my facebook account has been disabled

My Facebook Account Has Been Disabled!

It was a feeling I never thought I would have, when it came to Social Media.

As part of a new project I am working on, teaching Social Media to High School Students and Teachers, I had set up a new Facebook account. The idea was to make sure that the students and teachers had a way to communicate with me, that was outside of my “personal” Facebook account. I had also set up a Facebook Page and Group for that project, connected to that account. Then, one day, I got an email from Facebook, letting me know that the account had been reported as “fake” and was being suspended until I was able to prove I was who I said I was.

If you ever have your account disabled by Facebook, this is what you will see when you login.

Now, I don’t blame my friend for reporting the account. With the number of people spoofing other users on Facebook, it was the prudent thing for him to do (although I do recommend contacting the real user, to ask if they have another account set up, first). Still, it was a week’s worth of frustration, as I had to do the Dance of Identification with the Facebook folks, in order to prove who I was the person I said was. A project not moving forward is always frustrating.
Then, after a week of emails, scanned ID and more emails, the notification that the account has been reactivated and I was able to log in again. Yay! The good news was short lived, however. 14-minutes after the notification, as I was logged into my personal account celebrating the return to work on my project, I was suddenly kicked out of the account and informed that my personal account had been disabled. What!?! Why!?!

You will need at least two pieces of ‘Official’ ID to prove who you are, when your account is disabled or suspended



I checked my email and, sure enough, there was a notification that the account was disabled because….wait for it….it violated the Facebook Community Standards on Use of Authentic Identity. At that moment, I wasn’t shaking my head at the irony of having the account, that I used to initially contact Facebook Help Services in resolving the original problem, was now being disabled. Nor was I angry that I was suddenly not able to access the various Facebook Pages I administer to, or that I had my work on my 30-year High School Reunion interrupted. No, the emotion I felt was much deeper than that. It was the feeling of sudden, un-nerving, panic.

Why? It’s not like I have lost something that I own. It’s not as if the world will come to a grinding halt if I am not checking my Facebook profile. It would be a complete pain in the backside to have to re-create everything that I have done and connected to, using older FB account, but not an insurmountable task. So why did I have a chill run down my spine when I could no longer log into an account that I have operated for years.