I had a rude awakening last Thursday. I am active on Facebook and have a group there, or did. I was posting my feature in www.mydesignsecrets.com, sharing my good news and suggesting to fellow design professionals and architects that they look at what Lorrie Brown has created and see if they can be a featured professional as well. Evidently in sharing that news with 5 groups in 20 minutes Facebook decided I was spamming and shut me down. That is to say that they have removed my profile, all of my posts, my group and anything else I had up there. That represents, over 3 months of time, effort, energy, dollars invested in training, 1500 friends, and 200 in my group.
I, of course, immediately wrote to support, six times. I had friends and colleagues send their pleas to reinstate me as well. To no avail, there has been no human response in 5 days. I have only ever endeavored to share best business practices, support the design and small business professional community, and make a positive difference. I have never spammed though I am spammed regularly by others on Facebook. I find it astounding, profoundly disappointing, and genuinely frightening that those with an altruistic purpose and action are being closed out when they share too much good information and happy news, while those that do nothing but dump junk on their audience remain active.
Yes, I will be writing more on this, though I won’t bother you all with it. It scares me because it makes Facebook akin to Big Brother hiding behind the Iron Curtain and shutting people down randomly for acts of kindness while those that are acting only in their own selfish interests are allowed to spread their junk. It is alarming to consider that a placed like Facebook that is supposed to foster interaction, build relationships, and enable easy networking actually stifles it by its computerized controls and lack of FACE or true VOICE.
Will I go back, likely, just because I feel responsible to those in my group and the friends I have. I will copy everything in quintuplicate and I will also rapidly explore the many other networks available. Facebook may be big, but there is plenty of competition and I am one of many they have blocked and never replied to. We are a growing group that is far from being nameless or faceless.
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