Social Not Working

I've gone, against my will, a week without Facebook.

A few months ago, a friend of mine invited me to sign up at Facebook. (Hi Kevin. This is all your fault.) I was reluctant, and understandably so, as I already have major time management problems, but I knew that Marcio had signed up a month or so earlier, and so, as is my way, I dipped a toe in, then two, and then leapt headlong. At first it seemed silly, something I would probably get over quickly as I had grown bored of both Friendster and myspace within minutes of joining, and it seemed like just another alienating example of "what the kids are doing today." But it got me in ways that I did not expect. First, and this is social networking 101, I was amused by the interconnections between otherwise unrelated people in my periphery, and fascinated to see how different people manifest themselves in such an environment. Mostly, at first, it helped me feel connected to the outside world when I sit here in my room for hours on end with no other social interaction. But then other themes began to surface. People from my high school found me, and I realized that I had never come out to a single one of them and had run away, with nothing resembling closure. I had never tried to integrate my current self with the person I was back then, and it was liberating to finally begin that process. I was able to get moral support from strangers on my painful quest for a job, and then managed to score an interview for a job through a Facebook contact. I was getting something out of it, and yes, sometimes I would drift around on the site aimlessly for long stretches of time when I could be doing more productive things, but there were other times that that hint of a social network made me feel connected to something and actually inspired me to get things done.

So what happened?

There's that cynical cliche, "No good deed goes unpunished." It's not something I believe and in fact, I tend to be wary of the sort of people who would spout this line and actually mean it. But in this case, an attempt at a good deed has cost me.

I became aware of a small but not insignificant number of people on Facebook using fake pictures, masquerading as other people. It's happened to me, that my picture's been misappropriated, and so when I see it happening to other people that I know (or sometimes people I don't know) I tend to take action. I found a profile a few weeks ago by a person going by the name of Manos Funtu, but the picture he was using was of a person that I know in Philadelphia, and that person's name is not Manos, or anything even like Manos. I added him as a facebook-friend to see his other details, to verify that it wasn't actually my acquaintance using an odd pseudonym for some reason. But once I got into the profile it was pretty apparent this guy was just stealing the pic, and maybe I wouldn't have done anything about it, but I was disturbed by all the compliments publicly posted on Funtu's profile, compliments founded on a lie. So I found a form on Facebook's help page and reported the profile as fake, offering to provide verification if necessary.

Nothing happened for days. Then on Wednesday, November 12, I received this email:

Hi Charlie,
After reviewing the reported abuse, we have removed all offending content based on our Terms of Use.
If you need to report offensive material to Facebook in the future, please write to us at privacy@facebook.com with a link to the offensive material and a description of the problem. We will then review this material and take the appropriate action. Please be assured, these reports will be kept confidential.
Thanks for contacting Facebook,
Maude
User Operations
Facebook


I went to sign in to verify that his profile was gone and received this message: "Your account has been disabled by an administrator. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here." I reviewed Facebook's terms of usage and found no rule that I as in violation of, so I emailed them politely and pointed out that there must be a mistake. Twenty-four hours later, I emailed again. This morning, I emailed a third time and I am still unable to sign in.

This morning I received yet another message from a friend (hi Kevin) asking me what happened to my Facebook profile. For some reason it set me off, not angry at my friend obviously but angry, again, at the people at Facebook. I'm sure it was an honest mistake. Maybe Maude had had a long day, maybe she lost concentration for a minute and accidentally disabled the wrong profile, and as someone who can be a bit sloppy at times, I certainly sympathize. But their failure to so much as reply to any of my emails is driving me nuts. Even if they had found me in valid violation of some rule, it would be nice to know that, but I'm left wondering if it was actually something I brought on myself, and wondering if I'll ever be allowed back on, and wondering, at this point, if I even want to participate any more. I feel toyed with.