Why does Facebook delete some avatars' accounts and leave others alone?

[Rowan Sporg]

A year or so ago, Facebook closed my account and a lot of others belonging to SL avatars because we were not real people.  I made a page for a fictional character, but it's not much use because I can't have friends.  Yesterday, I decided that I would open another Facebook account using a different email address, intending to put nothing on the page to indicate that I was a SL avatar.  I opened it and searched for some of my old avatar friends.  I found several, all of whom have never had their accounts closed.  I sent friend requests to three of them.  Then FB locked me out and a message popped up saying that someone had reported that I was not a real person, so my account was locked.  Later, on my RL account, I looked to see how many accounts that obviously belonged to SL avatars I could find.  There were too many to count.

Does anyone have any idea why FB is very attentive to preventing some avatars, like me, from having accounts, but seemingly is content to leave others alone indefinitely.  When I had an account, I never did anything offensive, so it can't be related to behavior.

While we're talking about it, why do you think FB doesn't want avatars to have accounts?  Sure, someone pretending to be a real person that they are not is a problem.  But why is it a problem when it is obvious that the accountholder is an avatar and is not trying to deceive anyone.  After all, an avatar account brings eyeballs to ads just the same as a RL person's account.

[mikka Luik]

Well, to answer your last point first, FB terms ('rights and resp') section 4 starts with 'Facebook users provide their real names and information..'. So, no avatars. As to why some are nuked and not others, from some blogs I have seen there are those out there who have a passion for naming SL avatars as being false. Not sure how it works as I wiped my account years ago but expect there is some reporting process. Wouldn't surprise me.

So in short - because they can?

[Pussycat Catnap]

The same reason some people in SL get in trouble for violating the TOS and some don't.

Too many users for them to snoop us all all the time, so they wait for people to file reports.

 

 

[Marcusgay Lefevre]

while talking about this, I`ve had this thoughts in last weeks too..., but i`ve my rl name as page name and few rl photos posted there too (yes, i actually don´t mind to mix SL and RL)..., only use my SL name as shown display name, as FB offers this option. But is use my FB to 90% for my avatar...and other stuff -.-

I might be wrong, but i got in mind that this actually may be a valid way Facebook accepts about avatar profiles?

And for the other pure SL avatar profiles: If no one reports, no one judges. But as in SL as well, there always people who have too much time and just seek for things to cause trouble to people who have not done anything really wrong in fact. Ah yes..., in RL it has this people too..., almost forgot >.>

[Amethyst Jetaime]

The reason Facebook insists that all people be real people is that Facebook data mines profiles and life details for marketing purposes.  That is how they make their money.  Since an avatar is not a 'real person' then their information is not of any value to them.

It's probably almost impossible to enforce other than when people report you, just because of the number of accounts they have.

[Ziggy21 Slade]

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Rowan Sporg wrote:

While we're talking about it, why do you think FB doesn't want avatars to have accounts?  Sure, someone pretending to be a real person that they are not is a problem.  But why is it a problem when it is obvious that the accountholder is an avatar and is not trying to deceive anyone.  After all, an avatar account brings eyeballs to ads just the same as a RL person's account.

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I think this is a very good point. A couple of weeks ago I watched the award winning documentary Tallhotblonde  which tells the true story of a woman who deceieved two men using FB and other social networks resulting in the murder of one of the men perpetrated by the other. The woman and one of the men were leading total fantasy lives with their online personas, deceiving each other constantly, ultimately this was discovered and led to tragedy. It struck me that had they just come to SL, they could have lead out their fantasy lives 'honestly' and no one would have minded or felt they had been lied to. Having what FB consider to be a 'real' account can be far more dangerous and far more deceptive than an account which is open about its fantasy aspect.

[Qwalyphi Korpov]

The resident who provided the previous content, if any, has replaced it with this generic statement.

[Rowan Sporg]

What puzzles me most is how fat it happened.  The account was locked within 15 minutes of being created.  The only information I had entered was that I attended Hunter High and Hillcrest College.  I had not put up any pictures and had not posted anything at all, let alone anything about SL.  I would think it would have been very unlikely that a user would have stumbled on the account and reported it. Even if a user saw it, I doubt they would suspect it belonged to an avatar, since there was no reference to SL and no pictures of avatars.  Hunter High and Hillcrest College could raise suspicion, but it would be mild because there are RL institutions with those names.  

I'm guessing it was done automatically by software.  Having both Hunter High and Hillcrest College on it could contribute, but I'm thinking the major trigger was sending friend requests to three avatars and no one else.  I also wonder if the reason FB leaves some of the avatar accounts alone is that it is using them as bait to identify new avatar accounts like mine.

Any more thoughts?

[MoiselleErin Teardrop]

FB could sell the info of avatars to vendors on the MP.

I mean obviously FB has not thought to try this cause poor ol Zuckerberg doesn't have 10 billion dollars yet and is barely eeking by. He needs every dollar he can get.

 

Gosh I am sorry, I mis-typed that, he doesn't have 20 billion just yet. Silly me