Now we're onto what you all came for!

PLEASE bear with me, Facebook has a LOT of rules, so this is going to be freaking long. I'm trying to break it up into easier to digest bullet lists, but again, it's a lot of information here.

There are probably 20 pages of rules I've been reading for days to create this list, that's how much information is in the Facebook Policies.

Facebook Account Basics

• Your timeline is for personal use, NOT business.
• If you want to do business on Facebook, create a FB business page. (I'll go over THOSE rules later!)
• You can only have one account
  • No one is supposed to have two. If you DO have two, back up the stuff off the account you're going to give up and DELETE it.
• You MUST use your legal name and real birthdate!
  • No aliases, no business names, no nicknames, etc. If you have a married name or an alias or a nickname, you may add that to your personal profile.
  • If your account gets hacked or shut down for suspected impersonation, you can send your picture ID to Facebook to get your account back if needed. Hard to do that if it doesn't match your real name or birthdate.
  • (Using your real name and such is how Facebook became so big and didn't go the way of MySpace with porn crap. Just saying, there are reasons for everything. I read a lot.)
• No shared accounts
  • No sharing with your husband or kid. One account per person.
  • This also means, because of privacy laws, Facebook will not give you access to your child's account. They cannot grant access to an account that isn't the account holder. This MIGHT make things hinky if you're logging into your teen's account to check up on them.
• No fake accounts
  • This should be obvious, but there have been mistakes made if you share the name with a celebrity. Such as if you have the same first and last name as say, Mark Zuckerberg. (Which has actually happened, btw.) So if your account is closed because of that, you CAN appeal it if it's a mistake. But if you're impersonating someone, that's a no-no.
• You must be 13 years old or older
• You can't be a convicted sex offender
• You cannot share your password without permission from Facebook.
• You cannot create an account after you already had an account disabled for violation of their policies
• You cannot create an account if it's illegal for you to be on Facebook (ie your country outlawed it.)
• If you're a public figure, like a celebrity, you can contact Facebook to allow followers instead of friends.
• You own all content you post on FB and you control how that content is seen with your account and privacy settings, which is what Facebook users use to share stuff. If you're concerned about what content might be shared by users or used by Facebook, beef up your security. It's totally in your control.

What You CAN'T Do

• Spam (unsolicited promotion)
• Friend people you don't personally know
  • If your friend requests are deleted or unanswered, they know.
• DO NOT ENGAGE IN BOT BEHAVIOR!
  • If you request a lot of friends in a day, that triggers their spam algorithm because that's a common sign of bots, scammers and spammers.
  • Do not copy and paste and send a message to a ton of people
  • Don't message a bunch of people at once or in a row.
  • Don't post the same message all the time or post a bunch of times in a small amount of time or share the same post everywhere
  • Don't join too many groups too fast
  • Don't like too many posts too fast
  • Don't post to FB too much (don't post a bunch of status updates every other second)
  • Don't poke too many people in a row (does FB still have poking?)
• Don't tag people you don't know
  • Don't tag 50 friends in a post to get them notified of a promotion.... just saying. If they aren't in the picture, DO NOT TAG THEM!
  • People have the option to remove themselves from being tagged. FB is WATCHING!
• Clothing is REQUIRED
  • Don't post nudes, partially nudes, sexual photos, etc.
  • This DOES include your baby! No naked baby photos. Most people find it cute, but there are child predators out there and FB takes this very, very seriously! They report suspected child exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and will delete photos of naked kids to protect them.
  • Don't send nudes to your boyfriend over Messanger, FB is watching! This is a HUGE No-No and people have gotten a lifetime ban from doing this!
• Messages
  • Don't send chain letters and forwards, because if they get marked as spam or unwanted, Facebook will slap you.
  • Don't message a lot of people you aren't friends with
  • Don't send people a link that might be unwelcome, because if they mark it that way, you will get a ban
  • Do not contact people for business purposes on Messanger without their consent.
  • Don't send inappropriate messages, FB Messanger is NOT PRIVATE!
• Don't post inappropriate stuff
  • This means violent or graphic images
  • Don't bully, harass, spam, or post hateful or violent comments or status updates
  • Don't threaten your neighbor or little brother with murder
  • Don't encourage self-harm or suicide
  • Criminal activity or praise of criminal activity
  • Don't post offensive or vulgar memes, photos, etc. Reported posts are bad.
• Don't make people block you... just saying, FB is watching. You get blocked too often...
• Don't post lies or outrageous claims about people on Facebook in an effort to discredit or cause harm. If you're posting on your timeline to hurt someone else, it can be considered bullying and if they report it.... you can be banned.
• You must not advocate for coordinated harm of people, animals, or businesses. Criminal or not.
• No selling of drugs, pharmacy drugs, firearms, explosives, weapons, or other regulated goods on Facebook.
• Don't post other people's personal information, images, or conversations without their consent.
  • Yes, people. That includes snapping a picture from your phone of that nice mechanic's butt and posting it on your timeline. You can't do that. This includes screenshots of their messages in a Facebook Group or messages they sent you privately.
• No Hate Speech
• No Fake News
  • This won't get you banned in the short-term, but no one will be seeing your posts.
• Don't post content that doesn't belong to you
  • Everything you post on FB must be your personal intellectual property.
  • Don't post other people's copyrighted property, trademarked images, etc.
  • Don't post pirated videos, music, movies, books, etc.
  • Don't plagiarize

What is Spammy Behavior?

Okay, I know to most of you this will be common sense, but let's just put this out here.

Do Not:

• Artificially increase distribution for financial gain
• Create fake accounts or hack accounts in order to message, make connections, impersonate someone, send links, etc.
• Restrict access to something and then requesting them to like, comment, or share something to get it.
  • "By liking this post, I'll send you a free ebook!"
• Encourage likes, shares or clicks by lying
  • "Share this post and you'll win a Ferrari!"
  • "This little girl was told she was ugly and that no one would give her one share"
  • "For every like our page gets, one dollar goes to the Food Bank of America to feed hungry families!"
  • Do I need to go on? There are reasons you haven't been seeing so many of those posts
• Don't promise fake Facebook features, like a Facebook lottery or a Facebook giveaway they won, or whatever
• Don't attempt to get people's login information by tricking them
• Coordinate accounts to mislead people in any way
  • BTW, this is using multiple accounts yourself or with others to 'fake' popularity, fake likes, etc. This means you have a Facebook page. You cannot create five fake FB accounts to comment and like on your FB page posts in order to create the illusion of engagement
  • You cannot create a Facebook group where you all conspire to run around and liking each other's content just to create the illusion of popularity
• Upload malware, trojans, attempt to access their data, etc.
• Use bots or engage in bot behavior as mentioned previously

Did you know that you can be sued for spamming? That's absolutely right. Major spammers who abused the Facebook platform to spam members of Facebook and other social media platforms have been sued. And Facebook won, btw.

https://www.wired.com/2008/11/court-awards-fa/

Quick Summary

To sum up the entire list of don'ts, I'll say this. Be nice, be polite, don't post anything a child would be traumatized by, and don't do anything illegal or misleading. You're supposed to play by society's rules on Facebook. No one likes a bully or spammer. You can post your opinion without being a jerk. Just saying.

Next: Commerce rules on FB!