Twitter and Facebook can kill you without cause or recourse

by Jay on June 21, 2010

Twitter "Account Suspended" message
Image by .imelda via Flickr

A week ago, Robert Scoble called out Twitter for issuing death sentences without warning, explanation, or obvious chance for appeal. A “death sentence” in this case refers to the complete suspension of a Twitter account, such that the owner can’t log in. Apparently a friend of Scoble’s joked about selling his Twitter account — an action which violates Twitter’s Terms of Service — so Twitter suspended the friend’s account before it contacted him to explain why, or what he could do about it. Eventually, the account was restored, but only because the friend of Scoble gave an explanation that satisfied Twitter. That time his account was down is time he’ll never get back, and there’s no guarantee it won’t happen again.

Short form: Twitter can shut off your account any time it wants, and may only give it back if it feels like it. Addendum: Facebook has an almost identical policy and a history of acting on it.

We’ve discussed previously how rare it is to own a popular Twitter account. Facebook fans have a suggested dollar value, too. Yet these assets can be removed from your marketing portfolio without warning — and often without immediate explanation — for any perceived or assumed violation of terms of service that these service providers can and do change as they like.

Imagine if your phone company behaved in a similar fashion, disconnecting your phone number(s) because it didn’t care for the phone conversations you were having. Of course, that could never happen — and not (just) because of government regulation. You pay for your phone service, so the phone company has a certain financial incentive to care for your business. Facebook, Twitter, and most web apps are free. Zero dollars buys you zero service level guarantees. Never forget that you have access to Twitter and Facebook only so long as it is convenient and beneficial to them.

Hope you’ve got a backup plan.

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  • http://twitter.com/egovpioneer Paul Day

    I think this is a great post. You're really hitting the nail on the head.

    Perhaps it would be better if these services had a cost to users, so customers could have some kind of recourse. Or maybe this is a business opportunity.

    Web 3.0 might be about pay services that use money as friction to drive value in social network experiences.