What Happens if Someone Spammed You on Facebook?

When someone spams you on Facebook, whether it's in a personal chat message or a post on your business Page, the results of that action depend on how you respond to it, combined with the responses of others. Facebook is not likely to penalize someone for a single piece of spam. If an account continues to post spam, Facebook's reaction depends on whether the spam seems to be intentional or not. An account that has been been the victim of a virus will be treated more leniently than an account that was set up with the sole purpose of generating spam.

If someone posts something on your Facebook Page, anyone visiting the Page can mark it as spam. This makes the post invisible to that person but it is still visible to others. If a Page admin marks a post as spam, the post is removed from the Page and is invisible to everyone except the person who posted it and his or her friends. Page admins can still access comments marked as spam in the Spam filter of the Page's activity log.

Facebook spam filters can automatically remove spam posts from a Page. These posts appear in gray to Page admins, but are invisible to Page visitors. Facebook's data center uses information collected from all spam reports to determine what should be flagged as spam. In addition to this, you can customize the spam settings for your Page by setting your Page's Profanity Blocklist to an appropriate setting and by adding specific words or phrases to the Moderation Blocklist. A Page admin can approve a post marked as spam by hovering the mouse over the post and selecting "Not Spam."

Facebook encourages you to report spam wherever you find it and regardless of who it was from. You can do this by using the Report link in the upper right corner of most content or the "Options" link beneath photos and videos. Facebook uses these spam reports to reduce instances of spam from all accounts in the future. By reporting spam to Facebook, but not unfriending or blocking the person, Facebook is unlikely to take any action against that account.

If a Facebook account repeatedly posts spam, users have the option to unfriend, block and report the account. If you suspect someone was hacked, Facebook recommends that you inform that person and direct him to the Hacked Accounts section of the Facebook Help Center. If you report an account, Facebook may suspend the account if it determines the account was set up for the purpose of sending out spam. If Facebook determines that a legitimate account was hacked or has been infected by a virus, they may take other measures, like warning the person that he has a virus the next time he logs in. Facebook may also temporarily block someone from features like chat messages or friend requests if several people have complained about spam messages from the same account.