This happened to me recently, with Facebook. However, Facebook didn't reactivate my account, I was the one who mistakenly clicked on a link on Spotify when I reactivated my account which somehow triggered the reactivation.

I'm going to guess that OP of article had a similar situation; Using another service, an errant click was made that triggered an event on Facebook.

Facebook will do whatever they can to keep your account active. The shutdown process is a pure embodiment of dark patterns, and a single click reactivates the account.

I remember shutting down my account and then recieving some emails a week later, clicked the link wondering why FB was still emailing me, boom account reactivated. Shut it down again, then a couple weeks later I clicked the wrong share link and once again my account was reactivated.

If I was an investor or advertiser, I would be deeply suspicious of Facebook's metrics...

Of course you should. Else anybody can close accounts that have been purposely reopened.

No. Instead of reopening account on a whim require id when account is being reopened.

They did require a form of identification -- the user's password. The user was careless, and so that password ended up being compromised. This is exactly the same as any other scenario where a user's password has been compromised -- they need to prove they're the legitimate user, not whoever has the compromised password.

And the only proper way to do that identification is to go through the registered mail.

Given how many times I've had registered mail delivery screw up... no.

There is NO WAY I'd EVER give facebook or any other random internet service any real identification (that includes phone number).

Forcing someone to provide real identification for a service that didn't require it to sign up in the first place is just ludicrous.

For all intents and purposes my email is the sole identification available for a service like facebook. Further, a passport picture isn't worth squat because there is nothing linking my email to it anyway (and a passport picture can easily be forged or copied).

That's fair, but that wasn't really my point.

Well, what would be the alternative then?

Frustrate returning customers ... not a great idea

You should be able to actually delete an account, not just "deactivate" it.

You can delete accounts, but the function is hidden and you have to search the help section to find it

https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account

How ironic. I deactivated my account last year thinking it was the only option. I click on the link... to be asked to login to Facebook. :-|

Yep, been down that road. You indeed have to reactivate your account in order to delete it.

FB's approach here is a great example of a dark pattern. I've known several people who really want to kick the FB habit and deactivated their accounts. But when they accidentally reactivate, the temptation was too great to go back since everything was still there just how they left it.

Evil genius right there.

Good tip!

You're not the customer, you're the product.

In practice that's not really a meaningful distinction. For a business that survives by selling ads, pissing off your users is just as bad as pissing off your advertisers; you need both to survive, not just one or the other.

Maybe, but like anything else there will be a calculation performed to determine how much it pisses people off as opposed to how much they might make by having people be suckered into^W^Wrejoin the fold.

It's like Ford in the 70's with the Pinto, trading off the cost of law suits vs. the cost of a recall.

So, yes. I agree with you in spirit, but not all users are as skilled, or upset, by this as others. And some may actually be lured back in.

That has nothing to do with whether you're a paying customer or not though. (As illustrated by your example with Ford, where the people being harmed were clearly "the customer", not "the product".)

I don't understand why this was down-voted, it's a very insightful quote and not the first time I've seen it.

People severely overestimate their own free-will and downplay the role of luck and external forces in their lives. If free-will was absolute and unlimited, then Facebook wouldn't be able to make any money from advertising. If you look at Facebook's income statement, you can actually quantify how much free-will Facebook took away from humanity.

Facebook's mission is basically to take free-will out of people and turn it into dollars for corporations.

Don't frustrate returning products then.

So long as the trade-off doesn't upset too many, they may still end up ahead.

I pay for Facebook (ads, as well as boosting posts). That makes me a customer, I guess.

You may fulfill both roles, customer and product, but I think that would make you a bit of a rarity. They can upset you as a product and support you as a customer at the same time.

> I pay for Facebook. That makes me a customer.

How does one pay for Facebook? Is there a premium service I'm not aware of?

Hey, sorry. I edited my comment to clarify shortly after posting it, but I imagine you probably loaded the page in the meantime and responded later.

I run ads on Facebook for several Facebook pages and additionally promote their posts (using the per-post boosting) fairly regularly.

Okay that makes sense. I thought it was from the perspective of a John Q. User who has a Facebook account.

In your example though the Ads are the product you're paying for. Not the Facebook account that is purchasing them, though I see how they're inherently linked.

When you own pages you can use Facebook advertising system to #feature# your page on it.

Same way Google do with adword on their search page.

No, you absolutely should have to confirm your identity in this situation.

Otherwise... well, imagine that I close my account and then decide to reopen it. ANYONE IN THE WORLD could block me from reopening it if FB doesn't require identification in the way you suggest.