from Hacker News

Please help: My business Facebook, Instagram, and personal acct all got disabled

by solfox on 12/20/24, 2:03 AM with 8 comments

We're literally customers (ads) of facebook. No warning. Instagram claims we "violated community standards" on our business account, where we have only been posting our very above-board podcast videos.

I've already submitted a request for appeal, which was ~immediately denied. My FB account of 15+ years, plus all my groups, my various pages, and my followers, my business assets - all gone?

It's hard to even know what happened to trigger this. We've been making maybe 1-2 posts per day at most on the instagram account, and maybe have like 15 followers. Obviously the loss of the personal account + personal groups has a much bigger impact to me personally... but it's also crazy that they would clobber an active small business, that's paying them no less.

Can anyone at Meta please help?

  • by warmedcookie on 12/20/24, 8:03 PM

    My Facebook account got banned because I didn't have an Instagram account and a bad actor signed up using my same email and I guess did things that violated the TOS. I saw the verification email and ignored it. Two factor authentication didn't matter. That was over a year ago and it's still banned.
  • by solfox on 12/21/24, 2:08 AM

    Update: Because they banned everything associated with my account, my developer account has been disabled, which broke a live mobile app. I have no way to restore or fix it because they seem to have blocked my IP from creating new accounts. Absolutely bonkers!

    I’m learning my lesson: no more FB integration.

  • by spl757 on 12/21/24, 3:24 AM

    This demonstrates the problem with business plans that rely upon a 3rd party service or services over which one has no control and is subject to the whims of 3rd party TOS that can be changed with no warning.
  • by solfox on 12/22/24, 6:24 AM

    Final Update: A Meta employee was able to resolve the ban and restore my account. Thanks all for the visibility and support.
  • by ClassyJacket on 12/20/24, 2:20 AM

    I'm so sorry. I gave you an upvote so hopefully a Meta employee sees this. It's crazy how much power these few companies have.
  • by uncomplexity_ on 12/22/24, 3:11 AM

    just move to other platforms like x shere you got more freedom regardless of how overboard your podcast is