Jun 4, 2014

Facebook Temporary Blocks on the Increase

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Recently many players have been given temporary bans from liking, commenting, sending friend requests and even inbox messages. Although this is nothing new, it seems to be happening more frequently to game players. Many are totally cut off from communicating and there is nothing they can do except wait out the ban. According to Facebook the bans could last anywhere from a few to 30 days. They seem to resolve on their own but it’s very stressful for players who receive them. To prevent these bans it’s important to not auto-like or auto-comment on posts. Performing too many of the same action can get you banned. What makes things worse is other players can report you to Facebook for sending them friend requests and/or messages. It can and does happen so you should be careful as to who you interact with on Facebook. Sometimes Facebook assumes that you have a virus on your computer so they block a device. Using a different computer resolves the issue but not everyone has multiple devices (or the viruses or malware Facebook suspects). Often times Mafia Wars requests are marked as spam and you can’t help but wonder if this is a result for innocent players who try to post them. If that is the case then there is nothing we can do about it but maybe Zynga could reach out to Facebook. Thanks to DViz Nan and Bob Mandel for sharing their experiences and to all who posted on our fan page.

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36 comments:

  1. I don't use scripts that auto-comment and got blocked after my very first comment 2 days ago and counting..... :/

    I simply helped on a Mexican Part Post for a friend and 'copied + pasted' from my game that 'max help was already received'. I immediately got a pop-up saying something like my comment was noted as 'common by too many other users' so as a security precaution I'm blocked till further notice.... :/

    I can understand the 'why' cos it's obviously the way they have of catching repeating/spamming viruses out there but jeez they surely need to change this method. They seem to have it trained on 'common comments by all' rather than 'individual accounts volume'.....

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    1. This is what happens when you you have 2 entitys Zinga / Facebook, and is why zinga needs its own friends wall so Zinga can create its own rules. With that Zinga needs its own portal (username/password) and allow user to link if need be to a Facebook or Myspace account. Therefore people would feel safer to give money to a game they can continue, if their Facebook or Myspace account is compromised.

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    2. No auto player here either, this is exactly what happened to me, have heard if you click 'like' too many times it has the same result. Meantime, I am an admin for a different game group and can no longer play an active role while this ban is in place, nor can I communicate by Facebook to my family who are thousands of miles away. Once I get my account back, I will more than likely say goodbye to Mafia Wars as they need to be fighting this with Facebook to reinstate all accounts to full use!

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  2. Has anyone actually read the Facebook Community Standards. They mention there are limits in place but can't actually release what they are due to different factors. What the...
    It also mentions spam. Does this mean that Facebook are guilty of their own standards by Spamming us with adverts?

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  3. all i did was a manual comment on property part and bam cant comment like or pm or send friend request about time zynga stepped in and fast one of my friends been banned for over 2 weeks another 8 days their few days is a joke

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  4. P.S. and no virus or malware on my machine its clean which was the excuse fb gave in pop up

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  5. also cant like a page either

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  6. I have never auto'ed anything. and still got the ban. this is typical FB BS

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  7. If we are being blocked how can we send messages.....

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  8. ..at the end it looks, that we can forget all features which makes a game a "social game". MW without the help of others and our help too, is completely senseless.

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  9. I have been in jail for around a week now.. I can not even join in our family chat... I can't do anything .... I wish they would please release me as I don't have a virus or malware... I run Malware bytes all the time and I have a virus protection on at all times...IPlease someone get me out of jail...I can't find a way to see how my account is standing with facebook either...

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  10. I was banned for 8 days and today when I realized I was no longer banned I clicked 'like" on a family members post and when I went to comment I was banned once again. I know people that are banned that don't run scripts and people that have 2 or 3 accounts running scripts that are not being banned. There seems to be no reasoning behind this at all.

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  11. I've been on lockdown going on 2 weeks now. With the money they make off games you would thing they would fix this. Been playing since NY but if this is going to happen I'll have to quit! If enough people stop playing maybe zynga will get it together with Facebook.

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  12. One further comment: I don't have a virus on my laptop and I am blocked on my other laptop as well. The block says my post is too similar to other's comments. It's mafia wars hello???

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  13. I am now on my SECOND ban in EIGHT days.

    I do not go mental with the likes etc. The new algorithm Facebook are using means if you play the game for over an hour or so you stand the risk of being blocked.

    I got my account back this morning and 2 hours later it was blocked again.

    THIS IS A BLOODY JOKE!

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  14. I can't help but wonder if this is because of Facebook not being happy with Zynga not wanting to give them a larger cut a few years ago and this is their very strange way of punishing users of their services. It's so ridiculous.

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  15. i communicate with my mafia by leaving messages when i ice , level up , things like that .. now only if they read them lol

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  16. i have been blocked Thursday 29 May "no virus malware in my computer"

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  17. i'm on an eighth day ban now ....my biggest issue is it won't tell me what was wrong or how long the ban is for - tough to enjoy the game when i can't communicate with my mafia, let alone can't talk with grandchildren and other r/l family - perhaps zynga needs bombarded with e mail about this - i pay for vip for over two years now - facebook is risking zynga money intake as well

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  18. they shut me down for 10 days on anything I tried to get on also all my Family ho uses the same computers were affected It is really difficult to get help if you don't let people know you do help

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  19. I've been banned on my main account for everything,No messages, posts, likes..zilch. Never auto like and never abused. can't even get on MMLL page on main account

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  20. My main account has been blocked from doing everything. no posts, no messages, no likes zilch. Never abuse or auto like. WTH?

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  21. Well I'm in the same boat.. manually commenting and/or clicking "like" and BAM! got banned. Been about a week now... I cannot comment, like, use PM's or even change or post photo's!!! I cannot do much of anything!
    I think FB needs to get a better handle on who they are banning!! I do not comment/like automatically, I only do this manually so WTH??? To say this is frustrating is a complete UNDERSTATEMENT!!

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    1. Im locked out too Mindy, So much for " social network" bound and gagged. :(

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  22. I was blocked from commenting, likes, chatting and almost everything else for seven days because my comments were "too similar to those of other users." I do all commenting and liking manually--and the day that they blocked me, I had just started playing after being out most of the day. Well, today, I got full access back and...after a few "likes" and comments, got the exact same message and am blocked again!! So, once again, I can only communicate with Mafia Wars friends by a comment at the top of my own posts (upgrades, begs, etc.) and can't communicate with my other Facebook friends at all!! This is not good! :(

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  23. February 18
    More people you’ve sent friend requests to have said they don’t know you. It’s important to only send friend requests to people who know you personally, like classmates, friends, family and coworkers. To learn more, please visit the Help Center.
    The block will be active for 5 years 11 months 30 days and 5 hours more.

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  24. "If that is the case then there is nothing we can do about it but maybe Zynga could reach out to Facebook."
    hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
    Are you kidding us? Fat chance of this ever happening! Zynga missed one of my VIP payments. SOMEHOW they could confirm Facebook received my money, but SOMEHOW they couldn't talk to Facebook to fix it. They screwed up my VIP for weeks while they forced me to submit payments 3 more times and ask for refunds from Facebook for 3 out of 4 of the submissions. Facebook warned me and argued with me twice that they could not refund money for the same month. All of this because Zynga didn't get the first payment from Facebook, then Zynga kept renewing and canceling the VIP memberships every time Facebook would accept a new payment and cancel (or refund) a previous payment. I asked Zynga why they couldn't work directly with Facebook, but they never answered me, just kept sending me their stupid apologies and stupid form letters, telling me to resubmit my payment and request a refund for previous payment (which merely restarted VIP and got it canceled in less than 24 hours, despite being two completely different receipts!!). All this time, I was worried about losing over a year of continuity of payments. I think I ended up losing almost three months. Apparently they started me at the beginning of the 3-month cycle I was almost finished with. So yea . . . fat chance of Zynga ever doing anything that actually HELPS!!!

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  25. I am also blocked and I am told it is temporary but I can appeal it and I did. But idk, I don't think it will help . Also like many of you, I did not have any warning @ all and it was only tonight that I saw where they "say how long I will be blocked from posting to groups" which is the only thing I cannot do atm:. This is very difficult because I need to communicate with the people in my groups. If you want to see your reason for for your block, go to help on you FB profile, then settings, and next "your support dashboard" and you will see why and or when your block will be lifted. Also there you can click "appeal" it there. It says I am blocked from being able to post to groups atm and although they say "it is temporary" it also says I am blocked until until "June 28th at 1:46 PM" (this is my st time ever being blocked or anything like this and that seems like a long time to me especially for the 1st time and for no reason). I also had no warning and did not abuse the "posting to groups" feature. I am GM of a clan for mws and admin for some other groups mws related and also members of personal family related groups. I am also like many of you here that play mws. Worse, I am a emerald VIP emerald member and have been (emerald) for a few months (this gives you an idea of how much I have been loyal to zynga and the money I have payed (and I get this in return). Nothing like this has ever happened to me. I was told I was reported or something along those lines (perhaps because I posted something inappropriate), but anyone who knows me knows I have nor would ever do that. Nonetheless, I am here in the same boat as many of you, and so many other FB members out there. If you want to know how to look at your "support dashboard" I will include a ss here at the end of this post. Best of luck to you all, I honestly don't know just how much this will effect FB and zynga, but I think it will affect them in a big way somehow. Many people are confused and angry... and rightfully so. This is a "social network" and we are now told how we should communicate on this "social network" but like many of you we have communicated for years without any problems... This latest challenge many of us are facing makes no sense whatsoever.... And is a very bad move on both the part of FB and or zynga... Here is the ss, I hope it help and best of luck to all of you... http://prntscr.com/3q4jvv

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    1. I do not have anything on my support dashboard yet when I try to post it says Sorry, you can't post to Facebook from this account.
      For security reasons, your account has limited access to the site for a few days. If you have any questions, please contact our Help Center.

      If you think you're seeing this by mistake, please let us know.

      Tried both and nada!

      Ginger

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  26. I didn't and don't auto anything. Just got out of FB jail today after a week. Where is this few day's thing???

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  27. Bunch of nobody's with a little power. Bet it's a big laugh while they are having coffee breaks.

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  28. Jules, My dashboard just says I submitted a problem to facebook. No message of why or for how long my ban is staying.
    I have talked with several people who have been banned. All are saying this is the final straw.They all use FB for much more then just MW. No more MW posts are going to be happening on FB if it risks being banned. I have played MW since day one. sad to think it's done; but I am involved with groups and family on FB. They need to take preference. Sad.

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  29. you say you can use another computer, but what if you change the IP adress on the computer that is banned ???

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  30. I was in the same boat. My block was lifted today after 7 days. I read that if you keep trying to comment/like, the block will continue longer. I uninstalled MW a few days ago and while my block was in place, I tried to re-enter MW and it said:
    "Application Unavailable The application you're trying to use is either no longer available or access is restricted." I tried to enter today and I was able to enter the game and had full access to my fb account.

    I would suggest uninstalling MW, and if you are able to enter, that would mean that your block has been lifted. If you keep trying to click like or comment, I think that your block continues longer.

    Anyways, I am done with playing MW. I use facebook for more than playing games and I don't want to risk getting blocked again. It is a shame how dependant we are on facebook for communicating at a distance :/

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  31. My dashboard is completely empty. I don't auto post anything and not sure why I was blocked. This is ridiculous. If we don't know what caused it, what's to keep it from happening again and again?

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  32. I'm in FB jail, almost a week now and I don't auto comment or auto like anything. All I did was comment on a couple of MW posts and that was it, locked down. It's pathetic. The fact you can't even communicate with FB is ridiculous. If they suspect a security breach or something then they should deal with it very differently because this is utter garbage.

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