Scoble Kicked From Facebook
January 3rd, 2008 | by jessestay |If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Robert Scoble, it appears, has been hit by the same types of restrictions on Facebook as Harry Joiner and Jon Swift. In the book, we mention two examples of previous bloggers who had their accounts banned because of normal activity performed within Facebook. Jon Swift was removed because he was using a pseudonym. Harry Joiner was disabled due to his invitation of 4000+ personal gmail contacts to Facebook.
It appears Scoble has joined the ranks of Joiner and Swift as one of the famous to get banned from Facebook today. Per his blog, Scoble was using an unreleased version of Plaxo Pulse to import his 5,000 contacts from Facebook. The test backfired quickly when one of Facebook’s automated abuse scripts detected his import, seeing it as a possible breach in the Facebook Terms of Service, and immediately disabled Scoble’s account, sending him this message:
“Hello,
Our systems indicate that you’ve been highly active on Facebook lately and viewing pages at a quick enough rate that we suspect you may be running an automated script. This kind of Activity would be a violation of our Terms of Use and potentially of federal and state laws.
As a result, your account has been disabled. Please reply to this email with a description of your recent activity on Facebook. In addition, please confirm with us that in the future you will not scrape or otherwise attempt to obtain in any manner information from our website except as permitted by our Terms of Use, and that you will immediately delete and not use in any manner any such information you may have previously obtained.
We reserve the right to take any appropriate action in connection with any activities that violate our Terms of Use and/or applicable laws, including termination of your account and pursuit of legal remedies.
Please reply to this email.
Thank you,
Facebook Customer Support”
In the book we list several Facebook “No-No’s” that I think were Plaxo’s developers to read would have prevented this. The part of the Terms of Service Agreement that Scoble breached states that you (also listed in the book) “[can't] use automated scripts to collect information from or otherwise interact with the Service or the Site;” While I agree Facebook should be more careful who they disable with these scripts (see my blog today to see my opinions on that), Plaxo put Scoble in a vulnerable place today by causing him to violate Facebook’s Terms of Service with their new tool.
If any of Plaxo’s execs would like a copy of the book, please contact us!
UPDATE (1/3/2007 11:52 AM): Be sure to add yourself to the Facebook group!: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19628302696
Tags: facebook abuse, joiner, scoble, scoble account disabled, swift
2 Responses to “Scoble Kicked From Facebook”
By Kathleen Maher on Jan 3, 2008 | Reply
I don’t know Robert Scoble, but do know Modest Jon Swift, whom any group shouldn’t merely welcome in their inner sanctum, but should probably pay money for participating. He adds great wit and cache to Facebook and anywhere else he lights.
His post arguing that pseudonymous persons have rights, too, wasn’t only lol funny, but persuaded several other well regarded and significant but pseudonymous bloggers into joining Facebook whether you’re aware of it or not.
Parallel or even contrary to your decisions to banish hard-working innovators, I’ve heard it’s terribly difficult to expunge any personal information divulged according to your contentious “Terms of Service.”
I’m not the first or by any means the last to question Facebook’s M.O. and the privacy-robbing techniques used here that many are scarcely aware of.
The fact that Robert Shoble has 5,000 contacts here should give you pause about terminating his membership. He (or she–what right have you to decide?) is obviously loved and respected. And if you don’t reinstate him fast that’s capital you lose at a time when no matter how big you are by some measures, you nonetheless can afford to lose.