

Ask HN: FB banned our page without any reason - CWIZO

I'm writing this in despair (as it usually happens when you are dealing with FB).
We just found out that Facebook banned our webpage, so users can't post or like links from our webpage. Facebook login also stopped working. We haven't received any message from FB explaining the situation.<p>All existing content that pointed to our webpage was removed (from our fanpage http://www.facebook.com/mojvideo and from user's profiles).<p>So ... does anyone here know what to do now? How to get our domain un-banned? I've already written to developers-help (a t) facebook.com so far I only received some useless automated response. I've also sent this report: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=block_appeal I've sent this reports a couple of hours ago.<p>But I'm suspecting that this will take forever to resolve (if it will get resolved). Anyone from FB here that can help? At the very least we would like to know why we ware banned.<p>Anyone from FB here that could help or shed some light on this?
======
DiabloD3
Businesses and websites really need to quit putting their faith in FB. When
their accounts get closed like Mojvideo's, it affects their brand viability in
a negative way.

Getting banned by FB is the new getting banned by PayPal.

~~~
CWIZO
I agree. Most of our traffic comes from search engines and loyal users. But
off course we used FB to promote our page too, we would be stupid not to.

------
nedwin
You need to get in touch with an account manager. They're actually really easy
to deal with if you know the right combination of words, as with most things.

We managed to get a clients FB page vanity URL switched from an old page to a
new page within about half an hour of sending an email - something we thought
was a long shot.

Hit me up if you need a hand, my email is in my profile.

~~~
CWIZO
I've sent you a email, cheers!

~~~
nedwin
and replied. Good luck Jan!

~~~
vipivip
I'll send you an email, I paid for an ad on Facebook then my account was
blocked for making fraudulent activity, not sure what I did wrong because I
used my Paypal account to pay for the ad.

------
CWIZO
Ha, FB un-banned us. No response from them, the bann was just magically
lifted.

If somebody here had something to do with it then I really can't express my
gratitude!! I just hope this does not happen again.

------
briandear
Good luck. You might as well try negotiating an unblock with China.

~~~
CWIZO
That's what we are afraid off. Something is very rotten at FB :\

~~~
briandear
I don't know if it's possible, but perhaps you could do an IP switch.. maybe
you can trick FB into allowing your site.

~~~
CWIZO
Since we have some other pages on the same IP but on different domains, and
those other pages ware not banned, I don't think this will solve our problem
:\

But even if it did FB could just bann us again, I'm trying to find out why we
ware banned so we can fix any possible problems.

------
codeup
FB's practices are well known and should've served as a warning. You shouldn't
rely on this being resolved _now_. I ain't saying it won't be resolved in a
good way, but just don't rely on it.

Even if your page is restored, think about alternative marketing channels.
Don't make yourself depend on the services of one attractive but unereckonable
company.

~~~
CWIZO
Luckily FB is not our primary source of traffic, but we'll still take a hit if
this doesn't get resolved. Unfortunately this is the state of the web right
now.

------
jlind
Similar story from Ars Technica when their page was recently banned, with some
similar steps you might be able to take:

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/facebook-
tak...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/facebook-takedown-
followup-what-happened-and-what-facebook-needs-to-fix.ars)

------
adaml_623
Do you have any guesses why you were banned?

Maybe Facebook has the impression that all the Pokemon videos available on
your site are copyright violations or something? I'm not sure whether that
kind of stuff is illegal to host where you are but it's the kind of thing that
companies seem to care about these days.

~~~
CWIZO
If I had to guess I would wager that this is a result of someone sharing a
video that had some naked ladies in it, and some other users then flagged that
as spam/abuse. So it was completely automated probably.

------
jschuur
How long has it been since your appeal?

~~~
CWIZO
Couple of hours. I know, I know. But we all know how things are with this
things. My boss recently got his account locked, and then he got un-locked 14
days later without any explanation
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2493877>). So I'm just trying to speed
things up.

~~~
jschuur
Well, it is (was) the weekend after all.

Nothing wrong about soliciting for feedback on HN, but some context like
thisnis useful.

------
beatpanda
<http://xkcd.com/743/>

~~~
endgame
As much as I hate random xkcd links turning up in discussions, he has a point.
Stop building your infrastructure on other people's proprietary platforms
(that are known to be notoriously fickle) and acting surprised when you get
burned.

~~~
CWIZO
We only have "like" buttons on our content, and on Friday we implemented FB
login. We can survive without this (we ware around long before FB became
relevant in our region), but would rather not be locked out of FB.

And yes I get it, FB is _insert whatever here_, but the sad truth is that they
are a big player on the market and ignoring them is, simply put, stupid.

And the point is that we are a paying customer of FB and this behavior is
unacceptable. Pointing the way FB operates is one of the points of my original
post. They need to change, and if no one is pointing fingers that won't
happen.

------
joshmlewis
Facebook likewise took my page down. It was going viral. I "appealed" it but
never heard anything. I wish I could get it back.

------
kmfrk
Try asking on Quora. It's a longshot, but there are a couple of people on
Facebook who check it regularly.

------
jrockway
Do you expect a response at 3AM on Monday morning in Facebook's main time
zone?

~~~
CWIZO
No, off course not. But we all know how FB is with responding. It's usually
nothing or they get back to you after a year or so. I'm just trying to speed
things up.

------
gojomo
Keep in mind the coverage a few weeks ago that indicated there are some
automated/judgement-less processes at Facebook, based on number of
complaints/flags, that can take Pages down. See for example:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2494231>

So don't assume Facebook has already judged you; as soon as someone there
looks at it, it may get fixed. (Sucks in the meantime, but like Google and
Craigslist, outsourcing lots of the moderation to the semi-anonymous masses
can generate collateral damage even if it usually is a win.)

------
leon_
This may sound a little harsh but:

That's the risk with putting all your eggs into someone else's basket.
Especially if that someone is a faceless corporation with famous bureaucracy.

FB closed my account earlier this year too, because I have an uncommon/strange
middle name. It led to 7 iOS apps not having any FB support for several days.
No, the FB acc wasn't reopened - I just uploaded new versions to the app store
with FB support removed. But I was sort of prepared for that and never gave
the FB integration a prominent place in my apps - so users weren't that upset
when it went away. (I got burnt the first time around 2002 when Google decided
to close my Adsense account because our color scheme was "mis leading" users.
Adsense was at that time my only (but good paying) income and suddenly losing
all of your income was a hard lesson to learn.)

I don't know your site/app but maybe you should (after you get the stuff
sorted out) over think your investment in FB for your future projects. (I'm
sure you aren't desperate for no reason.)

Btw. FB answered my request 3 weeks later with a form letter asking me for a
copy of my ID. I didn't react to that but I have the feeling that it would
have taken another weeks and form letters to sort the situation out.

~~~
CWIZO
I agree with you completely. And like I've said a couple of times in this
thread, we didn't put all our eggs in FB's basket.

And my desperation didn't come from the fact that now we are screwed (which we
aren't), but from the fact that I know what hell I'll have to go trough to get
the matter sorted out.

