Did you know that Facebook has limits in place that prevent you from sending out to many chat messages in a certain time? Once you reach that limit, you receive the message that you have exceeded the limit for sending chat messages. Before that though you are warned that you are approaching a limit for sending chat messages.

Facebook actually has several of those limits in place on the site that prevent users from using some of the site’s functionality temporarily.

Why is this in place at all? Facebook says to “prevent behavior that others may find annoying or abusive”. Users who hit a limit will be temporarily blocked at first from using it. It is not clear how long they will be blocked though, as Facebook fails to provide an answer for that.

The notification that users will see notes that blocks cannot be lifted manually, which means that users will have to wait for the block to be lifted before they can start using the feature again. This can be highly annoying if you are right in a chat with a friend or colleague.

“You have exceeded the limit for sending chat messages!
You are temporarily blocked from sending chat messages. Block times may vary depending on the feature and scale of abuse. Blocks cannot be lifted.

Misuse of Facebook’s features may result in your account being disabled.”

Facebook furthermore notes that block times vary “depending on the feature and scale of abuse”.

Misuses of Facebook features in this way may even result in accounts being disabled.

While it is unlikely that the majority of Facebook users will ever come close to those limits, it could happen if they have a virus or other malicious software on their system that is targeting Facebook. Another possibility are hacked accounts that are used to send spam and other malicious activities.

Facebook users receiving the warning message should slow down their chat activities to avoid being blocked from using the feature for a certain amount of time.

Please note that limits are in place for many features of the site. You may receive them while posting on walls or adding notes for instance.

The easiest option to overcome those issues is to slow down before you start using the feature again.