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Contacting Facebook

grunion

Penultimate Amazing
grunion
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Messages
11,498
Facebook does all in its power to avoid having to deal with its users in any actionable way.

I am not a rabid frequenter of the site, but I do have an account, and I check in once every few days. Some time ago I joined a Facebook Group of employees and alumni of a company I used to work for, just to keep in touch with former co-workers. When I went on Facebook a couple of days ago, I saw that somebody had created an account with my complete name, using a disturbing profile picture, and was posting obscene rants about the company on this ex-employee group page. I know that I was the only person who worked at the company with my name, and it seemed obvious that they were trying to defame me.

Subsequently this person started sending friend requests to some of my friends. I posted in my status to alert my friends not accept these requests.

I attempted to report this account as an impostor account. The only option for this is to go to the user timeline and click the report link to "Report As An Impostor." There is nothing on the report form that permits including an explanation. Thus since it is largely an empty timeline, and the only thing the user is copying is my name, the request to remove the account was denied.

Also I attempted to report the individual posts that the user was making that were defamatory, but since they weren't classifiable as Threats Or Hate Speech they still stand. There's no place on that report form to include an explanation, the posts just stand on their own.

I attempted to contact Facebook support to give a more complete explanation as to why this account should be banned but every email address that I've found on Google for them (support@facebook.com, webmaster@facebook.com, appeals@facebook.com, abuse@facebook.com) results in a bounceback. I've posted in the Facebook support forum but of course those posts aren't monitored and there's no answers there.

It is frustrating. In the individual posts I have posted a reply under my name and picture saying "This isn't the actual me who worked here" but the impostor has just used those responses to ridicule me.

Has anyone ever actually contacted a real person at Facebook?
 
Hmm. A few years ago a guy asked me if he could make a Facebook page for my site. I didn't care for Facebook so I agreed, on the condition that he'd write a plain disclaimer saying this was an unofficial page. He didn't do that, and worse, he started getting into flamewars with various people, giving my site a bad name. I emailed the guy asking him to take down the page, or at least put that disclaimer I asked, but was ignored. I don't recall which form or contact method I used, but I filed a complaint under the copyright notice (think it was their DMCA form :S) stating they were using my site's name and image without permission and harming my reputation. The page got shut down pretty quickly after that. (To avoid this from happening again a friend made an actual official Facebook page for my site, hah.) Maybe you can try something like that? Though you can't copyright your identify... but it's clearly an attempt at tainting your reputation, so that should be a clear case.

Nothing helpful here? http://www.facebook.com/legal/copyright.php
 
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grunion said:
Facebook does all in its power to avoid having to deal with its users in any actionable way.

I am not a rabid frequenter of the site, but I do have an account, and I check in once every few days. Some time ago I joined a Facebook Group of employees and alumni of a company I used to work for, just to keep in touch with former co-workers. When I went on Facebook a couple of days ago, I saw that somebody had created an account with my complete name, using a disturbing profile picture, and was posting obscene rants about the company on this ex-employee group page. I know that I was the only person who worked at the company with my name, and it seemed obvious that they were trying to defame me.

Subsequently this person started sending friend requests to some of my friends. I posted in my status to alert my friends not accept these requests.

I attempted to report this account as an impostor account. The only option for this is to go to the user timeline and click the report link to "Report As An Impostor." There is nothing on the report form that permits including an explanation. Thus since it is largely an empty timeline, and the only thing the user is copying is my name, the request to remove the account was denied.

Also I attempted to report the individual posts that the user was making that were defamatory, but since they weren't classifiable as Threats Or Hate Speech they still stand. There's no place on that report form to include an explanation, the posts just stand on their own.

I attempted to contact Facebook support to give a more complete explanation as to why this account should be banned but every email address that I've found on Google for them (support@facebook.com, webmaster@facebook.com, appeals@facebook.com, abuse@facebook.com) results in a bounceback. I've posted in the Facebook support forum but of course those posts aren't monitored and there's no answers there.

It is frustrating. In the individual posts I have posted a reply under my name and picture saying "This isn't the actual me who worked here" but the impostor has just used those responses to ridicule me.

Has anyone ever actually contacted a real person at Facebook?
Click to expand...

Just curious, did they tell you why they did not remove the fake profile? Or just an automated message/

I suggest you contact a lawyer or report it to someone official. Like the FCC and call you local congressman or woman.

Here is a disturbing article on Salon (warning popups)
http://www.salon.com/2011/02/02/my_fake_facebook_profile/

In reading about this there is no legal recourse. I know that calling a congressman sounds extreme but I think it would work.
 
Morrigan said:
Nothing helpful here? http://www.facebook.com/legal/copyright.php
Click to expand...

Thank you Morrigan. That page links to the aforementioned reports that lead you to click on the post you are reporting, and chose which of the terms of service it is violating, or click on the Timeline of the imposter so they can see if they are truly copying your account data. Neither is suitable in this case so they still let the posts and the account stand.

David, an automated message was sent shortly after I reported the abuse that led me to click on the report outcome which only said "we have reviewed it and the post was not removed." The Congressman is an interesting idea, I will give it a try. I will give the FCC a try also. I do not have the money to hire an attorney.

BTW, thank you for that article. The author describes my feelings of helplessness very nicely. It seems like a random, senseless act by someone, I have absolutely no idea who, just to be mean. One wonders how the Principal actually got through to Facebook, or if one of the culprits finally relented and took it down.
 
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