Facebook will disable 83.09 million accounts, and many of them have names like Mr. Fluffypants.
Cats are amazing creatures. They play nasty pranks, escape from dogs on surfboards, and really, really like treats. Perhaps that’s the reason why millions of cat owners have decided to feature their beloved felines on Facebook with profiles of their own, often complete with way too many pictures, aribitrary political rambling, and non-stop torrential updates of what they’re eating for lunch. Well, Mark Zuckerberg, it seems, is not amused. According to an updated regulatory filing, soon, Facebook will be closing down over 80 million fake accounts, a large portion of which to be what the site considers “misclassified” pet profiles.
Facebook considers these accounts “misclassified” because your little litter-lurker is, indeed, allowed on the social networking site, just not on equal footing with his or her human owner. And while some of you may immediately infer that they need take a subordinate role, the felinophiles out there won’t be surprised to learn that it is, in fact, quite the opposite. Proper, and legal cat representation must be handled in the form of a fan page, akin to what you may find for other “Public Figures” on Facebook, such as a popular actor, musician, or author.
Though different from the other profiles set for the purge – including both “duplicate” (people who create more than one profile, say one for work and one for play) and “undesirable” (profiles that violate terms, such as spammers) accounts – “misclassified” accounts make up an impressive 2.4% of total active registrations.
So, if Miss Pawington is still detailing her life of napping, scratching, and butter-licking to all of her kitty cohorts on a daily basis, you may want to inform her highness that Facebook won’t adhere to her nine-life policy: If your account is disabled as part of this process, you won’t be able to create a new one without special permission from the company.
Source: CNN
Image: Catpicca Blog
Published: Aug 24, 2012 04:40 pm