Very recently I was blocked from sending messages on Facebook. I am an active participant in the social media craze and it has been a real treat catching up with long lost friends. After all, the purpose of social media and Facebook is to be SOCIAL. You can imagine my surprise when I was suddenly blocked from sending messages on this social media outlet.
As it turns out, I am not the only one who has been banned. For starters, I’m not sure why I was banned and it flies in the face of being social online. One would assume that reaching out to friends, family, and sending several messages in a day or within a 24 hour period would be the norm. Facebook does not see it that way. Apparently, if you send out too many messages in a short period of time the Facebook powers will block your ability to send out messages.
For a split second I felt pretty terrible, as if I was some type of SPAMMING monster hiding under the bridge waiting for the opportunity to hit all my friends with the latest AMWAY product. Better yet, sending out the newest multi-level marketing ploy which only the tops in the program make money and all others pay for conventions and books created by compete idiots.
After running a few searches for “banned from Facebook” and “blocked from Facebook” I found hundreds of threads and posts about the subject. As you may imagine, the vast majority of responders regarded the situation as downright mean, unwarranted, and counter productive. If you can’t be social and are limited to HOW SOCIAL YOU CAN be….what is the point?
I certainly understand the need to protect others from SPAM, stalkers, unwanted-long-lost-connections, and repetitive messages. I also understand that there may be only so many messages Facebook can send through their servers. However, the rules are very unclear as to how many messages and message types any person can send out. These are the possible reasons for becoming banned on Facebook, but I would submit another, yet more dubious reason: Facebook may be in the process of testing the waters for some type of social media model which you will have to pay for via subscription.
According to the Facebook Blog, they have 100 million users and growing. This could be a huge cash cow. How many users would drop out if they came out with a subscription based social media service? Is this not the very nexus of a oxymoron? Be social, but not too social. Be found but don’t reply too much or too often. Put your social life up for the world but be sure to reign it in. I wonder if Facebook punishes business or fan pages for posting messages…I think not.
Based on all of the posts I have read, I may be banned for 24 hours and on some type of watch list thereafter. Social media was created for individuals to be social and if you can’t be social in a legitimate way via online interaction, why be social online at all? It was not my intention to go on a rant, but share the experience on the Searchology blog as a message to all you social media users out there; if you are too social on the biggest social media network, Facebook, they’ve got your number.
