After writing I’m on Facebook–Now What???, followed by FBML Essentials, one of the most common questions I get from readers is a situation where their account, their Page, or their content has been suspended on Facebook in some form or another. Just today, Robert Scoble talked about another individual on Twitter whose account was recently suspended for no reason whatsoever. I’ve written about other occasions of Twitter suspending accounts in droves with no notice (that time a glitch). This is nothing new. Even the famous Mari Smith, the “Pied Piper of Facebook” according to FastCompany Magazine, had her Twitter account suspended. Robert Scoble had his Facebook account suspended. No one is immune.
It’s your own fault if this happens.
Let me explain. Of course I don’t blame any of the individuals whose account has had this unfortunate circumstance happen to them (assuming it was a mistake). However, I question why more people aren’t trying to bring these services under their own brand and their own hosting facilities to store their Tweets and micro-posts to their friends. There are services that make this easy. I’ve written about these before, and today I’m putting action where my words are.
The best service I’ve seen for this is called Status.net, formerly Identi.ca, and it gives any brand, business, or person the ability to host every single Tweet or post surrounding their identity on their own servers. I’m implementing a version of this so I can control who owns the Tweets I share on Twitter and other sites. Starting right now, you can go to http://community.staynalive.com, register for your own account, and begin hosting your own Tweets right here. Or, go to Status.net, download the source code, and host your own instance on your own servers. Then, follow my posts at http://community.staynalive.com/jesse right from your own instance of Status.net on your own servers!
Still want to post to Twitter? Every account on the Stay N’ Alive Community site can connect their Twitter account and set each Tweet they post from http://community.staynalive.com to also post to Twitter. Look at this Tweet – it was sent to my own servers straight from TweetDeck. I simply added another Twitter account in TweetDeck, and set the Twitter Base URL (under advanced) to be http://community.staynalive.com/api, adding my own credentials for the Stay N’ Alive community. Now, any time I post from TweetDeck I have the option to post to the Stay N’ Alive Community site where I own the data (well, it’s all Creative Commons so each user owns their own data), and I can know that will also go to Twitter. If I want to do all my following from the Stay N’ Alive Community site, I can set it to import my friends’ Twitter streams into Stay N’ Alive and I can follow them right there.
What’s the point? Now I own, 100%, every tweet I post to Twitter, and no one can do anything about that. If you set up your own instance, you can do the same. ESPN can set up an ESPN-branded Twitter. Ford can set up a Ford-branded Twitter. Rackspace can set up its own Rackspace-branded Twitter. Scoble can set up his own Scoble-branded Twitter. Every post from the branded site gets hosted on the Brand’s own servers, anyone on any other OMB-supported service can follow them on their own servers, and no one can ever shut them down.
So, if you’re worried about your account being suspended, this is how you fight back. Go create your own Status.net service, post your URL in the comments (so we can all follow!), and we can all start to take back control of our status under our own terms. Or, feel free to join the Stay N’ Alive Community where the readers of this blog can all get to know each other! This is your responsibility – I can’t wait to see what you do with it!
To those who aren’t hosting your own Tweets, I say “Stop It!”:
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I really should give my own install of status.net another try (the are Canadian too you know). Regardless, yes this is exactly the route a lot of us more savvy folks should take. I would like to hope that status.net becomes like POP3 and SMTP so that we can democratize micro-messaging. Hey I like Twitter and don't see ever leaving it, but maybe owning a lot more of the info I send is a better long-term idea.
Just one question … in TweetDeck do you use Twitter groups, TweetDeck lists (I know they have been depreciated), or something on status.net?
Right now TweetDeck is limited to just posting to Status.net, so I still
have to use Twitter for that, but I can still be archiving stuff on my
Status.net install. Hopefully Iain and Loic work on that for their clients
though. I think the future of this will depend on individual brands
realizing they need to own their own content and integrating this on their
own. I helped http://todaysmama.com/connect do this for their community of
Moms – it's one of the coolest installs I've seen of Status.net so far.
Hi sir,
“this is called Status.net, formerly Identi.ca” should be “f. Laconi.ca” ^_^ Identi.ca is Laconi.ca/Status.Net's own instance.
Also, for users who can not host their own instance of Status.Net, they can sign-up for a hosted Status.Net at well, Status.Net :p Mine is: http://jcjohnsesecuneta.status.net, and of course your instance too 🙂
Welcome to the world of FLOSS microblogging!!
There's actually a service like that called Juick. A microblogging built on top of XMPP/Jabber. But from what I've read, it is not FLOSS. Maybe Status.Net or OpenMicroBlogger (are there other openmicroblogging implementations other than those two?) can develop some sort of a plugin just like Juick. That will not only help openmicroblogging in general but XMPP/Jabber too. (Add also OneSocialWeb to the mix [it's a social network built on top of XMPP, and we have a complete POP3-like service.)
^^
Great to see you on Status.net! Suggest you join groups soon so your “Personal” tab will be more active.
Here's my statusnet account by the way.
The self-installed instance is formerly Laconi.ca, yes, but I was referring
to the brand itself, which is somewhat a replacement for identi.ca. I
realize identi.ca is still there, but it is essentially the same service
now. I appreciate the clarification though.
You need to try Sharetronix as well, OSS Microblogging with multimedia support, groups, profiles, FB, Twitter, Buzz integration and more to come like API next week. http://sharetronix.com
Vassil, interesting – I had not heard of that one. I'll look into it.
Is it really someone's fault for getting banned? Maybe. But despite the title saying one thing, that's not what this article is about.
My understanding of this post is it's someone's fault if they're banned from Twitter and don't have their data stored elsewhere. Right?
I almost thought I'd find the answer behind some of the senseless account terminations! 😉
That's sort of the point. I don't think there will ever be an answer
to the endless account terminations. That's why I think hosting your
own is the only solution. 🙂
[…] leadership of Linden Lab. This has me thinking seriously about something that Jesse Stay recently posted on his blog regarding Twitter, and that Jason Calacanis has said repeatedly, particularly with respect to […]
I got never suspened, i also use identi.ca which seems to be like twitter as per functions but not as much popular like twitter
[…] Jesse Stay posted about getting the ownership of your twitter posts by hosting it on your server back in June […]
[…] Jesse Stay posted about getting the ownership of your twitter posts by hosting it on your server back in June […]
[…] leadership of Linden Lab. This has me thinking seriously about something that Jesse Stay recently posted on his blog regarding Twitter, and that Jason Calacanis has said repeatedly, particularly with respect to […]
Vassil, interesting – I had not heard of that one. I'll look into it.