Facebook Deletes William Shatner’s Official Facebook Page As Fake – Reinstates After He Tweets Displeasure

Today the people at Facebook learned you don’t mess with William Shatner. Over the weekend the social networking giant took the unusual step of deleting the Mr. Shatner official page, claiming it was a fake. But this afternoon Star Trek’s original Kirk turned to Twitter to make his feelings clear, and Facebook quickly reversed their error. Details below.

 

Facebook deletes Shatner’s page – then undeletes it – oops

Last Friday Facebook took it upon themselves to delete William Shatner’s official Facebook page. And according to Mr. Shatner’s online guru Paul Camuso, Facebook took this action without any warning or notice. Camuso tells TrekMovie that getting emails from fans asking what had happened, he and Shatner found that the account was disabled. Logging in lead to a notification about impostor accounts and the only remedy for reinstatement was a link to a form which required Mr. Shatner to send in a scan of a “Government Issued ID”. Concerned about his privacy (and with Facebook who wouldn’t be?), Bill found this unacceptable.

So this afternoon Shatner took to his (officially verified) Twitter account to let his 519,789 followers know what Facebook had done:

Less than half an hour after sending that tweet Shatner’s Facebook page was back up. Soon after he posted an update on his Wall, thanking Facebook for reinstating his account. Camuso notes on the resolution "So I guess you can use Social Media to fix Social Media".

It still isn’t clear why Facebook chose last weekend to delete the page on suspicion that it was a fake account. One possibility is a new law in California that went into effect in January that makes it a crime to impersonate someone on Facebook and Twitter. Another more conspiratorial view could be that Facebook may have made the assumption that since Shatner has launched his own social networking site (www.myouterspace.com), his Facebook account must be a fake.

Fake Trek Celebrities: Getting better but some are still out there

While Facebook’s ‘shoot now and ask questions later’ approach may seem abrupt, it is true that there have been problems with fake celebrities on Twitter and Facebook. Just in the little corner of Star Trek celebs, there have been quite a few fakers (many of which have been debunked by TrekMovie.com). And these imposters can cause problems, like when another Trek site reported a rumor started by a fake Tim Russ Facebook page, and even the LA Times got duped, writing a story based on a fake JJ Abrams Twitter account.

In fact, the very popular Twitter accounts for LeVar Burton (@leverburton), George Takei,  (@GeorgeTakei), and Damon Lindelof (@DamonLinelof) all had to be taken away from cyber-squatters posing as those Star Trek celebrities. And even though Twitter has gotten much better with their ‘Verified’ accounts, there are still a fake accounts for Jonathan Frakes (@jonathan_frakes) and Leonard Nimoy (@leonardnimoy), both of which have thousands of duped followers. Frakes has no social networking accounts and Mr. Nimoy has instead used @TheRealNimoy.

All that being said, Facebook should probably have given Mr. Shatner a chance before deleting his page and demanding to see his papers.


FACEBOOOOOOOOOOOK!

 

42 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Hey. Don’t mess with the Shat. He is the real deal. he is the Orignal Capt Kirk. He is the Orignal T.J Hooker. He is Buck Murdok. I Mean Buck Murdock! from Airplane 2. He is The Denny Crane and he is the Father who says the Sh t my dad says. He is the Shat!!!! Nothing Fake about the Shat.

^^ “Like”

Peace. Live long and prosper.

PS: I remember a Nimoy poseur who had a fake Leonard Nimoy FB account a couple of years back. Had thousands of “friends,” and whoever was running it even admitted to being a scam towards the end.

Peace. Live long and prosper.

No one can dare pretend to be “the Shat”! Whoever does should spend a year in Commodore Mike’s agony booth! :-)

IT’S (not) A FAAAAAKE!!!

Facebook tried to declare, “NO SHAT, SHERLOCK!”

But who prevailed?

THE SHAT!

(accept no substitute)

^^ U.S. Pat. Pend. All Rights Reserved.

THis was a ploy by Facebook to force Shatner to play by their rules… namely run his Facebook the way the site says, by the letter of the law and not by the spirit thereof, or BOOM. Phacebook Phaser to the gut.

An MTV celebrity (someone who is abstractly connected to Kirk 2.0, aka Chris Pine, through a friend of hers who was ‘linked’ to him in the past), had her REAL formspring.me page falsely deleted recently for similar reasons. Randomly and without explanation, leading her to be suspicious of everyone she knows, including me. (no I’m not delusional. I DO happen to know people in the industry, but I can’t say who for privacy’s sake…namely theirs)

In the Shat’s case, Facebook likely did this to force the Shat to give his personal data to Facebook so they could do to him what they did to its users at large; horde user data to possibly sell to random companies, or worse, put in a government database. Not pulling a Barclay here with paranoia, but Facebook has an atrocious record when it comes to caring about users. Facebook has become The Borg of SOcial Media. “We are the Facebook. You will be assimilated. We will add your social and professional distinctivenss to our own. Your identity wil adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”

Either that, or, like is done with a majority of celebs, to force the SHat to not run his own pages but rather delegate that to his publicist/management. Basically make it so unless your pages are run the way The Powers That Be say, you’ll get deleted.

But…in all seriousness, The Shat should probably link his Twitter to his Facebook so his tweets appear as status updates on Facebook. THen neither site can delete him.

Facebook seriously needs to be superceded by a better site, a new site, one that actually gives a damn about user safety and pivacy and lets users, within reason, run their pages the way THEY want to, not the way Fuhrer Zuckerberg says to.

This isn’t news. I mean, really? Ugh.

#4 You are correct and the setting will be on High.
Long Live the Shat!!!!!!

You tell ’em Bill. I know who you are.

@ #9. Dude, this is a Star Trek site! What do you expect breaking news from Bahrain? This is where we go to get our daily dose of “Trek trivia”, which isn’t all announcements of leaked plot details (especially in this interregnum period of Trek).

Facebook took on the shat, didn’t these fools ever see what he did to Khan?

@8 — I believe what you say about FB. I try my best to avoid it, and I do not give out my real name on the thing, ’cause I don’t trust it. Facebook has been skirting a fine line, and I give it 3-5 years max before it’s dead, with a mass exodus to the new social network in vogue — one that is open source, respectful of privacy, and lets users customize more like Myspace used to.

Anyway, as to the deletion and reinstatement: about the most hi-friggin-larious thing I’ve heard happening in the “entertainment” world for a few days. (Since the business with Sheen getting fired and then suing). Shatner puts others on the hot seat, not the other way around! That means you, Facebook!

#8 – “An MTV celebrity (someone who is abstractly connected to Kirk 2.0, aka Chris Pine, through a friend of hers who was ‘linked’ to him in the past), had her REAL formspring.me page falsely deleted recently for similar reasons.”

I am not quite sure what this means, but I have read that Chris Pine does not have Facebook, Twitter, Myspace or any of those types of social networking accounts. In fact, when he was in Sydney, Australia in 2009, when asked about this, he was quite adamant about this point. Perhaps, he has since changed his mind, but I have not read/heard anything to this effect. The only time he was “involved” with Twitter was when an acquaintance used his own twitter account to tell people what he and Chris were doing.

@15 — I think #8 means “linked” in the sense of “romantically involved with”, rather than “socially networked or ‘friended’ with” — darn tech hijacking our vocabulary again…!

There’s nothing fake about Bill. Facebook obviously deleted the wrong account.

‘Nuff said. :)

Unless you’re an Orion slave girl, don’t screw with Shatner.

In a few cases it is possible, that someone simply has the same name as a star. Most of the time this is of course not the case.

Love the picture and caption. Got a chuckle out of that.

In the history of popular culture, nothing will compare to the first time I tasted the original Star Trek as a two year old toddler, and seeing “The Man” walk onto that bridge with the courage and heroism played by the inimitable William Shatner.

Long live the Shat!

It may have been the mirror universe Shatner – a ploy to take over his page…

Facebook, you don’t ask the almighty for his I.D.!

Facebook better play nice or one day Kirk will take it over and rename it “Shatbook”.

Tried friending him, but it will not allow as he has too many friends. There is another one, but like most celebrity FB pages, you cannot friend, rather you “like”

Hey, where’s the article for last night’s Raw Nerve? I have a lot to say about that. :)

# 15 – keachick

OMG ! … ughhh … please … does not mention “was linked to him” even in code … LOL and +LOL

I think, there is a fake account of CP on facebook , by the way ! … I ‘m not sure but I think they mention that it’s not really him … anyway ! :-) :-)

The all powerful Shatner knows no bounds…. I guess there is nothing he cannot do.

Yes, the GREAT KIRK, ROCKS!!! … and “the young Kirk” … ROCKS, too … so congrats CHRIS PINE!!! … for this:

http://www.theatermania.com/los-angeles/news/03-2011/ed-harris-linmanuel-miranda-chris-pine-del-shores_35082.html

Thank you for that, Dee. I was wondering whether he had won anything. Just so cool. I have read posts from various people around sites etc who went to see the play saying that Chris Pine’s performance was really good. What can I say? He is “my captain”(CP). Can’t wait to see him in This Means War later this year and then next year 2012, Chris as Sam in Welcome to People…oh the wait…

Bob Orci and co – where is that script? You know, I need to see lots of cool scenes with “my captain”. Don’t forget to include some Kirk fu and ripped shirts on that lovely Pine/Kirk body… Make it so.

He should have named his own price for Facebook!

Itried to friend him but it came up and said that if I didn’t know him it would be spam, i MUST know him to ask to friend him.

Weird! I don’t know him, so I didn’t.

Sort of OT but it is about “my captain” CP or rather another Pine –

“Two generations of Pines made their way to the stage when separate awards were announced. In addition to Chris Pine’s acceptance for his Inishmore win, Pine’s father, Robert Pine, came to the stage along with his fellow company members when the Antaeus Company took the evening’s final award for its production of King Lear.”

Congratulations to the Pine guys!

Actually there is another Chris Pine and he does have Facebook or something like that. He is an actual guy with the same name. He lives in the northeastern part of the USA, runs a farm and shares photos and stories about himself and his family. He is married with three(?) children. I clicked onto him by accident and thought what the? He seems a pretty OK guy. Perhaps the two Chris’s might meet one day, if they haven’t already.

On topic – no one messes with the Shat and his Facebook. It was probably accidental anyway, and thankfully, it’s all been sorted.

@5 Don’t you understand? It’s REEEEAAAAAALLLL! It’s REEAALL!!

#33- keachick

Yes … great … just saw the article at the THR … other sites didn’t mention it … so congratulations to Mr. Robert Pine, too! :-) :-)

I tried to add shatner and it will not let me. says he has to many friend requests

35. Good one, Benny.

Commodore Mike of the Terran Empire – March 14, 2011
“Hey. Don’t mess with the Shat. He is the real deal. he is the Original Capt Kirk. He is the Original T.J Hooker. He is Buck Murdok. I Mean Buck Murdock! from Airplane 2. He is The Denny Crane and he is the Father who says the Sh t my dad says. He is the Shat!!!! Nothing Fake about the Shat.”

This is my new sig file. ;p

Yeah, Facebook is difficult. I have a family member who appears on TV, so I can’t have any pictures of him on my page and we can’t be Facebook friends. I’ve been on Shatner’s page since it started, so I’m glad it’s back!

I’m surprised that his new TV show hasn’t been deleted.

Get more of the Shat! Check out our tour fan page or follow us on Twitter, Shatner’s World, for tour info, exclusive photos, and videos.