Wiped from the Face (book) of the earth

"Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you." No longer, thanks to the Facebook fascists!

It seems that due to a number of complaints from Labour party members [including a reasonably well-known UK blogger; a Labour Special Adviser; and a member of the National Assembly] and one from a member of Plaid Cymru, my Facebook account is no more.

Those that want to spread a little affection can still join the Miss Wagstaff Presents blog network.
I noticed on 17 July that my account had been disabled:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I have just been informed that my account has been disabled without a warning or explanation. Would you be so kind as to explain the reason why.

Yours,

Pippa Wagstaff (Wales)

On 21 July 2008 I received this response from Facebook:

Hi,
Fake accounts are a violation of our Terms of Use. Facebook requires users to provide their real first and last names. Impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate this account for any reason. This decision is final.

Thanks for your understanding,

Bella
User Operations
Facebook

Fair enough, I thought! Wrong use of "Thanks for your understanding" was another. But why not raise the question with me of the possibility of 'real and fake names' in the first instance - before deactivation.

I wrote back with the following:

Thank you for getting back to me. I can assure you that I am not impersonating anyone or anything. Pippa Wagstaff is my real name, and I have even noticed - to my surprise - that there are others with that name on Facebook.

I hope that you will reconsider.

Kind regards,
Pippa

I should have known better and atleast I'm happy with the name Pippa Wagstaff. I'm slightly disturbed that they haven't even asked me if this is my real name. As I've mentioned, there are others with this name on Facebook - I was curious and looked them up. In fact, there are plenty with some weird and wonderful names on Facebook that haven't been deleted, and I say good luck to them.

I can only imagine that this will put others off from joining Facebook, if their genuine names and account can be deleted without a hint of warning, and with such contempt for the person who joined in the first place. I just hope that like me they don't rely on the social network to keep in touch with others, or they could be in for a shock some day.

In the real world they shouldn't have done this without checking all the facts first. I expect it's too late to reinstate in my case.

Banned internally by the Welsh Assembly Government. Now erased from Facebook without them even questioning me about my identity. I don't know what the world is coming to, but admit that thankfully I will now have an extra 20-30 minutes spare each day. This got me thinking about how much time some of us dedicate to online networking, and maybe we should take note and all free up some extra time in our daily lives and do something more meaningful.

This is a non-aligned blog, but the evidence demonstrates that it must be getting under someone's skin. It's just a shame that I know who - it spoils the surprise!

Assembly Government Spin Doctors Costing Taxpayers £438k

The Assembly Government is to take on two new 'spin doctors' costing the taxpayer nearly £110,000.

The Assembly will now have a total of seven full-time and two part-time spin doctors, officially known as special advisers, costing about £438,000.

However, it still has fewer advisers than either the Scottish government or the Northern Ireland Executive.

At a meeting of the Cabinet, First Minister Rhodri Morgan said that the Privy Council had approved the request for the two extra appointments, which are to be recruited by open competition. They will then join the others in Cabinet Secretariat in Cardiff Bay.

Special advisers straddle the centre ground between the civil service and the parties of government. Although civil servants, they are allowed to give party political policy advice to ministers and sometimes deal directly with the media.

Opposition leader Conservative Nick Bourne, hit out at the appointments and questioned the openness of the Assembly Government:

I’m very surprised this has all been done secretly. No permission has been sought from the Assembly for these extra advisers. For a government which prides itself on openness I think I think this is very worrying. At a time when money is scarce I am wondering how they have managed to find this extra money for advisers.

Looks like Dafydd Wigley will now be able to join the salaried Plaid SpAds that include Simon Thomas and Rhuanedd Richards.