I have a similar, though less horrible story.
We recently launched an app where we wanted to have a Facebook sign-in button since our target audience would be people that use Facebook a lot. Being Gen Z and not having a Facebook account at all (anymore) I made one for Meta developers, set everything up for development and tested stuff for a few weeks.
When we finally did want to go live, we went through the Meta for Business verification process, which succeeded, but a minute later my account got banned. I got to appeal (sending a video of your face looking multiple directions), but for some reason that wasn’t enough for them. I got fully banned with the only option to appeal going to court.
So now apparently I have a Facebook developer account and a verified business, both of which I cannot access at all anymore.<p>We do not currently have a Facebook sign-in button in our production app.
I've reported a lot of prostitution ads on Instagram, but they always responded to the report with "we found nothing wrong". After reporting these ads, Meta decided I liked them and started showing me more and more, but I've given up on reporting them, since no action is taken.<p>Meta seem to not actually check reports. My theory is that they just rely on some percentage of reports maybe relating to followers, reports, and time. If it exceeds a threshold, there's an action. Otherwise, no action.
> She recommended a few cafes, and I went to look at their menus. To my surprise, I couldn’t access their menus. They were only on Instagram, and it’d force a sign in before showing me the content.<p>Wow. There are over 30 restaurants within a mile of where I live, and not one of them uses Instagram to host anything as far as I know. They always have a real web page, even if it’s cobbled together on Wix or some other horrible thing, and the menu is invariably a PDF (because they had to send something to the printer, and they don’t know how to put something nicer on the web). Sometimes you have to allow third–party JS to get their webpage to render so that you can get the PDF though.<p>Well, I guess the national chains don’t post a PDF these days. They give you a real menu and even offer online ordering and delivery. Most people probably don’t need to look at a McDonald’s menu to know what they sell though.
This unfortunately is why anonymity is so important on the Internet. I would not want to be a part of many of these communities with an account that is connected to my real life accounts in any way. Different email, different username, no discernible connection to my real identity.<p>But also, shame on Meta and most other gigantic companies for having no due process for anything like this. I have no idea how they just go along with it and decide in favor of the reporter with zero evidence. Sure, maybe bans need to be proactive but there should at least be an appeals process.<p>There should probably be more laws that cover permanent bans for business platforms that have a marketshare above a certain size. You shouldn’t be able to be permanently banned from services like this that dominate their respective markets without a robust process. There should probably be cases where even the violation of certain aspects of ToS can’t get you banned permanently, where law overrides ToS. Imagine if you were banned from getting phone service from AT&T in the 1980s and how devastating that could be.
This author sticking around is far more than that community deserves. If I ever received that sort of message from a user of anything I'd built, I'd walk away forever.
> <i>I couldn’t access their menus. They were only on Instagram, and it’d force a sign in before showing me the content.</i>
> <i>so many restaurants and cafes here purely use Instagram (or sometimes Facebook) to host their menus.</i><p>That's idiotic. Really, reaaaally idiotic. Like, "talk to the manager and tell them they are doing a very stupid thing" levels of idiotic. </Rant><p>This "we're too modern and digital to get out heads out of our asses" attitude towards adopting "cool technology" with complete disregard for an analog Plan B gets to my nerves.<p>Here, since Covid, lots of places stopped offering physical menus, instead they put a QR code to some webpage or gigantic PDF file that contains the menu (and can be updated every day to push prices up if needed, heh).<p>I hate that services assume you must have a hundreds-dollar device on your pocket at all times to even be able to access the basic service they provide. I just power off my phone and tell them "look I ran out of battery, what should we do?". They usually do have a physical menu, thankfully.<p>But other things aren't so nice. My employer offers a restaurant card, and because now we live in a "digital era", they don't issue physical cards any more, only digital ones to be used with Google Wallet on Android. Turns out I'd like to install GrapheneOS on my Pixel, and you got it: Wallet doesn't work on GrapheneOS for payments! I'd want my physical restaurant card, please.
I also lost my Facebook account a few years ago, because someone tried to hack it I think.<p>Similarly there were no open avenues of appeal.<p>By a big fluke I actually did some work for FB and in the process they unlocked it.<p>But yeah, monopolies controlling access to public services with no oversight sucks.
Sue in small claims court. This exists in Australia:<p><<a href="https://www.fcfcoa.gov.au/gfl/fairwork-small-claims" rel="nofollow">https://www.fcfcoa.gov.au/gfl/fairwork-small-claims</a>><p>The law is what provides justice, the mechanism is the court system. There are many who try to dissuade you from this option <i>because it is effective</i>. Use it.<p>Write your consumer protection entity. In much of the US that is your state attorney general's office. I believe you can start with the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission), here:<p><<a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/problem-with-a-product-or-service-you-bought/where-to-go-for-consumer-help" rel="nofollow">https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/problem-with-a-product-or-...</a>><p>Write your government representatives.<p>- City council members.<p>- County supervisors / local councils.<p>- State representatives / MRA.<p>- Federal representatives / MPs.<p><i>Call their office(s).</i><p><i>Write their office(s).</i> Email <i>and</i> postal mail.<p><i>Follow up with them.</i> If you don't get a sufficient response, let the office know.<p>Australian governmental organisation: <<a href="https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/three-levels-of-government/three-levels-of-government-governing-australia" rel="nofollow">https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-...</a>><p>Contact NGOs advancing personal digital rights in your country. For Australia this seems to be Digital Rights Watch (<<a href="https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/" rel="nofollow">https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/</a>>) and EFF Australia (<<a href="https://efa.org.au/" rel="nofollow">https://efa.org.au/</a>>). These and similar organisations elsewhere should already be <i>very</i> familiar with account-lock-out and similar problems, and can likely direct you as to how to register your claim most effectively.<p>Tweeting, blogging, and throwing up your hands is what Meta would most like you to do.<p>Do more and cause them pain.<p>Organise.
> I did end up speaking to a few engineers at Meta through connections, either directly or through others, many of which recommended suing Meta to unlock my accounts. This was extra complicated due to me living in Australia, so it’s not something I tried.<p>Why is this complicated? Do the Meta ToS include a choice-of-venue clause for consumer accounts?
There is so much that is sad and infuriating about this.<p>How can a stranger have so much hate towards someone who's content they want to <i>consume</i>?
Why are meta engineers suggesting suing their own company instead of pointing to someone to walk through a basic appeals process?
The obvious, why do so many things in the world not work without a smartphone and a google/facebook account with internet access?
Why isn't anyone doing anything about any of this? PMs at facebook? Congressmen/women?<p>The system is not working.
I really wish Europe would consider a continent-wide ban on Meta and X. We gain nothing positive from these companies, they only serve to destabilize our democracies, disinfom citizens and ostracize people.
Sounds like an awful experience. It's easy to create fake FB or Insta accounts to get around the restaurant menus problem, but getting WhatsApp banned must be a nightmare. I didn't even know that could happen!
I don't know about the country you live in, but the usual 100% bullet-proof method to make your message seen by the living human being is to send a paper snail mail.<p>You won't necessary receive the answers for your questions, but you'll get back your account.<p>If the simple message did not help, you file a pre-trial claim and send it to them.
Users reporting users is a terrible way to manage account misuse/bad behaviour. Your average user on your average platform is a low form of life incase you hadn’t noticed.
LinkedIn is especially egregrious in the account restriction aspect, especially with how essential it is to many people's lives.<p>Recently, I found that I couldn't log in to my LinkedIn account. They made the issue seem like an error, so I spent a lot of time trying to log in on different device/browser combinations. Eventually, I folded and tried to submit a support ticket, just to be met with a login page.<p>After some searching around, I found direct links to the support forms, but none of them worked — they all displayed the same error when I tried to submit a ticket. The only other option was to contact them on Twitter. Tried to create an account just to be met with a generic "something went wrong" error, after wasting my time with what was easily the most awful CAPTCHA I've ever seen.<p>Tried creating a new LinkedIn account — no good, they ask for phone verification and won't let me reuse my phone number.<p>For some time, I thought my only option was going to be legal action, until a lightbulb lit up in my head. I went back to the support form, and instead of providing the email I used for my LinkedIn account, I used another email. The ticket was submitted successfully.<p>At that point, it was clear that my account had some shadow ban in place. My only guess is that I tripped some psychotic automated system. How is it in any way acceptable that a company can essentially, and completely arbitrarily, blacklist someone from the job market like this? No notification or warning, nothing — they literally try to gaslight you with fake errors.<p>I'm <i>hoping</i> that my support ticket will have some effect (not sure it will, given what I've experienced so far), or else I'll once again be left with legal action as my only recourse. So far, nothing.
> <i>This experience was eye opening; it shocked me at how fundamental online platforms owned by companies have actually become to modern life.</i><p>Oh no! If only there was some way you could have known!<p><<a href="https://xkcd.com/743/" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/743/</a>>
I had a reddit account permanently banned for saying something to the effect that a certain out of control billionaire could be dealt with by launching him into space in an electric vehicle that one of his companies manufactures.<p>Apparently "reddit legal" thought that was a credible threat. I find that strangely encouraging.
We're at the point that MAMAA/FAANG (might as well call them MAGA now) can dictate 0% tax in the UK instead of a measly 2% because those platforms were co-opted by foreign countries to promote Brexit, leading to economic servitude. Starlink is now being foisted upon economically susceptible countries leading to a potential monopoly of connectivity, giving ultimate power to broker even more concessions down the line, not to mention increasing political thought-control.<p>Welcome to 2025's take on 1984.