Hi!
Yeah...
It's nice to meet you too... uh I'm Spiderman

The Sound of Young America

Wow, I try to do this "blogthis" thingy and I get screwed by the Blogger. thanks, google!

Cheerio
Peter

Spidey is frickin' mad today. Do you want to know why? Because Spidey's Facebook account got deleted yesterday. Well, at some point last week, anyway. I asked them why they deleted my account, and all they can say is this:

Hey,
Fake names are a violation of our Terms of Use.
Thanks for contacting Facebook.

WTF?!??! Point one: my name is not fake; point two: Terms of Use?!? What the fuck?!? Facebook has terms of use?!??

So I go to the Facebook Terms of Use. I find these telling pearls of wisdom:
&2: [..] Facebook may terminate your Membership and/or prohibit you from using or accessing the Service or the Web site for any reason, at any time.
&3: [..] • impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent yourself or your affiliation with any person or entity;[..]
• use or attempt to use another's account, service or system without authorization from the Company, or create a false identity on the Service or the Web site.

bastards! they were telling the truth. but i still thought it was so unfair. wouldn't you? it's not my fault i have two identities!! that's just the way life is!!

anyway, i submitted a complaint yesterday and it went to arbitration.* the jury's ruling just came in and is below.

The arbitrating committee ascertains that the actions of Facebook, Inc. in deleting alter ego accounts are unfair, contrary to law, and morally deplorable.

Facebook, Inc. (hereafter "the defendant") has determined in their Terms of Use that accounts whose names do not correspond to their owner's (hereafter "alter ego accounts") are not valid. This contention has several problems with it. Facebook is dependent on a user base that utilises the service primarily for the sake of its enjoyment; that is, the defendant falls under the statutes governing digital "leisure services" as defined by 41 U.S.C.A. 601. That is to say, the defendant is not providing "a tangible or measurable bilateral exchange of products or services" but rather "a service connected to an unilaterally defined profit enterprise". The largely youthful user base (Gutierrez 2005) that endorses the service does so for its own sake, and therefore does not bother with the more technical aspects of the interchange. The digital contract users enter when acquiring a Facebook account is thus considered a mere formality, as the vast majority of users do not read it, and frequently forget they accepted it (Allenberg 2006). Such a contract is legally unenforceable, as provided in 41 U.S.C.A. 604, when the defendant "fails to (a) state the terms of the contract in visible and causal language, (b) provide appropriate warning prior to final action, and (c) enforce provisos uniformly across all users."

The language of the statute governing this type of contract is quite clear. By law, When all three of the above conditions hold, a digital contract such as the one provided by the defendant cannot be enforced. Facebook fails to state the terms of the contract in a visible and causal language, since, as mentioned before, most users do not read the Terms of Use; in fact, 92 percent are unaware they have entered into a contract, and of the 8 percent that are, an astonishing 98 percent do not know that the Terms of Use stipulate that alter ego accounts are disallowed (Allenberg 2006). This is clear evidence that condition (a) holds. Condition (b) holds true without prejudice, as the plaintiff submitted an affidavit confirming that he had received no advance warning that he was in violation of the Terms of Use (Exhibit D), and the defendant has not denied it. Finally, condition (c) also holds without prejudice, since there is ample evidence that to this day, hundreds of alter ego accounts still exist in Facebook (Supreyaporn 2006).

The defendant is thus in clear violation of federal statutes governing online contracts. The arbitration committee rules for the plaintiff.

Works Cited
Allenberg, F. Statistical Analysis of Online Communities. Richmond, 2006.
Gutierrez, C. Online Social Networks User Analysis. Boston, 2005.
Supreyaporn, F. Alter ego: Studies of double identities on the internet. Berkeley, 2006.

LOL! That will show them. After all, am I Peter Parker, or aren't I. just because i have an alter ego, it doesn't mean i can't have a facebook for it too! hahaha!!!

they still haven't given my account back though. =( i might have to goto court.**

Peter

* No i didn't!
** No i won't!