Special Warning: Your Cosplay Facebook Account May Already Be Gone.
Suddenly and without warning, cosplayer facebook pages are disappearing! It seems as though anyone with the word ‘cosplay’ in their Facebook username has had their accounts deleted without explanation. Some theories hitting the news feed now are that facebook wants to concentrate cosplayer activities to fan pages only, but only time will tell. As of this moment we have not heard of any fan pages being effected. If you or a loved-one use the word cosplay in a personal username, it may already be too late.
We will keep you updated as we learn more.
(Editor’s Update: Nerd Caliber has e-mailed Facebook’s corporate headquarters and has yet to receive a response from them concerning their actions.)
(Second Update – 10:25PM EST – Facebook has neither answered my e-mail or returned my phone call. However The Daily Dot did receive a response from their media agency.)
Most of the cosplay accounts have been deleted if you have a page associated with it, well that's gone too.
I would say, since no one reads the terms of service, that it is because this:
Facebook users provide their—— real names and information——-, and we need your help to keep it that way. Here are some commitments you make to us relating to registering and maintaining the security of your account:
You will not provide any —-false personal information—– on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.
You will not create—- more than one —–personal account.
Luckily my page is just a page.
Actually, the warning came quite a while ago. I know many people who changed their "Photography Name" profiles to their real names because of this. They were told to either change the name of the profile, or turn it into a page.
If you had your Cosplay Profile deleted today, it's cause you ignored the warnings EVERYONE got about 4-6 months ago.
So yes. There were warnings.
That people ignored them doesn't constitute "Without Warning."
Actually, the warning came quite a while ago. I know many people who changed their “Photography Name” profiles to their real names because of this. They were told to either change the name of the profile, or turn it into a page.
If you had your Cosplay Profile deleted today, it’s cause you ignored the warnings EVERYONE got about 4-6 months ago.
So yes. There were warnings.
That people ignored them doesn’t constitute “Without Warning.”
Considering I delete must of the shit FB sends me, for me it was. I'm so busy with my personal life I couldn't give two fucks about something FB sent out half a year ago.
My page was only three months old. So how could I get a warning?
My cosplay page is still here. I'm just gonna delete the word cosplay just in case.
I NEVER saw a single warning or else I would’ve done something. Plus I was working on a cruise ship with no internet so that apparent ‘WARNING’ did little to nothing. But I’m pretty sure people wouldn’t have ignored it if they saw it. It obviously wasn’t widely put out there and if it was, it was only among Photographers and obviously no known within the cosplay community.
I rather them delete ROLE PLAY than COSPLAY. Roleplayers are posing as real celebs and such and screwing with people.
Well then…that's kinda on you.
When you're given an eviction notice in the mail and you toss the mail away without reading it, who's fault is it when the sheriff knocks on your door two months later and says "You're out. Now."
"BUT I HAVEN'T PACKED ANYTHING YET!!!"
Yeah. It's like that.
Except when you get evicted, they don't send you a notice 6 months ago, and then show up on your doorstep to kick you out. And no offense, but sending out warnings months ago, and then not follow up with a single peep…that's lame.
Sending out a warning was something they did as a FAVOR.
Facebook doesn't have to.
In their TOS, which you agree to abide by when signing up for an account, it clearly states you may not have more than one account on Facebook.
http://screencast.com/t/qPXZxplsgS
I'm rather sick of seeing people try to pass the buck when it's clearly their own fault.
And people say "Oh, well you need to show some empathy…"
No I don't. If you're doing 220 mph on a bike down the highway and crash and lose your leg cause of it, that's ALL on you. And I have no qualms saying "Well, duh, you're a dumbass." If you want empathy, go see a priest.
I NEVER got a warning. I’ve had my account for 2 years and now it’s just gone. I had 600 friends and thousands of tagged photos and theyre gone now… I would’ve changed my name had I known…
Affected, not effected.
LOL Lyn sent me a friend request JUST so she could block me 😀
Head in the sand won't stop the truth, dearie.
It never does.
I run the fan-page for the Salad Time Soldiers, a sera myu tribute group based here in ohio, and it seems like that page isn't affected. it may not affected because it doenst have the word "cosplay" in it.
If it's a fan-page that's fine. If it's a FB account that's a different story.
^that. Plus, any fan pages that were linked to/created by cosplay FB accounts are gone. All the pages I created were linked to this one, so it's safe.
same with mine. the STS fanpage is linked to my account 🙂
Not all roleplayers are posing as celebrities. There are some roleplayers who are using fictional characters from TV shows, and their own original characters based on such shows. I'm not into such thing, but I think they deserve some slack as well.
If you didn’t know… they are alredy deleting rp’s thing… and fucking our lives. You don’t like Rp, it’s ok… But don’t talk shit of it.
I had no warning and with gmail it keeps any and all emails (and no they were not deleted), looking back 4-6 months, I DID NOT GET A SINGLE EMAIL – or otherwise I would have made changes. So it does constitute “WITHOUT WARNING” in my case.
Thanks
Here is the form for appealing to reenable a facebook account. Note that this is for accounts that have violated facebook account Terms of Service.|.
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact/?id=260749603972907
As a science teacher, I cringe at the misspelling of affected. ARGH!
There was *NO* warning as I see none in my Mailbox when I checked it last week.
Then again, my Cosplay Account was created like 3 months ago or less ago, to keep non-close Cosplay Friends away from my Main Account. :/
Mike Penny, I'm not a photographer or business entity and did not receive any kind of warning regarding the requirement to change my account name or be disabled. Do you have a screen cap of what the warning looked like?
Hey, ass. I didn’t send you a friend request. FB locked up when I was going to block you and sent one. I CANCELED it immediately but the desparate person you are, accepted it. So I had to delete you and THEN block as I had fully intended to do.
I don’t need to put my head in the sand to see what a douche you are, merely just choose to ignore you instead. Have a nice, lonely life dear sir.
David Hwang you are right however the ones posing as precreated non fiction characters are manipulating someones copyright. That is someones creation and intellectual property. By law its fanfiction and illegal.. if author or characters creator complained then the person should comply and take it down. As for ones they own themselves in a fandom that already exists I feel that is a gray area and can be debated.
Also those nonfictional characters that are portrayed by actors should have their image protected too. Its a fine line…
I don't, no, since I only have this account. But Back in December there was a huge stink as many Cosplayers and Photographers either had to change their account names or they got banned. I heard through them and witnessed first hand multiple people who either got account deletions because they tried to skate by or had changed their names and simply added in (Something Cosplay) in parenthesis after it to avoid account disabling.
It sucks, yes. And I lost a lot of contacts because of it. One thing that WAS mentioned was if you contact Facebook and provide them with proof of Identity, they'll reactivate your account, you'll just have to have it as "Iggy Tissera (Iggy Cosplay)" in the account name. And I believe it becomes a permanently locked name. But you'll get all your contacts and info back.
I can see you’re really ignoring me.
AU CONTRAIRE MON CHERI!!!
You say one thing but do another!!
So what you’re saying is…you fail at doing things correctly the first time.
Probably explains why you failed to read the TOS.
BOOM!!
Mike Penney: You are so willing to defend Facebook’s illegal business practice. Facebook is big,booming company,but did you know if takes only a few unhappy and angry users to bring Facebook crashing down to its knees? One day,all the people you accuse of ignoring the “warnings” FB sent out will all band together and literally bring Facebook crashing down to it’s knees. Think about that,Mike. One dy,Facebook will wake up to find all their users have been deleted or simply abandoned them,which means no one will be left to click on sponsors or buy FB gift cards to financaially support FB. Sponsors will sever their contracts with Facebook and leave to find other sites to advertise on,and stores and gas stations will stop selling FB gift cards. FB will eventually go bankrupt and be forced to shut down. nyone can run a big company,mike-but it is the foolish and greedy bigoted business owner like Facebook that learns their lesson way too late.
You can keep the word cosplay in the page name. The "real name" limitation only applies to profiles.
“illegal business practice”
Ha ha ha. Oh wow!
I think that the role players should be focused on mostly. I mean, they are making these profiles under fake names and displaying their role plays in public. I actually had one such person on my page (I deleted them a while back) that was rping with his gf and shamelessly displaying them especially when they got sexual and explicit. Facebook should be focusing on that mainly because they are putting up these false pages and screwing with us. I mean yeah, it’s one thing to post an anime character as a profile picture, but it’s a whole other thing to make a fake profile based on that anime character.
And yet another fool who fails to comprehend what the words “Terms of Service” mean and what “By creating an account, you agree to abide by the TOS” means.
Let me guess, the better part of you was shot across the motel drapes, yes?
You’re your own grandfather?
Geez.. seriously…
Frankly this situation bothers me little to none, and I laugh at the situation because not only did there stock go down by 1.5%, they are now resorting to cracking down policies. The only problem I had with it, is when looking to retrieve my account back it had asked for a picture of my driver’s license and when I asked can i censor out the information that is not needed like my license number and they said it is not allowed to be photo shopped in anyway. To that I am just going to be making a new account with my real name which is not far from my cosplay name dollicious and I think people should just do the same. Everyone is saying let’s move to cosplay.com , I reccomend it in general but, if you are trying to spread the word about your cosplay that is not a place to do it. Sadly facebook is used by just about everyone now and no one is going to bother to move to a new social network just because of a group of people were deleted. That isn’t how society works, and the 30% of people that are arguging should honestly stand down. Trying to argue with a company that makes millions per year, is not even close to being smart. Just letting you guys know alittle more on the situation. It had nothing to do with ATTACKING COSPLAYERS, it had to do with them getting a tighet grip on there policies. We should have read the terms in the agreements but obviously no one does. So we at our own faults for getting our accounts deleted.
Hello Mike,
I actually signed up in June, which was clearly not 4-6 months ago, I was not issued a warning at all.
I got NO warning as well…and looking back I didn’t receive a e-mail at all, I would’ve changed my name had I known.
i miss my friends, they’re gone ..
this is so s*ck & rasist… I'm sad 🙁
so if I use the cosplay for profile picture is that any chance I will get banned?
just WHY IT'S HAVE TO BE COSPLAY account that deleted? are Facebook blind about those annoying role-players? (thanks for Mia Carla, I really agree with you 🙂 ).
@cosplay Aisu Has been DISBLED. I don't know suck for this.
I sended mail for staff yesterday. It's don't have anything.
No, there were no warnings, I never once got one. I check all of my emails, and even the ones in my spam account, I NEVER got one, and there's no way it slipped by me, I check all emails (yes, including spam) before I delete them, and I never got one.
My question and bedazzlement is, why single out the Cosplay profiles? Type in "photographer" in the search field and look at all the thousands of profiles that end in "-photographer", is FB going to delete those? Is Wall Street going to be shocked as they see Facebook's stock price decline even more?
“As of this moment we have not heard of any fan pages being effected.”
Mine went down at the same time as my profile. From what I understand, most people’s pages weren’t disabled so I’m not sure why mine was, but regardless I was able to appeal the action to facebook. For other cosplayers waiting on information about their appeals, I appealed at 5am on the dot on the 21st and they sent me their decision at 6pm on the 22nd. They forced me to convert my personal profile into a page- which IMO is silly since I had a page attached to that account. I didn’t get the option of just changing my name which some others were given.
In my case, they viewed my account as something like a business, not as one belonging to an individual. This is just because of my name, mind you. I’ve had that personal account for years and used it everyday like a normal fb user, but just with a last name of ‘cosplay’. They don’t seem to look at activity on the profile, probably because they don’t have time. I hope that other cosplayers are given the option to change their account name, rather than this transition to a page. It is a much better outcome because it’s much less of a hassle and you loose basically nothing that way. For anyone who is wondering what’s so wrong with being forced into a page- Having your account *only* be a page and having a page attached to a private account are VERY different.
When you convert your private account to a page, you can only access your page- nothing else. You can’t post on your friend’s walls or follow their activity. Everything is basically gone. There is no facebook feed, search bar, direct message system, etc. My friends list was converted into ‘likes’ on my new page. At least my old fan page was reactivated and kept intact, but I had to remove this new second fan page from view. I lost all my personal stuff and had to create a new personal account so I can talk to my friends again and actually use any of the features of facebook. That’s why I’m saying to hope for a name change, rather than this forced page transition. Maybe even petition them again through email. It’s worth not loosing all access to facebook interaction on your account.
Hope this info helps someone in the same shoes!
Cosplayer Nation: The Documentary which had over 3000 fans on our Cosplay Nation profile, was affected. Another fb profile affected was the Cosplay ComCom convention in Mexico, though they have a fan page now. During this most frustrating time, we broadcast this video to show what we have done to Appeal (and any updates from facebook). Please read the youtube comments, they are also important – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNSaC_NaUgg.
Last year, during the run-up to our annual fan convention, we ran all the usual ads- SciFi, Fantasy, Anime, cons, etc. The ENTIRE cosplay ad group was rejected by FB because it was considered an “adult fetish activity” in their view.
Haha you stupid people who cosplay are getting to face reality that the real world considers you weird. Go find yourselves a real hobby and get back to the real world people!