What Happens When the Social Media Guy Gets Banned from Facebook
Portent Team Dec 10 2011
Today, I received this lovely message from Facebook.
I know what you’re thinking. What did straight-edge Doug do to anger his favorite social network? The short answer is that I posted a cartoon of two people having sex while making status updates on their phones with the caption, “Looks like this is the new definition of cyber sex.”
OK, that sounds bad, but keep in mind this post was on a client’s Facebook page that markets lubricants and other products to enhance sexual pleasure for women after menopause. Plus, it was pretty funny if I do say so myself.
Why Did I Get Banned By Facebook
For the record, I’ll agree that my post did straddle the line presented in their community standards. It was a cartoon, but it did allude to the existence of sexual intercourse.
The real question should be: Why did I get caught?
Another Portintite co-worker found this image on Facebook, which was posted by a friend of hers. After the client approved the idea of posting this picture on their Facebook page, it went live around 12:00 p.m. PST and generated more traffic than any other post on the client’s wall. It was popular, but tons of sexually explicit Facebook posts are popular and they don’t get shut down by the big bad Zuck.
What really tipped off Facebook was when the Facebook advertising campaign we were running for the client pulled in the risky image as a page post ad, which means it used the latest page update as an advertisement.
What We Should All Learn From This
We all have to walk the line between hilarious/interesting and offensive from time to time, and I’m fine with causing a little controversy. However, if you don’t want Facebook finding out about your controversial posts, don’t advertise them.
My Facebook ban isn’t that serious. They pulled my post down from my client’s Facebook page and they have disabled my ability to create any updates for the next 24 hours.
Do you think I should have been banned for this image?
Portent Team
3 Comments
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Pretty funny image, but I can see why FB might want to keep you as far away from flirting with that line as possible. That’s gotta make it difficult to market funny/viral material for your client in question lol.
Okay. That’s pretty freaking hysterical.
Americans are far too uptight. If we spent more time doing the aforesaid “unmentionable” behavior, and less time trying to hide it or policing its appearance in the media, we’d all be much better off. And also less horny.
So how long does it take before your posting privileges are restored? I got a message saying that I would be blocked for FIFTEEN DAYS, but surely there is someone you can contact who can help resolve the problem, and if so, who? I was accused of posting SPAM on someone’s page but I did nothing of the kind. So now what do I do? How long on average will I have to wait? I’ve e-mailed the following addresses: abuse@facebook.com, info@facebook.com and appeals@facebook.com, but it being a Saturday, I doubt that anyone’s in the office until Monday to answer me, and they have no telephone support, so….how do I get around this issue? What do I do? How do I fix this, or do I sit and wait until Facebook gets off its lazy behind and fixes it FIFTEEN DAYS FROM NOW? I’m NOT going to wait that long and I want answers on how to fix this on one’s own, if there are even any. What does one do? HELP!