Ask HN: Randomly kicked off Facebook. Do they really review?

5 points

16 years ago

My girlfriend was recently kicked off of Facebook. The reason Facebook gave was that they had determined that her account was a fraudulent one, that is what she saw after logging in. She clicked on an appeal button and just wrote that she is who she says she is. A few days later, she received the following email.

> Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 00:10:35 -0800 > To: @hotmail.com > From: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Disabled Account Appeal-ID Request > > Hi, > > Fake accounts are a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Facebook requires users to provide their real first and last names. Impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited, as is maintaining multiple profiles on the site. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate this account for any reason. This decision is final. > > Thanks for your understanding, > > The Facebook Team

Of course my response, not being a Facebook user was congratulations its not that Facebook does not want you its that real life wants you back :-). She of course would rather stay a user since she is a second grade teacher at a progressive school and had most of her superiors, friends, family and students as friends on her account. (Just to vouch for her I know they all could verify that she used her actual name, she definitely did not have another account or was interested in having one.)

I guess the remedy is to just use another email address, although I don't know if her name has been targeted now. But it made me wonder with 500 million users and 2000 employees, I am sure an algorithm determines fraudulent accounts and would they really review this stuff manually? My guess would be not. Wondering if anyone knows?

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