You Can’t Block Mark Zuckerberg From Your Facebook Profile

Update: A Facebook spokesperson tells WebProNews, "This error isn’t specific to any one account. It’s generated when a person has been blocked a certain large number of times. In very rare instances, a viral campaign will develop instructing lots of people to all wrongly block the same person. The purpose of this system is to protect the experience for people targeted by these campaigns. We’re constantly working to improve our systems and are taking a closer look at this one."

Original Article: Those concerned about privacy with regards to Facebook will love this. If you try to block CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the site, Facebook won’t let you.

With most Facebook profiles, you can click "Report/Block this person" if you don’t want them to be able to interact with you. Specifically, as Facebook says:

If you block someone, they will not be able to find you in a Facebook search, see your profile, or interact with you through Facebook channels (such as Wall posts, Poke, etc.). Any Facebook ties you currently have with a person you block will be broken (for example, friendship connections, Relationship Status, etc.). Note that blocking someone may not prevent all communications and interactions in third-party applications, and does not extend to elsewhere on the Internet.

The inability to block Zuckerberg was discovered by the creators of a site: blockzuck.com (via TechCrunch):

Sure enough, if you actually do try to block Zuckerberg, you get this message:

One can only imagine that even if you could block "Zuck", he’d be able to get around this if he wanted. Then there’s the fact that its his site. Would you want people who have accounts on your site to be able to block you?

There are 4 Comments. Add Yours.

Lanta
August 23, 2010 at 7:20 am

It might be his site for now but he could always lose a majority share in the future. At that point he would be a user with a “backdoor”.
Cervantes01
August 23, 2010 at 9:24 am

Personally I don’t have a problem with it being impossible to block him. Speaking from my experience as a site admin for many web sites I’ve developed I would be quite offended if someone such as a client’s customer tried to block my access. Too many times my client’s customers have gone and made mistakes or done inappropriate things online, which I’ve then had to clean up. Also my customers occasionally lock themselves out of their systems when they have tried to change their passwords or their own admin permissions. Having root access to all things makes my life quicker and easier when putting things right. Obviously if he sold the company his developers would have to lock him of the system which shouldn’t be too hard a thing to do. Being unable to be blocked is probably deliberate and most likely done for all of the right reasons not the wrong reasons that the right wing press seem to like.
Guest
August 24, 2010 at 9:05 pm

Actually, Zuckerberg is blockable — provided you did it a while back. I blocked his account (yes, the real one) a few months ago, and it took hold. I just checked — and he’s still blocked.
connor
May 29, 2011 at 6:45 pm

So I tried this and it allowed me to block him. So I don’t know if that was just a computer error or what.