Ask HN: Banned from Facebook/meta services without explanation
13 comments
You're free! Enjoy your new life.
Thanks, thanks. It has in fact also felt liberating. Already spent more time meditating today. Never thought enlightenment would come this way. :)
Just documenting the apparent endgame after four days, in case anyone is curious.
I waited out the 24 hours and finally got again to the stage where they allow me to ask for the SMS verification sending again.
The same deal: The SMS with the verification code gets sent to me, but like the web ui, also the also the facebook mobile app UI tells me the SMS failed to send and so refuses to let me enter the code.
The official ID sending form still refuses to receive my ID. It says I need to login for more information, which I cannot do, as noted above.
So the final story seems to be: they've blocked the account permanently and without a warning of any kind, with a flimsy excuse.
They also refuse to be honest about the fact that they don't intend to allow me to ask for any kind of confirmation or review.
The only hope is that on Instagram's side the phone verification indeed did go through successfully, although nothing happened within the promised 24 hours within which the review was supposed to happen.
I waited out the 24 hours and finally got again to the stage where they allow me to ask for the SMS verification sending again.
The same deal: The SMS with the verification code gets sent to me, but like the web ui, also the also the facebook mobile app UI tells me the SMS failed to send and so refuses to let me enter the code.
The official ID sending form still refuses to receive my ID. It says I need to login for more information, which I cannot do, as noted above.
So the final story seems to be: they've blocked the account permanently and without a warning of any kind, with a flimsy excuse.
They also refuse to be honest about the fact that they don't intend to allow me to ask for any kind of confirmation or review.
The only hope is that on Instagram's side the phone verification indeed did go through successfully, although nothing happened within the promised 24 hours within which the review was supposed to happen.
Good riddance, see it as an early Christmas present from Skynet.
While I don't have any advice for this particular situation, I'd encourage you to diversify your online business presence into a domain that you own (e.g. a website) with a direct line of communication to your customers (emails) because I've heard stories like these too often on Twitter. At the scale these big tech companies operate at you never know how long it's going to take before they get to your case. Best of luck!
If your business pages weren't effected, I would join the "you're better off" bandwagon. I think you've already taken the only step that seems to work in this situation, posting on social media and hoping to go viral. I wish you luck but, even if it succeeds, start on an escape plan.
Thanks. The thing is, I can't actually login to use/update those business pages. :D
is it possible that something external to facebook, such as a malicous ad could be used to make it appear as if users are doing somthing nasty?
i dont do facebook so ive never seen any list of FB community standards, does anyone have one handy?
i found these, but they are not up to date :
https://gizmodo.com/here-s-everything-that-s-banned-on-faceb...
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/24/facebook-content-that-gets-y...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4GL67wsYuI
i dont do facebook so ive never seen any list of FB community standards, does anyone have one handy?
i found these, but they are not up to date :
https://gizmodo.com/here-s-everything-that-s-banned-on-faceb...
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/24/facebook-content-that-gets-y...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4GL67wsYuI
[deleted]
Tried uploading official id. I am apparently also not allowed to upload official id. Not sure if it's the 24 h limit for that although that seems to contradict the other info about first having to wait 24h to get confirmed.
I'm more surprised that people are still surprised this happens.
Congratulations!
Just walk away.
No warning notice, just banned instantly from both Facebook and Instagram, which I use for marketing as an ISV and a coach. No real explanation.
Screenshots: https://savolai.net/uncategorized-en/banned-from-facebook-and-instagram-screenshots/
In the facebook appeals form they request a photo of user identification such as passport. I'm not sure I feel comfortable sharing all the sensitive info on it. Is it i.e. okay to cover up my Finnish social security number ending part from this?
The whole process seems horribly broken. Is this normal?
Details:
On Friday night at around 9pm Finnish time (UTC+2) I was on my laptop. I switched to Facebook tab and it suddenly told me I had activity on facebook that goes against community guidelines.
I hadn't posted anything this week, except as instagram stories that get synced to my coaching page, which hasn't been closed. I don't think I post anything very controversial, related to covid or otherwise.
In the first screen I saw (screenshot in above url) they asked me to push a big blue button to indicate I disagree with the decision.
They sent me and I received a SMS verification code but the web ui still said sending the code failed so I couldn't enter the code. After trying a couple of times, they say I've tried too many times and there is a delay of 24h. Even after the 24h passed, I still get this.
Every time I enter now on my cell phone, I get this screen that claims to show the violating content I have posted, except the photo grid only shows blank grey rectangles. Pressing the "Continue" button gives a grey spinner and does nothing.
Today the time at which they claim I posted those violating images had changed. Originally it was 8:51pm on Friday night. Now they said it was 1:51 am yesterday, i.e on Saturday morning, by which time the account had already been suspended for several hours.
Accessing on my cell phone I managed to get the instagram verification process started. Just now I found another form where I could give my userid/phone number and a scanned photo of personal ID.
My business pages are still up, but I have no way of accessing them.
Thanks for any pointers on how to proceed!