What do you do when facebook deletes a group without any intimation?

By Umang Sonthalia on May 6, 2011 18 Comments / 9424 views

I admin a community of “4000” odd students working on “A Powerful Vocabulary” concept on facebook groups. Amazing interactions/discussions happening all over.

One fine day you login to facebook only to see a warning:

The group “Group Name” has been removed because it violated our Terms of Use. Among other things, groups that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed. We also take down groups that attack an individual or group, or advertise a product or service. Continued misuse of Facebook’s features could result in your account being disabled.

What do you do? This has happened in real today with me. Thoughts on what we can do?

Any sort of help greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

UPDATE – 13th May 2011.

I escalated this issue to the head of FB in India who was very kind to investigate and swung into action.

Umang and I received this message at 1235 pm:

Mr. Sonthalia,

This is to inform you that your page “Akash Ka Vocab Dhaba” has been reactivated. It was erroneously disabled. All your fans will be enabled within 72 Hrs.

Apologies for the inconvenience. Please feel free to reach out to me in case of doubt.

Thanks,

***********

LONG LIVE THE RODINHOODS.COM!!

Alok

Comments

Umang Sonthalia

18 Comments

Himanshu Mody May 7, 2011, 10:55 am

Start again – this time as a facebook page. the news of that group now runs on this page will spread like fire and you should be back to 4000 in couple of months.
Umang Sonthalia May 8, 2011, 9:37 am

I’m scared, but no one has been advertising any sort of product/service online. We only work on innovative ways to learn vocabulary. Its strange on the part of facebook to remove all the group data without even one “intimation” or “warning”.
Umang Sonthalia May 8, 2011, 9:38 am

Yes. We have done that only. Nothing much we could do about it. But the loss is of the data ie all the community wall-posts. Is there any way out to recover that?
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal May 8, 2011, 9:54 am

Umang,

Send me a note on ‘alok@games2win.com’ with relevant details ( just facts and your questions)

I will send it to some folks in Facebook.
Umang Sonthalia May 8, 2011, 11:17 am

Done. Thanks for extending help.
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal May 13, 2011, 4:48 am

Umang – the head of FB India has escalated this to the right person. stay tunes
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal May 13, 2011, 7:02 am

YIPEE!!!!!!

MESSAGE FROM FB!!!

Hi Alok,

Thanks for bringing this up. The group “Akash ka Vocab Dhaba” was taken down accidentally. Please let the concerned person know that It’ll take 48 to 72 Hrs for him to get all his fans back. I apologize for all the confusion.

Thanks,

Harsha
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal May 13, 2011, 7:02 am

Umang – once you get your group up, PLEASE talk about it as a blog post and help therodinhoods.wpengine.com!!!!!
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal May 13, 2011, 7:08 am

LIVE MESSAGE FROM FB:

Mr. Sonthalia,

This is to inform you that your page “Akash Ka Vocab Dhaba” has been reactivated. It was erroneously disabled. All your fans will be enabled within 72 Hrs.

Apologies for the inconvenience. Please feel free to reach out to me in case of doubt.

Thanks,

Faraaz Zubairy.
Akshay 'Backpacker' Chhugani May 13, 2011, 7:51 am

Seriously WOW !!!
Umang Sonthalia May 13, 2011, 8:06 am

Thanks a lot Alok Sir. This is amazing! Cheers to Rodinhooders!
Umang Sonthalia May 13, 2011, 8:06 am

I’m doing it right away!
Umang Sonthalia May 13, 2011, 8:07 am

Yes! I do owe every Rodinhooder a Chai. Yaay!
CHEERS
Umang Sonthalia May 13, 2011, 8:08 am

I just received the same message and quickly verified. Everything looks just the same in the group! 🙂
Umang Sonthalia May 13, 2011, 8:11 am

You are right Yatin. It was only possible because of continuous followups of Alok Sir, else this wouldn’t have been possible. In fact, I had personally lost hope that facebook would ever reactivate a group stating it to be an error from their end.
Satish K May 13, 2011, 10:35 am

Very impressive Alok !

With Facebook its usually its “Our decision is final and there will be no reviews”.

The Facebook/Google Burson-Marsteller fiasco is interesting. Write on it ! 🙂
Abey John May 13, 2011, 11:03 am

Nice work. Rodinhoods grows muscle and teeth. Yay! 🙂
Vijay Shetty May 16, 2011, 8:56 am

Cheers Alok…

You really are a knight in shining Armour…!!! God Bless You…!