Meta is Erroneously Banning Facebook and Instagram Accounts?!
For the past few weeks, we have seen numerous reports [across X and Reddit ] wherein users have voiced their concern that Meta has wrongfully banned or suspended their Facebook and Instagram accounts. As a result of this, users have lost years of personal memories, chat histories, and photos. And that’s not it. Many users run their businesses on this platform.
Due to this ban, they are now left with nothing in hand! While a couple has reportedly lost their $10,000 business, another user had to bid adieu to their $100000 on Facebook. Well, one user had stated that they had lost over 30 business accounts!! All their efforts setting up a business as their major/sole source of earning have gone down the drain, thanks to the Meta AI inadvertently flagging their accounts.
“We’ve reviewed your account and found that it still doesn’t follow our Community Standards on sexualisation of children.”
This kind of label could ruin someone’s life, especially people working in government or government contractors, aviation, those with actual deep access in institutional finance, tech, or any job that requires a serious background check.
- Numerous Actions Taken By Users
- It’s a Tough Battle Ahead
- What’s Meta Response?
- Some Users are Getting their Instagram/Facebook Accounts Back?!
- Conclusion: It’s Far From Over and It’s Not Good News For Us!
- UPDATE 1: There’s Going to be a Meta Korea Meet!
- UPDATE 2: Here’s What Happened at Meta Korean Meet
- UPDATE 3: Meta ‘Secretly’ Changed Their Terms of Use?!
- UPDATE 4: Meta’s New Blog Post on CSE Announcing Accounts Ban across Facebook and Instagram
Numerous Actions Taken By Users
The best part to come out of this is that all the affected users have joined hands and taken numerous drastic measures. For instance, a petition on Change.org, titled “Meta Wrongfully Disabling Accounts with No Human Customer Support,” has already got support from over 27,00o users worldwide.
Likewise, a user named xElemeno has posted a formal “Letter of Intent to Sue” to Meta, showing his intent to commence legal action against them for due to falsely banning his Facebook, Instagram, and Threads accounts. All the accounts have been banned for the same reason: Child Sexual Exploitation. But you know the best part? None of those accounts has any posts whatsoever!
It’s a Tough Battle Ahead
What’s Meta Response?
While Meta agreed to the BBC that they had wrongfully suspended a few Facebook Groups, they are denying any wrongdoing with individual Facebook or Instagram accounts. According to them, we haven’t seen “evidence of a significant increase in incorrect enforcement of its rules.” Well, if they only go through the plethora of Reddit or Twitter posts once, then they might realise the intensity of this problem or that the problem exists in the first place.
What’s even more disappointing is the response one of its support staff [or AI?] gave to a user who was trying to get things straight as to why his account got banned. According to the response from Meta :
Life is not all about an Instagram account. You can always find a job outside of it.
Seriously, they cannot go any lower, can they? While other users got slightly more logical responses, such as :
“We flagged accounts for not following our terms and conditions and this is caused by our AI technology. The good thing is that sometimes, our actions may be subject to review and correction. Which is happening now.
Some Users are Getting their Instagram/Facebook Accounts Back?!
It seems that there’s finally some silver lining in the dark clouds. We have seen a few reports wherein users have said that they have finally gotten their Instagram or Facebook accounts back. One user said that they had received an email saying Meta had made a mistake, and hence their account is now reinstated.
Another said that their account was restored after being disabled for over a week. However, we came across a post stating that the accounts that were banned on June 20th or later are the ones currently being unbanned, whereas the ones banned before that are still in the same state. The logic behind that does not make any sense whatsoever, which can also be said about this entire action taken by Meta.
However, there’s some conspiracy going on behind this as well. Many users on Reddit found out that the posts about the accounts being reinstated are all made by newcomers, so it might be the case that these messages are simply being “planted” there to lower down the intensity of this problem. However, all these are just mere speculations, and we cannot comment on that matter, at least for now.
Conclusion: It’s Far From Over and It’s Not Good News For Us!
The entire issue has been brewing for over a month now, and as expected, Meta is hardly going to bend to these reports. It has firmly made its stance that everything’s fine from their end, and that’s the end of the matter for them. All these reports across various social media platforms don’t mean anything to them, similar to how users losing their sole source of income and years of memories isn’t going to cause any dent in their decision-making.
UPDATE 1: There’s Going to be a Meta Korea Meet!
Choi Min-hee, head of the Science, ICT, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee, had said that the National Assembly will hold an emergency meeting [see below text] with Meta Korea executives and affected users. This meet-up will include Meta Korea’s VP, committee leadership, and lawyers representing the users whose accounts were disabled/suspended. Let’s hope something beneficial comes out of this meetup. We will be updating this section with the relevant information once this meeting is over.
July 6 at 3:06 PM
[We are holding a meeting for victims of MetaPlatform account suspension]
This Thursday, the National Assembly will hold a meeting with the victims of Meta Platform account suspension.
This meeting will be attended by Choi Min-hee, Vice-President of Meta Korea, and the head of the broadcasting committee, and the representative lawyer of the law firm, who is representing the victims of account suspension and the evidence of the victims of the account.
Last month, Meta said "there were technical errors that impacted some groups. Currently working on an issue. "As I have expressed my official position, I will directly hear the voices of the victims through this conference and speed up the resolution of the domestic account suspension incident through Meta Korea.
(The conference will be held privately, and after it's over, the collected contents will be shared as a separate press release)
ps. Here's a word of encouragement!
Recently, the same texts and calls have been pouring day and night regarding the suspension of accounts.
Contacting late at night or early in the morning, not only regular activities but also daily life are difficult.
I will continue to share relevant news on Facebook.
Please send a comment or a Facebook message for any complaints or cases you would like to pass on!
From now on, I will respectfully disregard private messages or calls with similar content.
I will step on my feet to solve the problem faster in that time!!!
[Metaplatform Account Suspension Victims Meeting]
Date: Thursday, July 10th at 4:00pm
Venue: Congress Hall 6th Conference Room
Host/Host: Choi Min-hee's Congressional Office
UPDATE 2: Here’s What Happened at Meta Korean Meet
One of the participants who attended this meeting has laid down all that happened in this meetup. According to him : [translated]
Hello everyone,
I'm one of the participants who attended the recent roundtable held in Korea regarding the mass account deactivations. I'd like to clarify some misunderstandings I've seen among the community.
Meta Korea is not an official branch of Meta Platforms Inc. It functions more as a local agency handling Facebook's advertising and social commerce. This means they have absolutely no authority over Instagram or account-related issues.
The reason this meeting was even possible is because Korean victims raised legal concerns, and a member of the Korean National Assembly took notice and gave us a platform to speak out. The purpose of the roundtable was not to provide solutions, but to bring awareness to the issue.
The final statement from Meta Korea (again, just an ad agency) was simply that they are now "aware of the issue" and would be willing to explore possible solutions together. No concrete actions or resolutions were promised.
So please, don't misunderstand this meeting as a step toward recovery. If we truly want to resolve this, we need to act. I strongly urge the victims in the United States to contact your representatives and demand a congressional hearing or an official forum with Meta's U.S. headquarters.
Meta wants us to give up quietly. Please don't. Bringing this issue to U.S. Congress is the only real way to make Meta respond and take responsibility.
Stay strong and united.
Unfortunately, nothing fruitful seems to have come out of this. But on the flip side, we got our hopes further diminished by the news that Meta Korea isn’t the official branch of Meta Platforms. Instead, it’s a local advertising agency handling Facebook’s social commerce and ad operations, and hence, they have zero control over this account ban fiasco.
UPDATE 3: Meta ‘Secretly’ Changed Their Terms of Use?!
To cover up their act of incorrectly banning various Facebook and Instagram accounts, Meta seems to have come up with something that one might call shady at best. It has secretly modified its Terms of Use in the background without notifying its users. So here’s what happened.
Earlier, Meta had said that they may “restrict” access to certain products and features for accounts if they have interacted with content that violates their policies. But now, they silently added the disable keyword right next to restrict. Not only that, they went on to say that the account will be disabled even if you liked or saved a post that violates their policy [just to be clear, both these terms weren’t there earlier].
Left: Earlier TOS | Right: New Modified TOS
Truth be told, I guess most of the users, intentionally or otherwise, might have at least once liked or saved such a post throughout their years of using this platform. If Meta didn’t like it, then it should have conveyed to us before we started using their platform, not after! But if they did so, then how would they justify our account termination now? Moreover, using these deceptive tactics, Meta can now easily justify all the accounts that they have banned to date. We have to admit, well played, mate Meta!
This is unlawful, change of contractual terms cannot be retrospectively applied without explicit or implied agreement from the other contracting party, doing so can amount to the contract being breached and the breaching party legally liable (Meta in this case)….. …..But in the matters of most of the people here, they didn’t even have access to Meta Platforms when the terms were changed, making it impossible for them to have agreed to this change. Seems like grounds for bad faith (implied convenant), unconsciobility and MAY even amount to a full on breach of contract. – Redditor New-Access-7694
UPDATE 4: Meta’s New Blog Post on CSE Announcing Accounts Ban across Facebook and Instagram
Meta has just published a new blog post on “Expanding Teen Account Protections and Child Safety Features”. One paragraph that caught my attention is:
Earlier this year, our specialist teams removed nearly 135,000 Instagram accounts for leaving sexualized comments or requesting sexual images from adult-managed accounts featuring children under 13. We also removed an additional 500,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts that were linked to those original accounts.
While it is definitely commendable that the social media giant is taking action against such a concerning topic, however, it would have been much more commendable if the accounts they are banning were the actual culprits. Most of the banned accounts have, in fact, nothing to do with C hild Sexual Exploitation.
Unfortunately, all the requests from the people are falling on deaf ears, and there doesn’t seem to be any hint of optimism if we talk about reinstating the suspended or banned accounts. Anyways, we are still taking note of all the developments surrounding this story and will keep you updated as well.
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