Here is a quick quiz: how many of you really understand the terms of the agreement when you signed up for Facebook

Stanford Facebook Class on NBC11

Facebook Sucks A LOT…

or any online service. I actually went to law school, have a PhD and deal with legal documents all of the time and I have to tell you that the document that most people routinely scan and click is clearly written in favor of the drafter of the contract because they know that few people will successfully protest or win in a court of law.

My point here is that I love the Facebook platform, but in their zeal to prevent spam they are persecuting amateurs like me who have no intention of spamming and only intentions of networking. Maybe they should borrow from LinkedIn and allow people to network who belong to the same groups. In my case I was experimenting with teaching a class in South Africa and here simultaneously before taking a trip. So I networked through one of my friends and that was considered a violation because I was adding too many friends too fast.

Facebook: The Scrooge of 2007?

I have written Facebook several times and I have only received an initial response and after that I have received no response email from Facebook. This is disturbing to me that a company of this size would treat its customers like this and not even both to respond to email with at least a form letter. Hey, I work with the government and even they send you a form email to respond to your email. I realize that I will probably not get my account restored for writing this post but after trying to correspond with them and promising to reform from my “wicked ways” that I did not know I had. All I want to do is network with my academic, technology, media and student friends. I am so disappointed because I feel that the heavy handedness of Facebook is a shame because I think it has the potential to become the platform. I have always liked it better than MySpace but it appears that they don’t want me.

My real problem with Facebook is that when you try to find out how many friends that you can add they cannot tell

The Truth about Facebook!

you what the limits are. Please spare me the lecture about safety when we know that everyone’s data is being mined and used for advertising in the future by Microsoft after that huge deal. If by some miracle that I manage to get my account restored, you can bet that I will be on ten friend limit per day. What is really terrible is that I actually interacted with my friends and used them for both professional and media contacts.

So here are my questions: what does one do when they run afoul of the undisputed king of social networking? What would you do? In the meantime, if you want to contact me by Facebook you may be eligible for retirement by the time I even get a response, so don’t hold your breath waiting. Come on Facebook give me one more chance and loosen up because you are starting to act like Microsoft used to act before they re-discovered customer service.

Facebook Off

If you’re reading this and you are on Facebook, I hope you learned what I did: Facebook can do whatever they want to do; Facebook will cut you from the squad quick and then tell you to read the vague rules that they wrote to protect themselves legally; Facebook will not give you specifics in plain English on how to stay out of trouble once you have run afoul; Facebook will not give you real due process and you will be punished with a snowball’s chance in hell of being reinstated with all of your existing friends; Facebook will not respond to your requests for reinstatement even when you promise to change; Facebook has created rules similar to the credit card companies and you know you can’t win appeals with them unless you are F. Lee Bailey or loaded; and Facebook has the best social networking site in the world that will make you an addict as I am finding

Facebook-MoveOn Privacy controversy

out as I go through withdrawal. Hey maybe we should protest! Yeah right!

Hey I have already lost my privacy, due process, and right to protection against self-incrimination with Facebook. So I better use my First Amendment right while I still have it! I guess I feel like the guy getting lectured to by Clint Eastwood as Clint is holding the gun to him and promising this gentleman to, “Go ahead make my day!” You never get a straight answer when the person holding the gun is holding all of the cards, has cut you off of Facebook, and has already shot at you quite accurately. Don’t bet on me getting reinstated, especially after this post!

If you have ever read Edutainment & Convergence Today on WordPress, you get regular news reports from trusted sources from throughout the web on edutainment, convergence, entertainment, education and politics. This site will be my quick take on some of these stories, and it will also feature some interviews with some of my friends. It will also feature my commentaries from the flagship Edutainment & Convergence brand on Vox.

This site will bridge the gap between the Edutainment Today and the Edutainment & Convergence brands which will be expanding greatly as I bring in a team of writers and researchers during the course of the year. You can think of this site as the academic-entertainment-technology-political micro-version of All Things Digital and paidContent.

It will start off looking less attractive than its sister sites in the beginning as we develop an identity for it. So you can expect this site to change. The truth is that WordPress has a tougher ease of use for many of the advanced visual elements that I love to incorporate into my sites. However, WordPress weblogs are fabulous for simple blogging and linking with sites like Digg and Facebook for posting and cross-posting over several platforms. So you can expect this thing to change. Let’s get on to the next post and my gripe with Facebook.