounts that had violated the terms of use. It's not often that you hear about email accounts, phone lines, or other communication utilities being disabled though. So what makes it right for Facebook to do so then? Do you think Facebook's restrictive policies help protect the site and reduce spam, or are do they hurt the site's ability to grow faster? Have you ever had your account disabled?

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Is It Fair for Facebook to Permanently Disable Accounts?

Nick O'Neill

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Nick O'Neill