Have you ever been blocked in FB Messenger?
It was 2:30 in the afternoon, 1st of July 2017. I was busy communicating with new clients on Facebook Messenger about my new website, around 30plus of them. Most are new peeps.
To my surprise, suddenly, as I replied to one client, my message bounced... it had a warning, "Action Blocked". My brain spun, yes, my brain, not only my head. My brain said..."What happened? I have messaged more than a hundred simultaneously in the past. Why only now?". My next course of action was to send a live Chat message here in WA... I also sent a Question Inquiry here in WA. Gladly, I received supportive messages that it can probably be just temporary. I also sent Facebook an Inquiry message.
Flash forward, 24 hours after, July 2, 2017, around 2:30pm (Doha time), literally just now, I checked my FB Messenger, everything was back to normal.
Now, why did I asked and shared my experience, here are my takeaways and my lessons learned.
1) After countless of research on why messages can be blocked in FB messenger, I found out that Facebook's algorithm or their internal bots can sometimes consider legitimate messages a Spam Messages, hence, they will temporarily block a User.
2) In my case, I wasn't a Spammer and I was dealing with legitimate peeps. But because, and I admit, I sent a particular text script (guided message) to multiple peeps, Facebook thought I was spamming.
3) Facebook advised that if you are sending multiple messages of the same text to various peeps, don't send it all at once. Give it an interval. That was my lesson. You got me there Facebook.
4) In the event it happens to you, just chill. (I didn't because I worried). The blockade is temporary and as experienced, give it a dose of 24 hours of patience and all will be restored.
5) Another beautiful experience is the WA Community Support. With my brain spinning trying to find a solution, I was glad that very generous members gave me the lead on how to help solve it. It calmed me. It's an amazing afterthought.
6) And this post. I realized that when faced with a dilemma, as a pay it forward, share your experience so other peeps may know and learn from it. Maybe only few can relate or maybe only few will read. But as long as you have shared and helped one beautiful soul who is in the same situation, it will be worth it =)
So there friends, when blocked in FB Messenger, chill out, learn from what I experienced, everything will be back to normal... after 24 hours =)
JR
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I had that experience on Twitter, I always welcome my new followers, and I copy and paste the message, I got blocked. I have done this a thousand times before, never had a block before.
I had to give them my phone number to get a code to unblock it again
I am now a bit more cautious, in between my follow messages I retweet a bit, so it has some other engagement in between
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I've heard that this happens to lots of people. Thanks for sharing and saving some of us the trouble and worry. Glad to hear you're back up and running.
hi Anna Marie, yeah, I never thought it wold happen to me as I've been messaging peeps often. But it's good that I experienced it. I now know better =)