I have run afoul of Facebook policy, which forbids the kind of anonymity I seek. It was all well and good until I crossed the line and began promoting the page. This became necessary because it had seven “likes” at the time.

First, I logged into my account and visited related pages, where I posted links back to my page. How many of these do you think it took before they shut me down for spamming? Thirteen. I can understand if I had been one of those commercial guys who pumps out thousands, or even hundreds of ads a day, but thirteen? The bar between self-promotion and self-destruction is set pretty low.

The lockout would have been temporary, I think, if I had not gone the extra mile and tried to buy an ad. In retrospect, it was a stupid thing to do. Everyone knows nobody reads those ads.

Still, it was cheap enough and I was eager to increase my reach. Of course I had to provide a credit card, which would have compromised my identity, so I came up with the not-so-bright idea of using a gift card registered under my pseudonym. That’s when they shut me down.

It took me about four days to realize the lockout wasn’t going to be temporary. I was hoping it would go away. It’s not like they sent me an email that said I had broken the rules and was being kicked out; I simply lost the ability to log into my account. It took a bit of searching for me to finally figure out that I had violated their policies and been booted.

I haven’t decided what I’m going to do about this yet. I’m open to suggestions.

The funny thing is, the site is still up. There are now eleven “likes.”