Hey Zuckerberg: Your Facebook 'community standards' are a joke

Mark ZuckerbergNEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Facebook's governing laws are no different from the liberal Washington bureaucrats who put a stranglehold on the small business owner with over-regulation and self-righteous piety over how we should govern ourselves and interact with others.

I believe I have one of the strongest, if not the top collection of Facebook contacts in Volusia County, public or private. So what's my beef?

I converted my personal page, which had 5,400 "friends," even though Facebook claims you are limited to 5,000 and I converted it into a fan page for my business -- Headline Surfer, the Internet newspaper. Once I made the conversion, which transformed my "friends" into "likes," I was left without a landing page to send and receive messages.

So, a couple of days ago, I started a new personal page. But, that, too, was a nightmare. I had to start a whole new account. Now, it's like I have a split personality. I can't go back and forth without having to sign out of one account and sign into another. I made it pretty quickly to 81 when I started to run into all these roadblocks. "Are you sure this is someone you know?" or something like that.

Well, let's see, my married sister, a dozen childhood classmates, friends from college, former co-workers, and get this: Literally dozens and dozens of people I have interacted with on a regular basis for the last 16 years I've called the Sunshine State home since moving here from my native New England with 10 years sandwiched in between in New York.

What irks me the most is Facebook's so-called "community standards." Hey Zuckerberg, you can take those standards and shove them where it hurts -- your big fat (wallet)! So now, I'm banned for two days from seeking out or accepting new friends, who are really old friends. Sooner or later, some other wonder lick is going to come along and we're all going to follow that Pied Piper.

The whole Facebook concept is hypocritical. They bombard you with "People You May Know." Two-thirds of the 5,000 people I hooked up with were no friends. They were complete strangers.

After a few years now, that changed. Just like when we meet total strangers in real life. Yet Facebook continues to bombard you and entice with all kinds of carrots that are really devices to gather as much data on you to sell to the telemarketers that really pay for the service of getting into our personal business.

Let's be real about this: Most of the people I know who have these super sensitive friend request protections are trying to avoid dealing with an ex-spouse or someone they owe money or favors to and don't want to own up to it. Facebook, you are not going to control me. I will be back to 5,000 within a year.

Like you, Zuckerberg, I can take advantage, too. Ask any of my childhood friends about my resolve. You can punch me in the nose, but eventually I'm going to get back up and I'll poke through your 5,000 ceiling again.Henry's Facebook empireHenry's new Facebook page

The big chart shows Henry's vast "Likes" empire while the smaller graphic reflects his anemic "friends" list.