<story><title>What I Learned When Facebook Disabled My Account (2012)</title><url>http://www.optimizationtoday.com/social-media/what-i-learned-when-facebook-disabled-my-account/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Jaruzel</author><text>I know the article is old, but the author showed a severe lack of common sense.&lt;p&gt;Facebook is NOT a backup. If you only keep stuff in your Facebook account, then it is as &amp;#x27;at risk&amp;#x27; as if you only kept on the hard-drive of your ageing laptop that you bought on discount in Walmart&amp;#x2F;ASDA ten years ago.&lt;p&gt;This oft quoted adage also applies: &amp;#x27;If you are not paying for the product, then you are the product&amp;#x27;. The author seemed to think that Facebook owe him for some reason, and that he is fully justified&amp;#x2F;entitled in begging for his account back. Facebook is a private company who most of the time let the general public mingle in the lobby of its HQ[1]. As their lobby is still their property, they can refuse entry &lt;i&gt;whenever they like&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Something needs to be done about Facebook&amp;#x27;s near dominance of the Social Media space. If we let this run unchecked for much longer, there won&amp;#x27;t be an &amp;#x27;internet&amp;#x27; - just millions of stale, abandoned websites all simply redirecting you to their respective Facebook Pages instead. It also wouldn&amp;#x27;t surprise me if at some point, new phones will be released where the browser app is no longer installed by default, but the Facebook app is. Even if this happened today, most non-technical users wouldn&amp;#x27;t even notice.&lt;p&gt;---&lt;p&gt;[1] Because the lobby is full of adverts from Facebook&amp;#x27;s business partners and Facebook gets a nice cut if you buy something being advertised.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>flexie</author><text>Law is full of regulations and court precedents that restrict what people can do to their private property. Here on HN people seem to think that private property is like a subclass in python where the owner is free to define whatever method or property he wants and overwrite rules inherited from the society superclass. It&amp;#x27;s not.&lt;p&gt;Landlords cannot just evict renters based on the landlord&amp;#x27;s own terms of service, not even a renter&amp;#x27;s non-paying children or girlfriend with whom the landlord didn&amp;#x27;t contract, and not even the renter himself although the stopped paying: The landlord needs to follow the rules of society, go through a bailiff&amp;#x27;s court or follow similar strict procedures defined in society to ensure that mandatory law is followed.&lt;p&gt;Not everybody can set up a medical clinic on their private property, even if they offer their services for free.&lt;p&gt;TV stations in many European countries can&amp;#x27;t show hidden ads in programmes and cannot show ads for kids for certain products. Even though the viewers didn&amp;#x27;t pay. Even though they are free not to watch.&lt;p&gt;In most places landowners cannot freely decide to do what they want with their land, like building a factory, without taking into consideration zoning laws and without hearing the neighbors or wider community as well.&lt;p&gt;For millennia, what we today call criminal laws, have applied on private property as well. You can&amp;#x27;t just hit somebody in the face because they are in your house and the terms on the door clearly says that you can. Think that&amp;#x27;s ridiculous? Well, it used to be that restaurants in America could chose to serve whites only. It was the choice of the property owner. Until it wasn&amp;#x27;t. Courts and congress decided that such practices were so despicable that the general interest of non-discrimination outweighed the interest in business owners getting to decide for themselves. Same with businesses hiring men only. Today most of us regard it as obvious that non discrimination laws trump the interest of private owners. A few decades ago, most people thought the owner could choose freely whom to hire.&lt;p&gt;I hope we will start regulating the new advertising industry comprised of social networks and search engines more tightly.</text></comment>
<story><title>What I Learned When Facebook Disabled My Account (2012)</title><url>http://www.optimizationtoday.com/social-media/what-i-learned-when-facebook-disabled-my-account/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Jaruzel</author><text>I know the article is old, but the author showed a severe lack of common sense.&lt;p&gt;Facebook is NOT a backup. If you only keep stuff in your Facebook account, then it is as &amp;#x27;at risk&amp;#x27; as if you only kept on the hard-drive of your ageing laptop that you bought on discount in Walmart&amp;#x2F;ASDA ten years ago.&lt;p&gt;This oft quoted adage also applies: &amp;#x27;If you are not paying for the product, then you are the product&amp;#x27;. The author seemed to think that Facebook owe him for some reason, and that he is fully justified&amp;#x2F;entitled in begging for his account back. Facebook is a private company who most of the time let the general public mingle in the lobby of its HQ[1]. As their lobby is still their property, they can refuse entry &lt;i&gt;whenever they like&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Something needs to be done about Facebook&amp;#x27;s near dominance of the Social Media space. If we let this run unchecked for much longer, there won&amp;#x27;t be an &amp;#x27;internet&amp;#x27; - just millions of stale, abandoned websites all simply redirecting you to their respective Facebook Pages instead. It also wouldn&amp;#x27;t surprise me if at some point, new phones will be released where the browser app is no longer installed by default, but the Facebook app is. Even if this happened today, most non-technical users wouldn&amp;#x27;t even notice.&lt;p&gt;---&lt;p&gt;[1] Because the lobby is full of adverts from Facebook&amp;#x27;s business partners and Facebook gets a nice cut if you buy something being advertised.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gizmo686</author><text>There is another option. Consider sites like Facebook to be public accommodations, and create new laws regulating acceptable behavior of digital public accommodations.&lt;p&gt;Facebook is a significant part of our society. It is not clear why it should be free democratic oversight.</text></comment>