You're not going to like how I got my Facebook account back – this is the sad truth
I work as a journalist for a news outlet. We have a Facebook page where we post our articles. A few months ago, more than half of the stories we published there started being flagged by Meta. The posts were removed, with the explanation that we were violating their guidelines. This happened to a majority of the posts that had a link to our website, whether we shared the article normally with a link or posted the link in the comment section. Important note: we publish completely ordinary local news from our community. One of the posts that was removed was a post encouraging our followers to send in their photos from our countrys national day celebrations.
Eventually, my personal Facebook account was suspended. I lost access to both Facebook and Messenger. The others journalists also received restrictions on their private accounts.
As you know, it is almost impossible to get in touch with a real human being at Meta. And that brings me to what the title of this post is about — why you probably won’t like how I got my account back.
One of the advantages of working in the media is that you can put pressure on people in positions of power. In many ways, it is unfortunate but true that this comes with certain advantages. We contacted various industry organizations in our country for help, but we did not get very far. However, with enough pressure, we managed to get access to a person who works for Meta in the Nordic region. I do not know what kind of magic he performed, but shortly afterward I got my account back, and the restrictions on our newspaper’s Facebook page were lifted. I got a confirmation email from a real person at Meta that they had lifted the restrictions.
We would never have succeeded with this if we had not worked in the media industry. I am happy to have my account back, but I am still furious with Meta. We still do not know why our content was flagged, other than Meta confirming that it was their AI system that did it.
I truly feel for everyone experiencing Meta’s arrogance and abuse of power. I hope they are forced to take action soon, because their AI is completely out of control right now.