Small claims are designed to be quite easy, and almost free. (You might have to spend money on registered mail). Worth it for a gripe. I was prepared to do this for a hotel refund, where they were going to charge 20% cancellation fee where I saw that in local law, while there is no set max fee, it should be just to cover reasonable costs.
I looked into it and while a hassle it is on par with renewing your car insurance level of hassle (so some hassle, but doable, a "side project"). And worth it for the "stick it to the man" factor. In the end I got it almost all back by being nice, so no need.
In addition to small claims, there are credit card charge backs.
In the case in question, Facebook began by permanently closing the account in a capricious and unprovoked attack. Retaliation is irrelevent: Facebook is an aggressor.
There has been one 12 figure judgement in history and it was from big tobacco lying about the danger of their product which has killed millions of people over decades.
In this situation there would be no judgement because there is no right to have a facebook account therefore they can close your account because they don't like your face or indeed because you sued them. Why would you imagine that a jury would basically award you all facebook's money because they closed your account? Yes sir Mr soandso they were clearly jerks I award you Facebook now try not to be as big a jerk as Zuck and good day to you!
Doesn't FB have the right to not do business with you? What is the basis for the suit?
Anyway I do remember FB's "a cool "open source" way to do front-end development, feel "free" to use it, you can't sue us though". So maybe there is some shitty clause like that when you sign up.
Criminal cases do not go to small claims court. If you sue them in a civil case, yes, that could be small claims, but if you convince a prosecutor to charge them criminally, it is a completely different legal process.
You can probably go to arbitration, which you agreed to. This is what companies often require in their terms of service. It's going to be costly for one of the parties.
I really wish more of us used that system. The laws involved aren’t perfect but they’re better than trying to get a response from their non-existent customer support systems.
I believe that in many states the company that demanded arbitration has to bear the costs also.
