This is what happening with the people who are using facebook all around the world: facebook disables the accounts of users who’s submissions are suspicious. Usually as it sounds, suspicious, often means just using the facebook too much. Usually they are warning people and gives them the second chance to change themselves and sometimes they just terminate the account suddenly and permanently. Most of time they turn back the disabled accounts, automatically after a cool down or after sending them the humble request to the facebook authorities. But sometimes they just ban the account and forget it.
Facebook has not sharply outlined about what bad behavior looks like that leads for getting account disabled, and this is the most important reason which makes people confused, angry or desperate when they gets the message ACCOUNT DISABLED. I have tried to list the most common reasons on “why the facebook accounts are disabled?” to help people avoiding their accounts to be disabled by facebook. Remember, this list is not surely complete and as the policies will be keeping changing according to the time, we will have to live with a bit uncertainty when using Facebook.
Here are the reasons that will get you kicked off facebook:
• You didn’t use your real name
Don’t try to use a nickname (or initials)in lieu of the name on your birth certificate, because Facebook will find you and spit you out.
• You joined too many groups
Remember that the maximum limit is 200 groups per user. More than that just looks desperate, don’t you think?
• You posted too many messages on a wall or in a group
Even one of my close friend had his account disabled–in his case for “excessive evangelism.”
• You posted in too many groups, too many user’s walls
You may be axed for being too verbose in too many places. That’s what spammers do, silly. On Facebook it is better–or at least safer–to be seen than heard.
• You friended too many people
Not so long ago this was a prime cause of disabled accounts, but Facebook has instituted a maximum of 5000 friends that should protect you from yourself.
• Your school/organization affiliation is doubtful
The overlords are sometimes not very trusting, and they may accuse you of not graduating from Harvard (or Plum Senior High School). The impertinence! Better have your diploma ready.
• You’re poking too many people
We’ve heard this from multiple sources, and it’s easy enough to avoid. Save the pokes for people you *really* like, as mum always said. But beware the odd FB app that pokes on your behalf.
• For advertising your app on wall posts
The line between spam and self-promotion is a thin one, but let it be known that pimping your shiny new Facebook app is definitely considered SPAM.
• Using duplicate text in multiple messages
Some people paste a generic welcome message into friend requests to save time. DON’T DO THIS! It makes you look like a spammer. (Ironically, pro spammers are probably randomizing their messages to avoid this trap)
• You are a cow, dog, or library
Being a real person is not enough, you must be a homo sapien. Accounts have been deleted for cows, dogs and libraries.
• You are under eighteen years old
According to one report a user’s account was suspended when they suspected her of being under 18. She was required to enter a work email address to prove her maturity, at which point her account was reinstated. [note: other users have pointed out that being under 18 is fine if you're part of a High School group, though underage home schoolers have been told to bugger off]
• You wrote offensive content
Reports of “sudden death” on accounts have been reported by users who were told they had posted offensive content, but were not provided details of the offense.
• You scraped information off Facebook
They have a zero tolerance policy for page scraping (i.e. pulling content off their web pages via a script). Unfortunately, they don’t have a reliable way of proving it’s you who’s doing the scraping (IP matching is probably as good as they can get), so you may find this a difficult charge to defend yourself against.
Finally, you may be disabled for no clear reason at all. One Australian member reported this staggering experience:
“I was blocked for a little while because I was ‘misusing certain features of the site’ Naturally I closely examined their conditions of use etc for some insight as to what I must have done wrong. I couldn’t for the life of me find anything…
“Upon request for clarification I was told that they were not at liberty to divulge which features or of course any thresholds of use. Then they warned me not to do it again or I would be banned permanently without recourse to reinstatement.”
You have been warned. Remember that the hand of justice is swift and merciless.
I’m living in fear 
If you find your account disabled for one of these (or other) reasons there is only one resource: you must email Facebook at one or all of these addresses:
- disabled@facebook.com
- appeals@facebook.com
- info@facebook.com
Related Post: Why my Orkut account is Disabled?
Related posts:
Friday, 3. April 2009
I enjoyed reading your work! GREAT post! I looked around for this… but I found you!
Anyway, would you mind if I threw up a backlink from my site to your site?
Sunday, 5. April 2009
Great article! There’s definitely a need for more transparency about what constitutes bad behavior on Facebook.
Tuesday, 7. April 2009
Great post and very good information. Thank you!
Saturday, 11. April 2009
found your site on digg and must say that i am pretty surprised. your site has a lot of potential keep it up. my domain is in my email let me know what you think.
Wednesday, 15. April 2009
Nice Nice Nice! I like the drill and the adrenalin from rollercoasters. Please feel to visit my rollercoastersite too. I am also looking for linkexchange partner…
Thursday, 16. April 2009
I thought this was so funny…but a little too true! Very enjoyable post ?
Saturday, 18. April 2009
Thanks for this analysis.
Tuesday, 21. April 2009
Great summary!
I was once, too, temporarily suspended for unknown reasons, and for an unspecified period of time. But I was definitely told not to do “it” again, or else! lol
I couldn’t find in the terms of service what I had violated, and to this day have no idea what happened.
Thanks for sharing these tips. They are more specific and give an idea of what to watch out for.
All the best,
Jason
Thursday, 23. April 2009
I found out today, that I have had my account disabled. The only thing more ridiculous than it being disabled is the reason why. I posted on my friends wall. No innapropriate messages or content mind you, just a talk with a friend. NOTHING in their TOS says I can’t talk to my friends, NOTHING in their TOS says I can’t post on my friends walls. I have yet to receive anything close to an intelligent reason as to why I can’t post on my friends walls. All I get is, “you post too fast.” Well, what are the limits or rates at which we are allowed to post I ask, “Well, we can’t tell you that, but you exceeded it.” What kind of policy is this exactly? They can’t expect people to abide by the usage rules, when they refuse to make those rules available.
Thursday, 23. April 2009
The ball is in their court, it’s up to them where I go from here. If they do what’s right, I’ll chalk it up to an administrative error, and move on. If they decide that crapping on me for using that site is the route they should take, than they should be aware that I will be spending the time I used to spend on their site, spreading the word about how they treat their loyal users.
Saturday, 25. April 2009
• You posted too many messages on a wall or in a group
Even one of my close friend had his account disabled–in his case for “excessive evangelism.”
i did that,will i get my facebook account back??
please answer
Saturday, 2. May 2009
WOW The poor Aussie bloke got a good copping.. I mean how is he suppose to know what it is to “not to do again” if he doesnt know what his suppose to have done? crazy.. FB are becoming too totilliarian I reckon… I just have my twitter feed and stuff i bookmark going thru there.. thats about my usage of it great post and thx for the warnings
Sunday, 3. May 2009
I was disabled (for a second time from the same account) on the 11th of last month. Both times I have been accused of having a fake name. The 1st time (11/20/06) the issue was resolved within a few days. This time, I’ve only been contacted once in regards to suspicion of my name and told I can have my account reactivated if I provide proof of said name. Not only have I done this, provided the transcript from the last incident, but I’ve also contacted all the appeal e-mail. It’s been 2 weeks since I was notified and yet Facebook refuses to contact me or clear up this issue. I would like my account back, but at this rate, I guess I’m outta luck….
Tuesday, 5. May 2009
Greedings to all FaceBook users my FaceBook account was “DISABLE” 05-03-09 for to many friends request. but when you read the terms of Agreedment it dose not say how many friend request you can add like for example you can only add 50/100/75 something like that but when you read the Agreedment it dose not say anything about that. but at the end of the day i realy like FaceBook thank you.HARVEY
Sunday, 14. June 2009
Great post
Tuesday, 23. June 2009
Your post makes me doubly glad that I abandoned Facebook a few months ago for making changes to their TOS without telling anyone and without consultation. I was already finding the whole Facebook thing annoying and irritating and that was just the last straw for me so I’m not surprised to hear they are still behaving in a tyrannical and heavy-handed manner and people are beginning to think again about being members.
Monday, 13. July 2009
Thank you for alerting me to this
Tuesday, 14. July 2009
A little bit hard to say that it’s possible. You can write them a eMail stating that it happened by mistake or you were not having much info on this. Nothing works but not a bad idea to give a try. Try it one, hope that works for you.
Saturday, 18. July 2009
nice post dude..
I just got a lot of notifications about a lot adds of people, but it’s not my problem if I have a lot of friends and i know a lot of them isn’t it??
Facebook is getting bored and limited each day, they limit each one of us out there and that what makes many people icluding me hates facebook policy and use terms. They should give us more and more of freedom and they MUST know that they’re make a lot of haters to facebook and this not good at all.
Monday, 10. August 2009
Hi, I cant log in to my facebook account, it appear error msg :
Account Disabled
Your account has been disabled. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here.
I am really dont know what is going on, please kindly help me to solve my problem.
Monday, 10. August 2009
Of course many of the things on the list are included in your RIGHTS to use facebook as defined in their documents Rights and Responsibilities and Governance Principles.
Facebook appears to me to be ignoring their responsibilities in the Terms of Use (Rights and Responsibilities). According to these terms, your account can only be disabled for violation of terms in that agreement and that the agreement is the entirty of the agreement between the parties. It also establishes that you cannot be penalized for using the services a lot. Guess what, many of the items on your list are not mentioned in the Rights and Responsibilities and therefore you cannot, in theory, be disabled for them.
To make matters worse, Facebook has as one of its foundational principles the idea of Transparency in its processes. I think that we can all agree that they have failed in the extreme on this principle.
People seem to be accepting that their actions are in violation of the Facebook principles when they do not appear to be. I would think that this would be an issue that FaceBook would be sensitive to considering their reason Terms fight. Apparently, they have not learned their lesson.
Monday, 10. August 2009
Hello, As suggested you can visit their FAQ page or mail them regarding the issue or asking them the reason but in good manner. Be calm and ask for the reason in good words. As they answer the queries manually.
Regards,
Leif
Saturday, 15. August 2009
Some of these are pretty ridiculous. Yet as some friends and I have noticed, Facebook seems not to care too much about violent photos, although they might ban you for posting photos that seem erotic even if they aren’t explicit. Search for and Friend Jewel Shepard if you want to see this policy in action. Jewel’s account has been suspended several times for posting things such as old magazine covers where she was clothed but the subject matter was suggestive. Yet they have no problems with the real, explicit photos from wars that she’s posted to prove her point. Go figure!
Saturday, 22. August 2009
hi i am so upset my facebook account has been disabled i have so many friends that forget it plz enabled my account as soon as possible thanx
Saturday, 22. August 2009
Hello Faraz,
Don’t get upset, it will just bring frustration so just email facebook at disabled@facebook.com from your eMail address that you used while registering the account at facebook. They will surely reply you.
Best Regards,
Leif
Tuesday, 29. September 2009
Thank you for your erudition.. Are same rules applicable if my orkut account is disabled?
Wednesday, 30. September 2009
Oh I knew more about this. my account was disabled on 28 Sep suddenly, I was so upset about this, I hope the facebook can reactive my account very soon.
Thursday, 1. October 2009
i used your article as an example to my own “disabled” story on currenttv.com
your article is the best example of explanations of why this happens to normal FB users
thnx
Tuesday, 6. October 2009
Hey, my a/c has been disabled.. no warning nothing. i sent an e mail 2 FB on
info/appeals/disables@facebook.com
it has been 3 days, did not receive a response. im worried. i used 2 play mafia wars with my i’d. thts the only reason i created an a/c on facebook.
hope my a/c gets reactivated. been checking my inbox more than i used 2 log in 2 my FB a/c, in a hope that i receive a positive reply from the facebook team.
Tuesday, 6. October 2009
i mean disabled@facebook nor disables. its a mistake*
Saturday, 10. October 2009
Well I got disabled on 10/8/2009 – I was also updating my friends regarding my mom’s condition as she was at the hospital waiting to be admitted. It took her 1.5 days before she finally left the ER and got a bed in the hospital. She is currently in CCU. My acct is not visible at all by my friends – I can’t update them on how my mom’s doing and I can’t thank all the people who replied sending their prayers. I got the automated response from my email to disabled@facebook.com and it’s been a wait and see ever since.
I too have too many friends especially since I play a few big games. MHA, SL, RL, MH, FW, …. etc you get the idea… I was up to 2999 friends too.
What a pain.
May have to move on to a different service and trash Facebook but I can’t get all my new friend’s contact info off to find them again because that’s the only place I have that info…
Tuesday, 13. October 2009
Hi My facebook was back after around 10 days, tks for your info.
cheers
Wednesday, 14. October 2009
I was without warning (and without explanation) disabled. I have made repeated attempts to understand why, but I can not get a response from facebook.
Friday, 16. October 2009
Facebook needs to disappear. They are a fascist corporation with way too much power and they abuse it routinely. The media needs to expose them for their outragious behaviour towards its members and hypocritical and vague terms of service agreement. Such BS that they can’t define their own rules. That is so they can make up whatever rule they want on any given day.
Saturday, 17. October 2009
I was also without warning (and without explanation) disabled past 7th October 2009. I have made repeated attempts to understand why, but I can not get a response from facebook. I feel very disappointed.
Wednesday, 21. October 2009
My Facebook account was disabled today. Admittedly I sent out a lot of friend requests yesterday (probably 50-100). I was reponding to ADD ME requests in sites for various groups related to a game I like to play on Facebook – Mafia Wars. Not sure how this violates Facebook’s Policies – I can’t see that Facebook policy defines a maximum number of friend invites.
The people I tried to friend all had one interest in common with me “Mafia Wars”. Plus, they had posted to a group requesting friend invites from fellow gamers. Seems that using a networking tool to network has resulted in my account been disabled?
I have sent a dispute to the Facebook team and am waiting a response. Does anyone know if I can expect to get my account back?
My primary interest in Facebook is to stay connected to family and friends. I guess it is wrong to try and accumulate a bigger Mafia Family then my husband’s. I’d be laughing about all this if I wasn’t so frustrated at losing contact with all my true family and friends, that is, all those that don’t play Mafia Wars (damn game!!).
Sunday, 25. October 2009
hi i am so upset my facebook account has been disabled i have so many friends that forget it plz enabled my account as soon as possible thanx
Monday, 2. November 2009
Yeah , BS. Can’t believe you can not send messages nor write on your own wall.
So then, why asked if you want to publish ? Too many people with same issue/that is a problem.