Facebook banning me... for creating an account

[Crithylum]

I have just started university, and there are a few societies which use Facebook or other Facebook products. I clicked on a link to join one of these groups, and then had to create an account (as I have no reason to use Facebook otherwise), and was then immediately banned. I was then able to appeal, by showing a video of my face. After submitting this they decided that my account would remain permanently banned. Anyone else had weird Facebook bans?

I guess I will tell everyone to either email or use Whatsapp (which seems completely unsuitable for what it is used for, as a person who has used Discord for years, but I don't want to turn this into a Discord (or alternatives) vs Whatsapp thread)

 

[dosxuk]

Normally this is either because you've tried to create your account from an IP connected with multiple other accounts that have been closed, or if you've used obviously fake details. Facebook requires you to have your account in your real name.

 

[takno]

Happens all the time. Appealing is essentially pointless, and it's not at all personal.

Their magical heuristic system for detecting bots not only fails to prevent bots, but blocks anybody "unusual", which (conveniently for them) tends to capture adblockers, privacy extensions, unusual browsers, unsual operating systems or any IP address which has been flagged in the past.

I couldn't even log into a long-standing Ticketmaster account on Firefox last month, even though I only wanted to buy 15 quid tickets to a tiny band, which only only sold out on the night. It worked just fine on Chrome, so Facebook aren't the only people using stupid rules to no actual success.

I'd suggest setting up the account in real name with a photo, using Chrome on Windows or Android/iOS, and ideally not on a public computer, and turning off any adblockers before you do it. It still might not work though.

 

[Peter0124]

Facebook is weird. Apparently my real name I provided wasn't accepted and they thought it was a fake name. Like what?!?

 

[Crithylum]

I used my actual name on a Windows device running Firefox. I have never used facebook before on the device. No adblockers, or privacy extensions other than those that come with Firefox. I guess Facebook will not be receiving any custom from myself in future after this experience

 

[takno]

I used my actual name on a Windows device running Firefox. I have never used facebook before on the device. No adblockers, or privacy extensions other than those that come with Firefox. I guess Facebook will not be receiving any custom from myself in future after this experience

Don't blame you. Facebook is just completely empty for me most of the time.

Firefox has put in a lot of tracking protection, particularly to prevent third party tracking which Facebook do endemically. As a result when you land on Facebook they haven't seen you and your browser before and they find that suspicious because they've seen everybody else.

The other problem is that because Firefox no longer appears in a lot of stat counters, largely because of the tracking protection, these systems see Firefox browser strings as being more likely to be bots than real users.

The internet is getting to be a pretty tedious place to be

 

[bleeder4]

Were you at the university when you set up the account? It can be a problem with shared IP addresses. One of the other students does something naughty on Facebook so Facebook start blacklisting the IP address, thereby affecting any other user of that IP address.

 

[Spamcan81]

Normally this is either because you've tried to create your account from an IP connected with multiple other accounts that have been closed, or if you've used obviously fake details. Facebook requires you to have your account in your real name.

My FaceAche profile is full of fake details yet I’m not blocked. I know of others who’ve joined successfully using an assumed name.

 

[gg1]

My FaceAche profile is full of fake details yet I’m not blocked. I know of others who’ve joined successfully using an assumed name.

That's what's so silly about the Facebook requirement for using real names. Something blatantly fake like Luke Skywalker or Bilbo Baggins will be immediately rejected but they really have no way of checking if you join with a fake 'real' name such as Dave Smith.

I have two profiles, one with my real name which I use for contact with friends and a second one under a pseudonym I use for groups.

 

[takno]

My FaceAche profile is full of fake details yet I’m not blocked. I know of others who’ve joined successfully using an assumed name.

If nothing automated is triggered then nobody will ever look at the name. The problem is that real-but-too-common or fake-sounding names trigger the filter, and then the review from the second computer just reapplies the same rules rather than checking ID.

The problem really is that Facebook ate a gatekeeper for so much information that a lack of an account can make it more difficult to participate in society. They should therefore be forced to provide you with a way to get an account. They refuse to think of themselves that way though, so they just look at it is risking turning away a small amount of (probably unprofitable) business.

My Facebook account predates any checks and used to have an incredibly obvious false name. I changed it a few years ago when I was still worried about losing it, but I suspect it would never have been questioned if I hadn't.

 

[bleeder4]

I have two profiles, one with my real name which I use for contact with friends and a second one under a pseudonym I use for groups.

Out of interest, why do you do that? I'm in a load of groups (mainly train-related) but only have one account. That of course means my friends and family can see on their own feeds what I post in the groups (if they're public groups) but that has never bothered me.

 

[gg1]

Out of interest, why do you do that? I'm in a load of groups (mainly train-related) but only have one account. That of course means my friends and family can see on their own feeds what I post in the groups (if they're public groups) but that has never bothered me.

It's a legacy of acquiring a stalker in the early 00s when I was on Livejournal, they weren't really threatening as such but they were a major PITA, trolling pretty much any post I made on numerous LJ groups and forums - I used the same obscure username for everything then so it was easy for them to find out which forums I was a member of via google.

Since then, not only do I never use my real name other than in my friends only FB account, I have different usernames for every forum I'm a member of. Probably completely unnecessary now but just a habit I've gotten into over the past two decades.

 

[Crossover]

Were you at the university when you set up the account? It can be a problem with shared IP addresses. One of the other students does something naughty on Facebook so Facebook start blacklisting the IP address, thereby affecting any other user of that IP address.

We have had the same issue at work when setting up an account to link business pages to - our IT use a web proxy and the suspicion was that the presented IP was the same as thousands of others. From memory, the workaround was to temporarily access Facebook on an account where the proxy could be bypassed - but this was in simpler days when the browser didn't cack around with things to quite the same extent additionally.

 

[londonbridge]

I’ve lost count of the number of profiles I’ve reported as fake for impersonating a public figure or celebrity, actors, singers, etc, all I get back is “we didn’t remove the profile as it doesn’t violate our community standards”. Even when, if you view the profile, it was set up three days ago and contains about three pictures with “(female celebrity name) updated HIS profile picture”, has no blue tick and is obviously fake. We’ve also seen in the “this is a scam, right?” thread how they won’t remove fake pages offering a one year travelcard for £3.

What’s even sillier is if I report a profile and then block it, when I get a “we have an update about your report of X” notification, all I get when I open the notice is “close this notification” and I can’t read any details. Facebooks security checking really is absolutely useless.

 

[Crithylum]

Were you at the university when you set up the account? It can be a problem with shared IP addresses. One of the other students does something naughty on Facebook so Facebook start blacklisting the IP address, thereby affecting any other user of that IP address.

I was at home when I set it up. The only other person in my household who has used facebook is my mum, who has used it legitimately since I was a baby (at least that is what is in my memory)

 

[Broucek]

That's what's so silly about the Facebook requirement for using real names. Something blatantly fake like Luke Skywalker or Bilbo Baggins will be immediately rejected but they really have no way of checking if you join with a fake 'real' name such as Dave Smith.

I have two profiles, one with my real name which I use for contact with friends and a second one under a pseudonym I use for groups.

Yeah, I set up an account for my toy polar bear with no trouble.....

 

[SteveP29]

I’ve lost count of the number of profiles I’ve reported as fake for impersonating a public figure or celebrity, actors, singers, etc, all I get back is “we didn’t remove the profile as it doesn’t violate our community standards”. Even when, if you view the profile, it was set up three days ago and contains about three pictures with “(female celebrity name) updated HIS profile picture”, has no blue tick and is obviously fake. We’ve also seen in the “this is a scam, right?” thread how they won’t remove fake pages offering a one year travelcard for £3.

What’s even sillier is if I report a profile and then block it, when I get a “we have an update about your report of X” notification, all I get when I open the notice is “close this notification” and I can’t read any details. Facebooks security checking really is absolutely useless.

Twitter is as bad for updates about posts you report.
By the time they get round to it, you've forgotten what/ who it was you reported and they don't give you any detail as to what it was you reported.

 

[Gloster]

I don’t have a Facebook account or one on any of the other popular sites, and not just because I tend to be baffled by technology. Even some innocuous sites have proved to beyond my ability, often because I am unwilling to agree to things I don’t understand.

I have used pseudonyms for some of my non-commercial work in order to hide who I am, although my habit of recycling stories has done for me once or twice. One particular reason for using an obvious pseudonym for a model railway society‘s magazine that I still write for was that one of my major commercial customers was very dismissive of model railways (he could accept real ones): this chap used to drool over old sports cars.