Bumped From PhaseBook

I Got Bumped From PhaseBook -and I’m not sure what I did wrong. I mean, I know there are rules and all (I probably even read some of them when I signed up) , but I’m unaware if or how I broke them – or is it just a machine error – some glitch?

Our systems indicate that you've been highly active on PhaseBook lately and viewing pages at a quick enough rate that we suspect you may be running an automated script. This kind of Activity would be a violation of our Terms of Use and potentially of federal and state laws.

As a result, your account has been disabled. Please reply to this email with a description of your recent activity on PhaseBook. In addition, please confirm with us that in the future you will not scrape or otherwise attempt to obtain in any manner information from our website except as permitted by our Terms of Use, and that you will immediately delete and not use in any manner any such information you may have previously obtained.

We reserve the right to take any appropriate action in connection with any activities that violate our Terms of Use and/or applicable laws, including termination of your account and pursuit of legal remedies.

Please reply to this email.

Thank you,
PhaseBook Customer Support

I did respond - but no hint of a reply. There's a whole website of other's who've had the same happen to them - with similar results. Way to go, PhaseBook.

I mean I can see them removing people for clear abuses – abusive talk, pornographic images, bugging people who don’t want to be bugged, spamming others and cluttering the system – even massive ‘pokes’ that abuse the system . . . but I did nothing like that. Nor did I rip off or copy something on the site (like taking a copyright picture or whatever and publishing it elsewhere).

I only have 115 friends online and I know people who have many hundreds – and I know too PhaseBook allows for you to have 5000 friends – so it’s not that. The only thing I can think of is that I had two computers open at once to the site (as I transfered files from my laptop to my new IMAC, over the weekend) and maybe that triggered something in their stupid system. At any rate, I can’t gain entrance to the site – and I can’t access my friends – my emails – and hundreds of albums and pictures that I have painstakingly added over the past months. I want my profile back !! - and my good name, my access, my friends, my pictures . . .

I hate injustice, unfairness, lack of communication – especially when it relates to me (if I’m honest), but also in how that relates to others, wherever it happens.

Trouble is, I really like the service – the contact, intimacy, friendships, collegiality, fun . . .(though I know it bugs people that old crocks are now online when it was intended for high school and college students – as if only they should have such social interaction. Come to think of it – maybe it’s a purge of anybody over 40 – and some of you are next !) : ) But now I also I feel really angry and want to walk away from the site entirely; never ‘darken the door again, so to speak – and yet I also like it enough that I want back on – back in. But mostly I want to know what happened? What’s going on? What did I do wrong?

That happens also in the rest of life – such questions: in the spiritual life – in our everyday, as our days and years unfold (or, maybe, unravel). We ask: what’s going on? How do I please You, God? What did I do wrong to deserve this? Sometimes, to be honest: What can I get away with and still stay in? But then: How do I get access in the first-place or renewed access if I get spiritually bumped off line. (I assume we do this too ourselves, while I’m not sure how the PhaseBook thing works).

I discovered, online, a whole web-site of those to whom it’s happened. They’re also angry, disillusioned. Some of the language is very colourful. Some of the letters sent to PhaseBook (samples) a little richer in content than the one I sent. Some had groveled and begged forgiveness (not knowing what they did wrong –guessing). Some got back on – only to be bumped again. Others still await an email answer.

All of this has made me wonder too, in reflection, how people see the Church or the Gospel – or God?

With what sometimes seem like arbitrary rules and actions. They maybe can’t understand church or other people – or God . . . so they write them off. They are bitter. Lots of us, even, have had excruciatingly bitter experiences within the church that we sought to have access to and that we trusted – and even from friends who were very close.

We have such letdown experiences in all of life – with family, friends, lots of institutions – and with God. Dame Julian of Norwich: God, if this is how you treat your friends; no wonder you have so few of them!

Interesting that  PhaseBook - which is about Friendships, if it keeps up this kind of stupid action will end up with even fewer friendships or subscribers. Big mistake on somebody's part!