Feh. I am in Facebook Jail again. It really irks me that Facebook constantly prompts you to send friend requests to other users then penalizes you for giving in once too often to their truly incessant recommendations. Apparently they ‘noticed’ that I have been sending friend requests to people I don’t actually know. I can’t help but wonder who might have complained about me, although I know it is a question best left unasked. Even more annoying than not being able to send friend requests is that I can not comment in Facebook group chat windows– those sometimes wonderful and sometimes annoying bottom of the screen pop up windows where I sometimes enjoy chatting with groups of friends.
A discussion on a friends page the other day reminded me that I never did hear back anything from diaspora, a user controlled social network that was going to free us from the tyranny of Facebook and Google, which both very effectively leverage a high cost of quitting a free service business model to keep literally millions of users locked in to their products. Ubiquity is an almost insurmountable disadvantage for any direct competitors, and anyone who has ever tried to create from scratch a social network will be aware of what a huge challenge it always has been. One friend remarked to me that he only believes it could be done at this point within a carefully chosen very narrow niche. So while I am sad that we will not all soon be moving on to a better and more user centric environment, I am hardly very surprised that diaspora apparently never got off the ground. Though I frankly disagree with my friend who stated that diaspora lost their chance because G+ beat them to creating a much better network. (I personally am still waiting for Plus to go the way of Buzz and Wave. I am a contrarian 😉
I don’t ever actually try to be mysterious or confusing in these posts, although I know that sometimes, some of my readers just don’t quite get what I am trying to say. Sometimes I believe this is through the limitations of language, particularly when the language I am speaking is a second language for someone who is more comfortably fluent in another mother tongue. Other times I suspect it is a question of different communication styles, or occasionally a question of someone who does not follow the contextual links in paragraph one, and thus really doesn’t get the references in paragraph three. I am however genuinely humbled by all of the comments, rebloggings and other sharing my posts have received. And I am genuinely grateful to each and every one of you who read my posts.
Libdrone's Thoughts and Musings 
NOT FAIR!!!
I think Pinterest has potential, but there is little interaction, little support for people experiencing problems (I have a friend who has someone using her name, and they have yet to do anything about it), and a very real threat of having Pinterest throw the users under the bus in terms of lawsuits.
So, we have Facebook that has thrown you in jail AGAIN! We have Google+ which wants to control every aspect of our lives. We have Pinterest which does little to control its users, but it puts them in jeopardy of litigation.
To me, this brings up a very interesting point: What is the price of “Free”?
With FB & G+, the price is that we are NOT the customer…we are the product. With Pinterest, the price is that they get to link our pictures to destinations of their choice for revenue & they get to use us as human shields if someone wants to sue.
There are a LOT of other options out there. Twitter & LinkedIn come to mind, but there are intentional limitations placed on the user. Tumblr is fantastic, but again, it is difficult to interact. Empire Avenue…is not even something I’m going to discuss right now… There are a bunch of other sites, but what’s the point in putting effort into a site no one else is using?
So, what if we had a site with a subscription fee making us the customers? What would we do with it? Would people use it? With “free” options available, I doubt it. As much as I get frustrated with FB, Twitter, LI, G+, EAv & Pinterest, if not for them, I never would have met you, Alan. That’s a pretty high price to pay to abstain, if you ask me.
Anyone else have any ideas?
Are there really a lot of other options? I agree with you of course about the high cost of a free price. (remembering a book a few years about about the high cost of free parking) I certainly agree with you Jake that meeting you brought great value to my life. I also suspect that the day may come when Facebook and the others are quaint memories (the way CompuServe is today) but I strongly suspect we will still be friends then 🙂
You vill follow orders and you VILL like it!
lol. As I showed yesterday I don’t even follow instructions, never mind orders 🙂
Reblogged this on txwikinger's blog and commented:
This is one jail that is absolutely overcrowded 🙂
hee hee. You’ve got that right.
How long is Twitter Jail??
I’ve heard of Twitter jail being as long as 30 days, though I’ve never had a problem with Twtitter. Currently, the pop up box told me that I was in jail for 7 days, though honestly I don’t remember how many days ago that was. But that’s okay, I will just go on mentioning how bad Facebook sucks….because it does.
FB is just being a good citizen and protecting you from you. Have you not been told, not to speak to strangers….
are you channeling George Orwell today, Sharif? 🙂
I guess it happens to the best of you. Michael Q. Todd had it happen to him recently, although I do not know what he did from the EA just that he was bared from FB for awhile. Or was it Twitter, I guess it doesn’t matter, if you are active you are going to upset someone with something. I’m always using up my twitter followers in one day. Must wait for the next to follow more from the EA. So limitations strike us all.
I believe that anyone who is active in social media will run into this sooner or later 🙂 Thanks so much for adding a comment, Michelle.
I find this FB policy completely goofy. Have patience my friend
Thanks Paulo. And I am patient really. Most of my mind and mental energy this weekend has been on Holly’s birthday party in the previous post 🙂
FB is goofy, they also through you in jail for liking too much. TOO much liking? how is that possible! I haven’t yet been thrown in friend jail, but then I am a timid ‘friender’
Reblogged this on lastbabyboomer.
I had this happen to me on LinkedIn. I had a paid account at the time and explained to them in an e-mail that it does not make sense for me to pay for a restricted account. They emailed me back explaining what their policy was and that there was nothing that could be done. A big virtual F you in my opinion. So i canceled my paid account. That was 3 years ago. In that time I have saved $1798.20. More importantly I have not noticed any real change in my ability to reach the people i need to. THANKS LinkedIn.
I have to say Thank You for reinforcing my perception that LinkedIn is a social network I can still safely ignore. I tried it and didn’t like it and when someone pointed out to me that my profile, well, sucked I realized she was dead right and deleted it 5 minutes later.
This is weird because I actually had to do this thing for this guy this morning – it didn’t involve driving a van to or from anywhere – and it was dealing with why all these new social networks are failing. For all the PITA that Facebook can be, what are the real options? Myspace was…gah..it makes me feel sticky like the floor of Ke$ha’s house just thinking about it. LinkedIn is nice for what it is, but I never hang out ther waiting for friends to show up. G+ is a failure in my mind. They had that study showing the average G+ user spends like 4 minutes a month there opposed to 6-7 hours on FB. Pintrest? Cool, but I’m scared as hell to use it now that copyright infringement lawsuits are popping up and you don’t really “enagage” there. Then there’s zurker, but aside from not seeing it improve from day one, the constant wave of spam from like all 9 people that love it is so nauseating they can keep the damn thing.
Anyway…. The main reason no sites that are aiming to be a big umbrella of social networking activity are really making it is because we already have one – Facebook. I complain it about it as much as anyone, but all my peeps are there. My games I hate to admit being hooked on are there – and they work correctly on that platform. My music, pics – whatever – all there. Why would I want to try to get everyone from there to transition to somewhere else that may or may not last? It’s illogical.
For instance I follow G+ news and Intel is pulling the plug there – why? They say a post on G+ gets dozens of comments. Same post on FB = Thousands! Zynga put their 2 biggest games there – no one plays them (at least not enough to make it worthwhile to offer them). Aside from young techcentric males, not many people actually hang out on G+, and now that anytime you register a Google platform account you automatically get a G+ profile who gives a flip about it? It’s like getting a crappy stick on tattoo from a box of Cap’n Crunch. The user numbers mean nothing if you force the platform on people just to get an email account.
But back to FB jail – I have served time in there not really knowing why. Well, once it was because I made the mistake of asking a whopping 5 people to be my FB friend in one day and it blew a gasket somewhere deep in the FB cave, and the other time someone didn’t like a comment I made about the pope’s hat and reported it as offensive. I, like you and many others, waited for Diaspora or something to show up and save me from FB, but in the end I realize that Facebook has become too big. We’ve grown to used to it, and it’s easier to kiss Zuckerburg’s ring than try to build a new network somewhere else that includes everything and everyone we want. The price for that is crappy ads, being penalized from time to time for trying to be social with new people, and not being able to feel clean when I think how much of my soul I sold to be a virtual world pioneer feeding chickens and other ridiculous crap.
Largely off topic to a degree, but man did that feel good to get out.
Mandy, I am Seriously going to have to start a tumblr of Just your comments. It would be the best blog I have 🙂 My curator friends LOVE Pinterest. It’s a fabulous tool for sharing images you run across and if you take the simple step of editing your pin you can create a do follow link to anywhere. My blogger friends LOVE Pinterest. My FIRST pin board shows the image from every post I publish on this blog and has a link to the post 🙂 My writer friends who don’t get blogging are mixed on Pinterest. Some of them like it for some of the same reasons as the curators and bloggers. Others are or are aligned with my photographer friends and my lawyer friends both of home DON’T love pinterest. If FB was smart they would add the no pin tag to all the photos on their site. Thankfully, I don’t see anything that leads me to believe FB is smart enough to do something that dumb 🙂
I knew there was a reason I sometimes stare at your writing and glaze over.. 🙂 It’s “contextual links” and I’m sure I miss more then that… lol….
Get out of jail soon Alan..
Craig, I’ve written before about my disdain for talking down to readers (http://libdrone.info/2007/09/24/blogging-about-books-about-blogging/). My aim is for every post to be readable by most everyone in my circle, while most every post contains one and sometimes many references (such as through the contextual links) that genuinely add to the three paragraphs 🙂 (Blogging can be an art form and that is sort of what I am trying to do.)
I respond to friend requests, I don’t send them out unless I know the person but we have yet to connect on Facebook. I know when I decline to friend someone, Facebook asks if you know the person. Apparently, if the person says they don’t know you, that can trigger Facebook Jail (I’m not sure how many of these “No” responses it takes to do it). Unlike Twitter, I don’t see a value in acquiring a large number of Facebook friends so I tend to err on the side of caution.
P.S. Your background is making me hungry. ; )
Reblogged this on mithuhassan.
I’ve never been in FB jail, and I have a hard time understanding what purpose it serves. Oh well, we know you ‘like’ us Alan, even if you can’t tell us on FB at the moment 🙂
Here’s candy, kid. Now, put your hands in your pocket. Don’t even think you can strike a deal with air dance. So, just cool.
Its totally uncomfortable FB jail ! I got warned from them couple of days back due to use more likes even though that was for 2 days but really wired !!