The StumbleUpon Witch Hunt

Does this sound familiar?

Your StumbleUpon account has been frozen.

If not, don’t worry, you might get that email soon, because StumbleUpon is on a witch hunt.

I’ve received a lot of emails from friends and messages on Twitter from people that have been recently banned by StumbleUpon.

I too got my account frozen 3 weeks ago, and initially I did not want to make a big deal out of it. But, since it already involves too many people, and 3 weeks have passed since I’ve sent my email to Walter, StumbleUpon’s community manager and got no response yet, I decided to write this post and share my views.

Dear StumbleUpon

What you’re doing is not wrong. It’s more than wrong. It’s a stab in the backs of those that made you who you are today. Yes, I’m sure you’re going to quote the ToS again, and say that “common users” made SU what it has become, but I’ll disagree.

It was the bloggers, the internet marketers, those spreading the word about StumbleUpon and it’s benefits. And yet, you still think of them as spammers.

Even now, I did not understand why my own account was frozen, but I managed to come up with 2 theories.

1. Either the fact that my profile page contained links to Blogsessive and my other site, CreativEurope, and you considered it “promotion”.

2. Or perhaps the fact that I’ve sent and received votes to and from my network.

Either way, your way of dealing with this is wrong. If you don’t want links in profiles, turn of the HTML tags. If you don’t like people voting on friends’ stories, make that clear and then, step out of the “social websites” pack.

And to be true, even if it would have been against the ToS, I still would have voted on my friends’ submissions. That’s why they are MY FRIENDS. Because I enjoy their content. That’s why it’s called social networking. Because we make friends through it.

Spammers still rule the realm of StumbleUpon, while people using it with moderation are being hunt down, and banned. What’s even more annoying is that you don’t care enough to at least give them a personal answer.

If you’re interested in learning about advertising

on StumbleUpon, please visit this page for more

information: [link removed]

Is that why you ban people? Is StumbleUpon in such a financial mess that you start banning only to “encourage” people to pay for your “traffic”?

Ever since this witch hunt has begun, somewhere around April this year, StumbleUpon’s traffic has lowered continuously, according to both Alexa and Compete. I wonder why?

Keep that up and you’ll lose all those who promoted your website, or still do it out of their own belief. I’m not saying that you might need to put an end to it, but you might have to watch yourselves downgraded to a B-list website.

For the sake of the good times I had as a StumbleUpon user, please reconsider your attitude, or at least take time to investigate deeper. Make sure the people you’re banning are real spammers.

PS: Walter, you’ve got a 3 week old email.

The story of Ian Lurie is very similar.

This article has 6 comments

• 

  Carlos Scarpero

  November 6th, 2008

  I just gave you a thumbs up. Enjoy it while you still have a SU account
• 

  Social Media | RaaVi

  November 6th, 2008

  Well, I’m one of the banned people because of stumbling your website… Why? Because I like your posts and website and because I’m addicted to Social Media. Ok, I had remembered meantime that your profile was full with links to your site. Keep up the good work and forget like I do the fight for traffic through Social Networking. Write allways good posts, respect your readers and we allways come to read your blog.
• 

  Alex, Blogsessive

  November 6th, 2008

  RaaVi, let’s not go to an extreme by saying it was “full of links”.

  My Bio on SU had 3 links, all “nofollow” to the 3 projects I’m involved in, all personal: Blogsessive.com, Creativeurope.eu and Blogosphere.cc.

  It’s a Bio after all, it’s about me, and my sites represent me. They were not links to money making machine websites, or to products for sale, or affiliate links. They were part of who I am, a blogger and a designer. Where’s the bad thing in this?

  But anyway, from now on, for me, this subject is closed. The way they handled the situation is regrettable, and unfortunately I cannot do anything more about it.

  It was fun to go around stumbling websites, but after this, I’m not sure why would I want to do that again.
• 

  FFB

  November 7th, 2008

  I’m one of those who got banned recently. All I was told was that I violated their TOS by promoting a specific site. They would not tell me what exactly I promoted. Very annoying. I did promote my site from time to time, sending pages to friends in SU. I also stumbled many other sites as well. Could it be because I stumbled friends’ sites? Maybe, but I stumbled it because I like their content. Seems like they really want everyone to just discover new things now. Oh yeah, in the email I got I was told I could advertise with them. So I’m no good to have an account any more but please advertise with us? SU can be great fun but it seems like some of the people they are chasing after are the wrong people.
• 

  Simon

  December 2nd, 2008

  Looks as though they are banning people for using their social service in a social way.
• 

  Suzanne Wells

  January 28th, 2009

  They got me yesterday. I stumble all kinds of stuff, not my own, so I don’t understand the violation either. I opened a new account, and that one was frozen within 24 hours with on only 3 random sites on it.

  The email encouraged me to pay for advertising. For what? To discover new sites? I didn’t even have time to do anything wrong on the second account!

  They are full of it. I guess I can take SU off my daily networking list. Facebook and Twitter are doing much better referring quality traffic anyway.

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