Facebook lets me back in…
I just received this email.
I answer Mike Arrington and several others in a video that now is up at http://www.mogulus.com/robertscoble.
UPDATE: In the video I cover a whole bunch of topics and take questions from the live audience that was there when filmed. Also, I told the audience that I am not using any Facebook data outside of Facebook and will delete the test account we used on Plaxo to do the tests.
Hi Robert,
Facebook’s Terms of Use broadly prohibits the running of automated scripts on the site because they can be used to commit malicious attacks, send spam, and generally try to undermine the integrity of the site. When our systems detect these types of scripts, they immediately disable the account of the user responsible as a preventative measure. This is what happened in your case – your automated script was exhibiting the same behavior as other malicious scripts that we have blocked before so your account was disabled.
Our standard process for handling cases when an account is disabled for security violations is to allow a user to appeal and remedy the situation. This is the process we have followed here. Since you contacted us and have agreed not to run the script again, we have reactivated your account. You should now be able to log in with your normal email and password. In the future, please refrain from running these types of scripts again.
Thanks,
Jerry
User Operations
Facebook
Powered By 
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:52 pm
First post!
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Nice. So we still have had an excellent discussion of what we want from FB today :)
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Had fun playing spammer lab rat?
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Glad to see you are back on, Robert.
I have to wonder if they would have reactivated anybody who was not as high profile as you are. Most businesses are slow this time of year, and it seemed awefully quick that you were given your account back.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Boy, this sure opened some conversations up for the new year. Interesting to see it all cycle through, to see the various perspectives, and to watch where it will take people next.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
So it was really a storm in a t-cup Robert?
I feel manipulated to tell you the truth having followed this story closely.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:57 pm
What’s the big takeaway for you, Robert? Data Portability vs. TOS and all that, but one of the Big Questions is whether you’d move away from FB today, if a ready alternative was available? What’s your dream socnet look like?
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Robert, your post brings to mind two questions:
1) what was the script?
2) how does one turn on a script in FB - I always felt that the pages of FB itself were under tight lock and key?
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I agree with Chris Brogan. The conversation around the incident was very interesting. Please accept me as your Facebook friend, I’m jumping over there right now.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Indeed this has been catalyst for a lot of questions on both sides of the fence regarding privacy, right to user data, identity and social graph portability. All good.
http://twitter.com/RhiannonSL
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Tsk, tsk, Robert. You should know better than to run naughty scripts on Facebook. Now, be a good boy and behave or risk being bitch slapped by Facebook again.
Personally, I’m sick of walled-gardens on an open network such as the Internet. Human beings enjoy being divided by the few, eh?
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
and you REALLY wanted to join again the FB?
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:02 pm
[...] Soeben wurde Scobles Account wieder aktiviert: (…) Since you contacted us and have agreed not to run the script again, we have reactivated [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:03 pm
I was “deleted” after I either…
1) Poked too many people who were not my “friends”.
2) Had a signature in my wall posts… which may look “spamish” (unless you mix it up, which is what real spammers do)
3)????
My problems is that FB said something like, “Don’t do things that are spamish…
But, they didn’t say what had been done, and what NOT to do… because, how can i “not do” a task… if you don’t tell me what task is “bad”
Thankfully they did reverse their “final” decision…. and after about 3-4 emails, and people tweeting to Save “acmephoto”…
I’m glad I’m back, but it would have been nice if the “wrong activities” that threw up flags would have been.
~AdamPhoto / Adam Nollmeyer
http://acmephotography.net/
Phoenix, AZ
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:03 pm
[...] Facebook reactivates Scoble’s account after he agrees not to run the scraper script on his account [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:06 pm
[...] 2:02pm PST: Predictably Facebook has already caved and reactivated Scoble’s account. They say it’s part of the normal appeals process and [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Robert,
Personally I believe you should still be banned from Facebook you broke their terms of use and as such the rules state you will be banned immediatly from Facebook.
I don’t want you to download my personal details for you to keep.
As such I have emailed both Facebook and Plaxo informing them of my disgust that you stole my personal details and that you have been allowed back in.
William
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:13 pm
[...] (2PM PST): Scoble’s Facebook account has been re-activated. In an email to Scoble, Facebook wrote: “… Since you contacted us and have agreed not to run the script again, [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Nice of them to let you back in. Although it was not your data that you were trying to retrieve. If someone is your friend on Facebook, their information is not suddenly yours.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I was kinda hoping that the ‘free the Scoble One’ FB group would end up with *more than* 5000 members!
;-)
@William (#12): If you’re a FB friend of Robert’s, then I suggest you end it right now.
You’re just not going to get on!
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Ok, there’s some legitimacy in the script issue and TOS. But it looks like Facebook are going to have to come to terms with the fact they’ll get unpopular fast if they continue to deny people the right to access their_own_data. Yes, that includes some of my data, because I gave you license to that data, not just the *display* of that data (google “Nasreddin and the Smell of Soup”).
There’s so much more to be gained from the network effect that it’s inevitable that the walled gardens will open up, it offers the companies that recognise the benefits early a head start. My guess is this could be the year the cracks really start to show.
I still wouldn’t like to be in their shoes - there’ll still be a fair proportion of folks that haven’t thought through what granting other *individuals* access to their data means. Another prediction: a flurry of data licenses (starting with http://www.opendatacommons.org/ ).
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:33 pm
[...] [Later] Facebook relented and have let Scoble back in. [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:40 pm
William, if you watched the video you’ll notice that I didn’t use the data that I got out of Facebook.
Not to mention that I could have written down your email address and then hand typed it back into Outlook. Would that make you feel better?
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:43 pm
What an own goal for Facebook. To chuck you out then let you back so quick. Good publicity stunt, though. Next time I’m on FB I must remember to throw a sheep at you. Or would you rather some flowers?
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:45 pm
[...] (03/01/2008): Facebook accepta el retorn de Scoble. Els administradors li han enviat un correu electrònic amb l’explicació [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Facebook Disables, Then Reinstates Robert Scoble
Robert Scoble had his Facebook account suspended. Apparently he was doing some things that were against his users agreement on the social network. I suspect this is just an automated script on Facebook’s part. The expectation being that if you
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Back in allready. That did not take long. Cool blog. I’ll have to tag it. Tag! Your it!
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:51 pm
@17 - William - if you don’t want people using your personal details, don’t make em public on Facebook or any other website. Duh! Pretty simple stuff dude.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I think the point is that this and other incidents have started a discussion that Facebook ought to pay attentiion to, if they want to sustain their leadership position. If they don’t listen to and respect their customers, it won’t pay off for them in the long run, even if they get a short-term bump from the negative publicity (and unfortunately, negative publicity has still gotten them more users in the past). In the longer term, they’ll need ongoing customer good will, though. Being “right,” on their terms, without listening to customer feedback and frustrations, is not a sustainable strategy.
Cathryn/Creative Sage(tm)
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:13 pm
[...] So, what do you think? [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Yes, Facebook OUGHT to pay attention to this discussion, but will they? I am disheartened that in so many cases American (mostly) consumers will continue to use products from companies that do hateful things. The founder of the company gives every appearance of being a total ass, and from interactions I’ve seen from the company as a whole, it is created in his image.
I think their response to you is BS. they didn’t re-instate your account because you promised not to do it again, they re-instated you because you are a celebrity and they don’t want bad PR.
The only bright side to this is that the company is so sociopathically unethical that EVENTUALLY, MAYBE their bad behavior will have a negative (I would hope fatal) impact on valuation.
The other thing I hope you use your audience to get the word out is that when your account is disabled, canceled, whatever, whether by you or Facebook, they KEEP all your data!
Almost every other company does just the opposite and will generally warn you of this when you sign up. Remember, when you give data to Facebook, they own it forever, even if you later decide you don’t want to use the service. That includes all the stuff they conveniently scraped from your other services. Hopefully they will eventually get sued over this, I think it is outrageous.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:20 pm
[...] acto final en esta “debacle”, Facebook escribió una carta al señor Scobble, comunicando la reapertura de su cuenta y justificando el bloqueo de forma muy similar a la de [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:25 pm
[...] latest wrinkle on the controversy over importing Facebook data into Plaxo is that Facebook has reinstated Robert Scoble’s 5,000 friend account per the following email and caveat (in bold): Hi [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I just wonder if this might make Facebook see how many people would want this type of feature, and if they do acknowledge that desire, would they allow it in the near future?
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Congratulations. The blogosphere wins again.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Robert.
Glad to have you back on facebook buddy. All your stuff magically reappeared. ;)
Man what a firestorm you have once again created.
Cheers!
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:18 pm
[...] I’d like to send this song out to all the folks who’ve been kicked off and reinstated on Facebook today. I personally think one should be able to export contact information from those who [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:18 pm
and just like that - we’re back to an empasse.
what we need are optin controls
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:20 pm
… and tomorrow the flash mob will move on to some other gadfly topic.
Ah, the beauty of Web 2.0
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Nice PR for facebook and for u.
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I can’t believe he actually said “preventative” …ugh. To quote a friend of mine: “Yes, I do look down on your for your poor grammar.”
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Fate 2.0
By reading Robert Scobles Blocked-From-Facebook-Story (he is already back) I had to think about our online lifes.
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:45 pm
You can use Facebook for something besides Scrabulous? Jeez, I’m behind the times…
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
[...] Of course, such publicity is bad for Facebook, so not surprisingly, they’ve already re-enabled his account, according to another post on Robert’s blog. [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:24 pm
> Not to mention that I could have written down your email address and then hand typed it back into Outlook
Mmmm… some doubts:
Would you type 5000 emails by hand? (and thousands of daily personal events?)
Would you fight against against spammers or ask for antispam laws or privacy measures? They could have written down your email^W postal address by hand.
Why do you ask for open data interchange between platforms if you could do it manually?
Have you ever heard about differences between manual and automatic data processing?
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:44 pm
[...] the whole story (although he did co-author the above mentioned Bill of Rights) and Scoble, reinstated in FB, answers back to criticism. The open data subject is hotter and more attention is given to dataportability.org. Moral: fight [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:01 pm
If you have contacts in Outlook and then get a different e-mail client, are you allowed to export and import them into the new program?
I DIDN’T GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO DO THIS. Heh.
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:17 pm
it’s great…
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:25 pm
blatant violating TOS.
no explanation is acceptable
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:37 pm
This has been noted on the facebook developers forum:
http://forum.developers.facebook.com/viewtopic.php?id=6089
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:01 pm
There was one court case where a judge ruled that a TOS was one-sided. A periphery to come from all of this is about the TOS in general. A TOS is not a law.
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
rss’ing scoble for years.
I wish u still worked at Microsoft.
Much more interesting stuff.
the last 1/2 year has been facebook, this facebook that.
I do have to admire your schtick, though.
Create controversy, ride the wave, take VC $.
In fact, I’m a tad jealous.
It’s a classic south park/slashdot thing.
blog about this or that
blog that this or that done you wrong
milk it
$$!
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Robert - Paul Buchheit says it best at http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/. Facebook is being more than a bit hypocritical here
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:13 pm
[...] This is what Robert Scoble was doing - utilizing a new Plaxo util which scraped Facebook and exported Robert’s friends list email addresses into Plaxo Pulse. Well what happened was that Facebook suspended Robert’s account - only to turn it back on later. [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:56 pm
[...] Facebook lets me back in… and on this video here: http://www.mogulus.com/robertscoble [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:56 pm
“There’s so much more to be gained from the network effect that it’s inevitable that the walled gardens will open up, it offers the companies that recognise the benefits early a head start. My guess is this could be the year the cracks really start to show.”
It is a very rare thing that I disagree with you Danny, but I do with this one.
I think a network effect works to a point, but when you start talking about 5000 friends (or even 500), all that exists is noise. I think there may be a benefit to the leading light, but not the dim little bulbs, clustered around.
People are justifying their participation in this debate because it brings out the issue of what is private and not; where does one’s data end and another’s begin. There might be discussion on this in 2008, a move here or there for openness, but in the end, you have to realize that 99.99999% of the people on Facebook don’t know Scoble, you, me, or any of the people involved in this discussion, and just want to play Scrabulous.
In other words, the clamor for openness is coming from a tiny minority of users. Noisy users, true. But a minority.
So many people just got through trashing Facebook over Beacon, for not protecting privacy. Finally people are starting to wake up to the need of privacy.
If there’s a discussion this year, I think it will be the long overdue discussion about protecting one’s identify, and one’s ‘data’ in this online world–no matter how chi chi we get about what we call it.
Rather than fewer gates, look for more.
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Scoble is back in Facebook. My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I think the larger issue for 2008 is not privacy or openness, but of ownership. Are we lending, selling, or giving away our data? And when does our data cross the line from being private to public? We need more transparency in the terms of all data transactions in order to judge whether we’re getting a good deal for what we’re giving up.
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Your opponents are totally missing the point. As part of the action of inviting Scoble to be my friend (or accepting an invite to be his) I gave him the right to see my email address and contact me. Facebook’s “you can revoke that right at any time” is like asking to see the prices on the menu after you ordered and ate the food. (ok, the other image I had involved an adult theme)
Once someone gets to see it, it’s out there and you can’t take it back. Ask anyone in a relationship who says something and then wanted to take it back. Facebook is building a business on a principle that you surrender any rights you have to information because you choose to use their free service.
So it’s ok in your book for Facebook to scrape other sites for information, use it in ways that the web operator and the user un-intended but god forbid someone chooses to exercise their rights to information.
Here is an item to ponder. If I gave you a business card, but the card has a disclaimer that you cannot mechanically or electronically reproduce it, do you have the right to drop it into your cardscan scanner to add it to your Outlook?
If you say I don’t have that right, do you think I have the right to transcribe that information myself into an outlook contact card by entering it at the keyboard (either myself, or by contracting services to enter my data for me).
Where does the line get drawn, or do I go back to drawing on the walls of my cave instead of the wall at Facebook. BTW get all those dammed anthropologist out of my cave, those drawings are (c) 10,000BC by ME .. Didn’t you understand the squiggle, dash, dash, and circle as my copyright symbol?
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:41 pm
I joined Facebook because they are, relatively speaking, diligent custodians of my personal data.
I am glad Facebook detects and disables automatic scraping of my data by erstwhile “friends”.
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:46 pm
[...] 3: Scoble’s account has been reactivated and in a recent video he answered some of the community’s questions. addthis_url = [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Robert,
As a friend of yours on Facebook, I give you express written permission to scrape any personal data that I have expressly exposed to you via Facebook settings for your own personal use.
Regards,
Jay
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:03 pm
[...] Result: Facebook lets him back in! [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:06 pm
If I tell someone my name, I am giving them permission to use it. I am essentially giving away a piece of data to be used as an index of me. They can keep it in their memory, write it down, type it up (in any font) and yes… save it into a database.
It is not the possession of someone’s personal data that is illegal. It is the abuse of that data.
If I choose to expose a piece of data on Facebook, is it not as good as a business card?
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:09 pm
I think 31 hit it right on the head - this wouldn’t happen to any random schmo, only to someone who can get a whole bunch of bad publicity to FB.
But, c’est la vie, that’s the way things work, eh?
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Now, just leave Facebook, and choose another competitor. I wouldn’t stay with Facebook one day more.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:39 pm
But your another friend down!
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:46 pm
[...] of people have been appealing that his account be re-instated and he got his wish. Facebook emailed him and explained the situation: Facebook’s Terms of Use broadly prohibits the [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:47 pm
[...] Well, it appears he’s been let back in. I guess he wasn’t deleted after all, and simply had his account suspended; which is hardly [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 12:39 am
[...] åbnede Robert Scobles konto igen knap et døgn efter lukningen: Facebook lets me back in…, men hændelsen har fået stor opmærksomhed i det forløbne døgn, og mon ikke, Facebook bliver [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 12:57 am
[...] même créée sur Facebook pour que son compte soit rétabli. Quelques heures plus tard Facebook réactive le compte de Scoble en expliquant qu’il s’agit d’une procédure standard de sécurité et que son [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 1:06 am
[...] Some notes. Read that Om Malik, founder of GigaOm, had a heart attack (at age of 41) but he’s fine now. Robert Scoble has been deleted from, and by, Facebook due to data issues, but latest is he’s just been reactivated. [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 1:27 am
“My FB Contacts is a free and easy way to export and backup the contact details of your friends on Facebook. Once exported you can then import your contacts in to your Gmail, Hotmail or Outlook account.”
http://myfbcontacts.blogspot.com/
January 4th, 2008 at 1:30 am
[...] warten gebannt auf eine Reaktion von Facebook [Korrektur: Facebook hat sehr wohl rasch reagiert und erklärt, warum Scoble gesperrt wurde und den Account inzwischen wieder [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 1:34 am
[...] Update: Wie zu erwarten, hat Facebook das Konto von Robert Scoble wieder freigeschaltet. Siehe dazu: Facebook lets me back in… [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 1:39 am
[...] has since had his account reinstated, but not before comparing himself to Ghandi. It’s not a comparison I would have made, and [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 1:39 am
[...] At least they let Scoble back in.. [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 2:32 am
Final Scores:
Scoble 0 - a tool, of Plaxo, and a tool in general.
Plaxo 0 - Spam company de jour Part 2, no less, someone go knock on the Federal Trade Commission’s door, like now.
Facebook 0 - 1+ for not playing the celebrity-ego-games, but minus 1 for Beacon and everything else, but Caveat Emptor, you knew such going in.
Bloggers 0 - for bothering to care.
Me -10 - for bothering to comment.
January 4th, 2008 at 2:36 am
Christopher always wins! Yeah! :-)
January 4th, 2008 at 2:36 am
[...] girare un non meglio specificato script che viola le condizioni del servizio. Capita anche che in meno di 12 ore l’account venga riattivato a patto che il colpevole si impegni a non ripetere il reato (”Since you contacted us and have [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 3:04 am
I have to wonder if they would have reactivated anybody who was not as high profile as you are.
Of course they wouldn’t have.
Plaxo can release this script, they just have to add a function that pauses a random amount of time between scraping data so that it doesn’t trigger facebook’s bot warning system.
Of course, what facebook really should do is build an XML exporter for user accounts and leave it up to third-parties to create the parsers that import this data properly. This is more a political problem than a technical one.
January 4th, 2008 at 3:14 am
[...] Toda una hábil maniobra si no fuera porque, claro, pequeño detalle sin importancia… Facebook no está en absoluto de acuerdo. Ademas, para terminar de liarla, la reacción de Facebook ha sido la que cabía esperar dadas las circunstancias: al detectar la actividad del script, decide suspender de manera inmediata las cuentas de los usuarios que lo estaban empleando, que no eran ni más ni menos que periodistas y analistas que habían sido invitados por Plaxo para actuar como beta-testers, sin que Plaxo hubiese pedido permiso ni prevenido a Facebook en modo alguno para tal actividad. Como resultado de la batalla, personas como el enormemente popular Robert Scoble han sido suspendidos en Facebook (TechCrunch, Scobleizer) por infringir los términos de uso, con todo el ruido que ello conlleva a pesar de su prácticamente automática readmisión. [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 3:50 am
Anyone on Facebook who wants to encourage them to adopt data portability should join this group- http://uga.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7134824396
January 4th, 2008 at 4:11 am
How did you get it back exactly? I have two friends who made simple errors and lost months of work and contacts and no matter what facebook says badluck.
here: http://www.socialnetrockstrue.blogspot.com
January 4th, 2008 at 4:17 am
[...] So… es sind keine 12 Stunden vergangen und schon hat Robert sein Facebook-Account wieder. War auch nicht anders zu erwarte, bei dem Sturm im Blogger-Glas, den die Geschichte ausgelöst [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 5:00 am
[...] Scobleizer Blog [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 5:12 am
[...] A Scoble hanno riattivato l’account su Facebook: “felicitazioni”. Tags:facebook, fare soldi web 2.0, In my [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 5:20 am
You’re happy to go back? Despite wanting to take your social graph with you and not being allowed? Surely you’d have achieved more for those who want to be able to take such data with them by making a stand and not going back there. As it is Facebook have brushed the issue under the carpet by allowing you back, they don’t want to debate this.
Eric Rice “There was one court case where a judge ruled that a TOS was one-sided. A periphery to come from all of this is about the TOS in general. A TOS is not a law.”
Indeed there was Eric, there was the Second Life case:
http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/05/31/judge-rules-against-one-sided-tos-in-bragg-lawsuit/
There was another case involving a phone company but I can’t recall which company that was.
January 4th, 2008 at 5:33 am
It’s hard to believe this story about one guy being kicked out of Facebook is still garnering so much attention. Techmeme has been Scoble-ized again.
January 4th, 2008 at 5:42 am
[...] 4/1: Scoble får vara kvar i Facebook. Men i fortsättningen måste han hålla sig i skinnet med sina [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 5:56 am
I truly do not comprehend why so many people are up in arms about Facebook’s process here. If I run automated code which rips data out of a third party environment, surely there is no argument: the community owner must disable the ‘perpetrator’ to identify the threat and to protect the platform and their users. Facebook verified the threat level and now re-activated the account, that’s good practice as far as I’m concerned. If you want to make data exports ‘kosher’, here’s a suggestion:
1. Facebook creates manual export function for account holders
2. Account holders opt in or opt out to having their data exported by their friends
January 4th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Thought I would through my two cents into the bucket on my blog http://www.blackandmaple.com/. I feel that Plaxo should have cleared it first before going for such a public test as they knew you would probably get shut off and it would then become public. But I also think Facebook needs to become much more open and this has really brought light to the issue.
Thanks for the video cast yesterday - I very much enjoyed listening to your responses and general tech talk!
January 4th, 2008 at 6:52 am
I often travel around the wordpress-sphere to read blogs, good and terrific, but have a hard time understanding why wordpress puts your complaint on top of the front page. There are much better blogs on much more important topics which deserve to be above the fold; yours certainly does not.
just my opinion.
January 4th, 2008 at 7:33 am
[...] debate. After several hours and numerous posts on the subject from various bloggers, Facebook explained that this was a standard security process against all kinds of scripts. When our systems detect [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 7:37 am
is this really newsworthy? enough is enough you dork! nobody gives a damm about this sort of news..
January 4th, 2008 at 7:47 am
[...] I think I laid out my point there… And honestly after I read Facebook’s response to Scoble I felt like I hit the nail on the head, as they laid out the reasoning why they banned [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 8:25 am
[...] the e-mail from Facebook he posted on his blog. Hi [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 8:59 am
[...] Scoble didn’t do anything [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 9:09 am
The funny thing is you can’t get your own data, yet facebook can abuse your data all it wants. Irony Anyone?
January 4th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Sorry, but Robert doesn’t get my vote on this one. If I own a house and rent it to him and he signs a lease (read ‘terms of service’)which prevents him from slaughtering cattle in the living room, and he does so anyway, I’ll probably evict him.
If my lease states that he cannot have overnight guests, I’m a overbearing landlord, and he should look elsewhere. That clause will probably hurt my house’s rentability, as it should. Prospective tenants may even organize a boycott. They may challenge it legally and win.
So - if Facebook is the 900 lb. gorilla -cancel your account and boycott it. Bad terms of service or bad terms in the lease do not remove your obligation to abide by them. Your obligation is to not agree to them in the first place and not do business with them. You have no entitlement to break the rules. This is no the “lesser of two evils” defense.
Being a rebel doesn’t make you right - just hard to live with.
January 4th, 2008 at 10:14 am
“Life goes on, and so do we…”
http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/televisiontvthemelyrics-80s90s/emptynest.htm
January 4th, 2008 at 10:24 am
[...] I decided to consider this whole B.S. Scoble/Plaxo/Facebook debacle. I’ve already removed Robert from my twitter stream cuz I find his twitter style [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Robert, I’ve read your blog for quite a while, and most of the time it is good information. But in this case, using your clout, so to speak, to bypass a site’s TOS, and then blame the site for your account being disabled is bad form. You broke the rules, pay the price, or at least do something to make sure that this didn’t just happen because of YOUR subscriber base. Every FB user should have the same rights, regardless of their exposure. You have an opportunity to lobby for data portability, but at the same time you have to ability to create awareness of a larger problem, special treatment for breaking the rules, just because you can influence their PR. Aren’t the other users allowed the same fairness? Let’s be honest, you likely got reinstated because of the stink you raised, not because of the appeal process you went through. There are bigger issues to deal with, your FB account shouldn’t be this important.
January 4th, 2008 at 11:03 am
[...] Scoble’s been readmitted to Facebook. Filed under:social software — Jill @ 19:06 [ [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Buzz.
January 4th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Congratulations on getting that account back.
January 4th, 2008 at 11:26 am
it’s hard to believe anyone cares what Robby says now that he’s left microsoft. where’s the appeal in some dork talking about his facebook experience like he has self-entitlement to not get kick offed the site for his malicious-looking scripts?
Robby, please go work for cisco or apple or ibm so we’ll think you’re somewhat important again.
January 4th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Scoble: “William, if you watched the video you’ll notice that I didn’t use the data that I got out of Facebook. Not to mention that I could have written down your email address and then hand typed it back into Outlook. Would that make you feel better?”
Yes, Robert, that is much better. Why? Because a human being did it. And that’s what Facebook data is about: human to human contact. That is the trust that the *average* user gives to Facebook. You are not average, as are many who commenters here.
Facebook is about people having a place on the Web to connect with individuals. And most are *not* interested in someone scraping their data. I applaud Facebook for clarifying their TOS with you. And I am glad to see that you are abiding by their TOS.
PEAS to your Friday!: http://www.frozenpeafund.com
January 4th, 2008 at 11:57 am
You have eloquently demonstrated that Facebook is the Roach Motel of Social Media
An interesting related point is that Google also prevents bots from scraping the data that they themselves have scraped from others. How long before the content providers wise up and charge scrapers like Google for the privilege of Hoovering their content?
I predict that the 11th commandment for Web 2.0 is “Always be the scraper, never the scrapee.”
January 4th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
All I have to say about this is that you just don’t get it, at all.
Here is my response. Tell me where I am wrong?
http://tinyurl.com/2vmjfa
January 4th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Hi Scoble. I think that this topic is totally overhyped.
January 4th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
[...] has since had his account reinstated, but not before comparing himself to Gandhi. It’s not a comparison I would have made, and [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
[...] has since had his account reinstated, but not before comparing himself to Gandhi. It’s not a comparison I would have made, and [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Hi, I think it’s high time we abandon centralized repositories of personal information in favour of a distributed approach to social networking.
http://www.cs.queensu.ca/~thurston/fif/
January 4th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
What’s the takeaway here? Easy. Next time, write a script that runs s - l - o - w - l - y.
January 5th, 2008 at 1:49 am
On Social Networking
People are beginning to question the necessity of Facebook. It’s clear that like any social network, it is worthless without the massive amounts of user data we provide. If something better comes along, a mass exodus is likely. Or is it?
…
January 5th, 2008 at 2:12 am
[...] Scoble is terug. Mogelijk gerelateerde [...]
January 5th, 2008 at 3:27 am
[...] Zumal nur 12 Stunden nach der Verbannung, der Account von Scoble wieder freigeschaltet wurde (vgl. Robert Scobles Blog, [...]
January 5th, 2008 at 7:39 am
[...] prolink wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
January 5th, 2008 at 9:58 am
[...] Original post by Facebook Invited To Join The DataPortability Work Group: tech product reviews, tech news, daily vide… [...]
January 5th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
[...] Original post by Product Reviews » Blog Archive » Comment on Facebook lets me back inâ… [...]
January 5th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
[...] Over the last few days there’s been a lot of discussion on the ‘net on the topic of data portability among social networking sites. It all started when blogger Robert Scoble got his Facebook account suspended for violating Facebook’s Terms of Service (ToS). He was running a script (which was the violation) from Plaxo that goes to all your friends’ profile pages and collects (scrapes) their contact information from them (i.e. the pages). [He’s since been let back in.] [...]
January 6th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
you’re quite possibly the biggest tool on the internet. don’t break the terms of use and you won’t get your facebook taken away.
DUH
January 7th, 2008 at 10:33 am
[...] nails it in his Dependence vs Independence post - discussing the ramifications of the Scoble getting kicked out of Facebook controversy. Some may say that Scoble was played by Plaxo, and others may take this controversy to [...]
January 7th, 2008 at 11:40 am
[...] can read more of the facebook/plaxo/portability saga and the piles of comments here on Roberts [...]
January 8th, 2008 at 6:55 am
So what did you do? It seems the only way you can delete your FB account!
You can only ‘disable’ it and I have a problem not being able to delete my data/profile! So why not get them to do it?
When I want to leave I might try it then….:-P
January 8th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
[...] you may or may not know, recently the tech set were up in arms over the ScobleGate controversy because Robert Scoble’s Facebook account was temporarily suspended due to a Beta [...]
January 8th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
[...] Ora, Stefano paragona in modo efficace e suggestivo i molti social software ai quali siamo “abbonati” ad alberghi che ci ospitano gentilmente (e gratuitamente..) ma che possono anche cacciarci in ogni momento, come pare stia capitando a qualcuno su Facebook. [...]
January 9th, 2008 at 2:31 am
[...] 9 January, 2008 in Facebook, google, internet, social media, website Tags: Dataportability, Facebook, google, Scoble Just seen that Facebook and Google have signed up to dataportability.org, wonder if this is anything to do with Scoble’s recent adventures with Facebook! [...]
January 9th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Now that FB and Google have joined DataPortability.org, I hope none of my friends are spammers (who must be DROOLING at the possibilities).
I personally LIKE the walled garden of Facebook, because I only use it to communicate, organize events and have fun with people I know in real life… you know, the thing that FB was designed for, and made it useful.
January 11th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
I have created a website for people who have been Facebook Disabled who are frustrated with the lack of customer support. This site is created as a community site for people who post their current issues with facebook.com
http://www.facebookdisable.com/
http://www.facebookdisable.com/forum/
January 14th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
[...] company that has been integrating functionality from top social media sites and also helping top bloggers get kicked off Facebook is allegedly mulling over an offer from “the giant [...]
January 20th, 2008 at 7:19 am
[...] Scoble gets kicked off Facebook for running a script - uses a script - then gets back in. Warner Bros.’ Music Available DRM-free from Amazon MP3 Sony BMG music to be available DRM [...]
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
“I could have written down your email address and then hand typed it back into Outlook. Would that make you feel better?”
Yes - because it’s more time-consuming, so there is a natural limit to how much of this you can do, and because it’s much more of hassle, so there’s a much smaller chance of you bothering to do it.
Take both together, and there’s a *significantly* lower chances of you harvesting it. And the only reason I put it in a walled garden was that the garden was walled.
If I wanted my details widely published, I could have done that in the first place.
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:47 pm
riggald — sorry but you are full of it. I typed 5,000 names and emails in a couple of hours. No biggie. And if you do not want your stuff to get out, why put your email on your profile anyway? Just force people to message you on Facebook.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
[...] maintenance. Oh, Facebook, don’t disable my account like Robert Scoble. (Luckily he managed to reinstate it back!) Anyone having this kind of error [...]
February 2nd, 2008 at 5:43 am
Facebook have said the following “Your account was disabled because you engaged in behavior other users reported as harassing in nature. It is a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use to harass users on the site, whether through unsolicited messages, friend requests, pokes or other features. We will not be able to reactivate your account for any reason. This decision is final.”
All I was doing was sending messages who users who sent me messages and now facebook will not reactivate my account.
February 13th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
[...] Facebook Lets Me Back In… at Scobleizer [...]
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:10 am
I have the same problem as Max..
I dont know what to do, or who to complaint to
I felt shocked when FB disabled my account. it has very rare photos for me, and all my contacts and messages, with no backup.
I sent to disabled@facebook.com and appeal@facebook.com, but havnt got replies.
I need my things in the account.. Can anyone help me get back the stuff in the account? or even activate the account back?
I’m in a social mess now :( I dont know what to do
March 2nd, 2008 at 11:47 am
I don’t understand that what exactly the facebook’s privacy policies are?? First they tell that we should not tell anybody’s activites and then they only tell it to everyone via their news feed application.
March 11th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
[...] el reconocido periodista Robert Scoble, quien contó en su Blog cómo fue suspendido y luego reincorporado en el servicio de Facebook. Es interesante remarcar que Facebook ofrece servicios de similares [...]
March 18th, 2008 at 11:46 am
[...] he was told that he was running a script which is against Facebook’s terms and conditions. His account was reinstated, but Scoble does less Facebooking these [...]
March 22nd, 2008 at 10:15 pm
robert, my count is disabled and i dont know what to do, i want it back! please help me! tell me exactly waht you did!
April 17th, 2008 at 10:03 am
[...] story draws to an end, as Facebook accepts Scoble’s apology and lets him back in. The issues go far wider than Facebook, though, and will continue to loom large in the coming [...]
May 1st, 2008 at 7:04 pm
How long was your account disabled for?!
I was sending out messages to people within my university network and I was thinking that it was OK because they were in my network. I didn’t notice the violation warning until it was too late