Facebook or Facecrook? Holding Facebook accountable for so many things isn't easy. To Boycott or Not?

[A bit of this post has been changed/revised, on 27 April, 2010ECD, since being posted yesterday.]

 [image is from here, and can be found at site linked to by clicking on "HOW FACEBOOK STOLE MY FREEDOM", below]

This is a post about Facebook's silencing of acceptable speech, its unwillingness to do all it can to keep folks save from predators, and other problems with Facebook that, to date, they have not addressed or corrected.

I begin this post with a link to an account of Facebook's homophobia, written and reported by Darian Zam. (Darian, imo, could stand to learn how fucked up it is to use the term "r*tard". But it's not the use of THAT discriminatory and hurtful term that he got in trouble for. Oh, no.) You can click on the title just below read his story of being silenced by Facebook for really silly reasons. I wouldn't quite say Facebook stole his freedom, but you can read for yourself:

HOW FACECROOK STOLE MY FREEDOM

[Here's just the beginning of his story:]

So, people want to know, why did I get my account deleted from Assbook TM?

Isn't it obvious? I say what I am thinking, (but not usually before thinking about it). I'm very rude and it annoys the hell out of everyone!

Seriously, I made a sarcastic remark about the "sanctity" of traditional marriage having little merit as my status:

May 24 Darian Zam is dubious about straight marriage given the track record, but thinks they should still be allowed to.

I left it there for three or so days for a change, just simply because I have been WAY too busy with work to have time for recreational activities.

I had my account disabled [by Facebook]

*           *           * 

This is something to ponder: 410 MILLION people are members of one online social networking service: Facebook. Of them, 175 MILLION log on daily. WOW! That does present many options for many things to occur. Given that most people on Facebook are social dominants, by class, race, and/or gender, I have not been surprised to learn how many antifeminist groups have existed there. But some feminist groups are there as well. Does Facebook serve or do a disservice to radical activists? Who does it report and how? What is its stance with making safety issues for underage people and anyone else who may be victimised by a cyber-predator, who is also a sexual predator offline? More on that issue is linked to below.

But in all honesty, this may be the most self-serving post ever on my blog!!!

I have had a Facebook page for about three years. I've deactivated it when I wasn't visiting or using it much, but in the last weeks I've been more active on it, posting critiques of white het men, networking with radical feminists, and putting up links to some of this blog's posts. All of this is within the stated acceptable uses of Facebook.

I also have publicly warned feminists about an antifeminist man posing as a feminist woman, in order to gain access to personal information about feminists with Facebook pages. Again, this is acceptable to Facebook, according to their rules and regs. I have also witnessed people going on Facebook pretending to be a DECEASED radical feminist. This is against their policy. That page is still up.

But suddenly (a couple of days ago and currently, with no word or warning from them) I can't log on to Facebook, and a message page comes up when I try to telling me "your account has been deactivated". I have written to a couple of the most relevant departments about this, and have heard nothing back from them. I still have no reason, no explanation, for why my page was shut down. People, this is not the worst thing in the world. I promise, I'll get through this. Life does, as they say, go on.

But Facebook has been critiqued lately for not employing a "panic button" system to help protect victims of sexual predation. This button system is in place in many other online social networking sites. Why not on Facebook?

Also, as noted above and below, Facebook routinely and with no accountability or sense of  responsibility to its members, de-activates accounts without telling people what they did that warranted that action. Why? 

For those reasons and others, I'm posting what follows. I think there's about 8000 more important things that dealing with this, to be clear. The issue of providing a clear and easy way to sound an alarm about predators on Facebook seems like the most important issue that's come up to date, aside from the fact that sex offenders are all over the place, and rampant antifeminism, and gross features and fun personality test questionnaires that appear on Facebook, such as "Which Serial Killer are You?". And the practice of "buying and selling" people, just as a joke--[I'm not laughing]--on Facebook.

For more on the panic button/predation issue, see *here*. I'd like to see Facebook be more accountable and responsible about these issues and others. I'm not sure the Facebook addicts can get on board with a boycott. We'll see. It is worth knowing how much people are growing dependent on one website for social networking and connecting with family and friends, colleagues and activists.

Here's one person's (screenname: "mrblonde") call for a boycott, with comments to him below, about experiences they have had. Some of their concerns dovetail with mine, some do not. But here's the information, all of which is from boycottowl.com, *here*. Whoooo knew there was a boycott owl??? ;) That attempt at humor was for Ellen Degeneres. She'll get it.

Boycott of Facebook

Facebook boycott details

Boycott Originator

mrblonde | Email this user

Boycott Title

Facebook Deactivating Accounts Without Notice

Boycott Description

There are posts all over the Internet about Facebook banning people and their accounts with absolutely no notice and no way to contact them to learn why. This is totally unacceptable. I know they are a free service but so many people depend upon their Facebook pages for both personal and professional reasons that they should offer some type of customer service. Facebook must have so many users that they don't to care about upsetting so many people so let's see if we can join together to make our numbers even bigger!

Boycott Demands

My demands are simple and are shared by hundreds (if not thousands) of other people whose comments I have read all over the Internet:

• Implement a system to notify us when Facebook deactivates accounts
• Provide a clear reason why the account has been disabled
• Tell us specifically what we need to do in order to reactivate our account

65 people have joined this boycott

Boycotts of this company Total views of this boycott
Company responses

4 2,133
0

Boycott Comments

Click here to add a comment for this boycott.

Facebook Deactivated with NO warning - 4/12/10 12:00 AM

Anonymous

Facebook Deactivated with NO warning I was on my account on Saturday morning, updated my status, went back 2 hours later and my account had been deactivated!  There was NO warning! I then emailed them asking why they had done it. I have ALL my family photos on there, some on there that I lost when my previous laptop crashed so those are all I have. I have all my overseas friends from school on there!  I have had no warnings, they just deactivated the account! And no one bothers to get back to me!!!! I have just under 2000 contacts! I do charity work through Facebook as well as run my ladies events as well. This is not right!

Regaining HACKED Facebook Account - 3/10/10 9:54 PM

Anonymous

Regaining HACKED Facebook Account My account was recently Hacked. Someone requested a EMAIL CHANGE on my account and Facebook allowed this to happen. Now my account is in total suspension. Seems they want to place the responsibility on me for Malicious Software on my workstation. They even went as far as to suggest my EMAIL ACCOUNT was compromised. NOT! I reported this incident withing 45 minutes after my wife sent me an email stating that someone was on chat asking for money to get me back from LONDON! I was asked by Facebook to send an email with a scanned ID ( in this case a drivers license ) and answer a few questions regarding my DOB and residence. DONE. A week later and I am nowhere with Facebook after COUNTLESS EMAIL and sending all correspondence that has taken place with each of my attempts for some answers..but all I get is a reference BACK to the link from which I submitted the initial HACK. Geese...somebody must have removed all pages except 1-4 of their TECHNICAL SERVICES MANUAL used by the Facebook Team ( of losers ).

Customer Service? What a JOKE! - 3/9/10 12:14 PM

Anonymous

Customer Service? What a JOKE! 2 weeks ago Facebook disabled my account with NO warning. I went thru every step possible in the "help" section. I have never received an email concerning the issue. I had an old account that was unused for 2 years I had cancelled. I was able to go back to the old account which was STILL active and start using it again but I have lost everything on my main account and Facebook could obviously care less.

facebook is crap! - 2/28/10 11:05 AM

Anonymous

facebook is crap! Hello all,
My facebook account was hacked into this past week and the hacker not only changed my password, so that I no longer was able to acces my account, but they were also using my account to contact all of my friends/family and requesting money to help get "me" out of a foreign country. I went to the help and support page, which was a waste of my time. You can't even ask for help without either paying for it, or fitting into a pre-selected very very vague catagory. I didn't even get an e-mail response sending me the link to reset my password when I clicked on the forgot password link. Due to the overwhelming amount of complaints that have NOT heard a response, I was afraid to validate payment wondering if they would collect the money and still not respond. Now my account has totally vanished into thin cyber space, and there is nothing I can do about it.

AGREE WITH "WHAT A MESS" - 2/5/10 11:25 AM

Anonymous

AGREE WITH "WHAT A MESS" I HAD A BOUT 30 ALBUMS! AND NOW THEYRE ALL GONE! DO NOT TRUST THIS SITE FOR MAINTAINING YOUR MEMORIES!!! BACK UP ALL YOU INFO ONTO AN EXTERNAL HARDDRIVE! GOOD LUCK!

facebook account Disabled - 12/22/09 1:50 PM

Anonymous

facebook account Disabled my facebook account has been disabled. I can not get any help at all!! I have put alot of time and effort into my account, having played mafia wars for along time now, and all my 2000 friends are gone. I got no warning or reason to why my account was shut down. I would like my account back before I lose my mafia wars game altogether, and if I have to start again I will NOT. use FB, thats for sure.

Ticked at FACECROOK - 12/9/09 7:12 PM

Anonymous

Ticked at FACECROOK I say somebody who has time to set-up a youtube video about facebook not getting back to us all would send a message to users of F.B. and to the MORONS that aren't helping us. The dude is a billionare and can't even set up HELP for us users that MADE him rich!!! Bull frogs!! I am a victim of this as well and I am NOT happy but I don't have the time to youtube, plus I am not that talented. Or, you can email fox cable news to expose those incompetent no good caring jerks!!!! I just want to get in my account delete everything and then tell them to go fly a kite somewhere crappy. Hopefully someone reading this who is creative and talented could come up with a youtube video that will spark interest in this matter and get a fire under their tushes to get this resolved last year!! Thanks! p.s. they are holding "our" information hostage.......