Ask HN: Has anyone else been banned from Facebook for no reason? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Has anyone else been banned from Facebook for no reason?

2 pointsshubik225 comments

I haven't had a personal Facebook account for several years, but recently made one so I could post ads for the business I recently started. The only thing I've done on this account is 1) create a page for my business and 2) attempt to create an ad for my business.

First my account was blocked from advertising; this was resolved by 1) giving Facebook my mobile phone number 2) uploading picture of a photo ID, and 3) filing an appeal. The appeal was granted, and my ad started running.

Then last night I was locked out of my account entirely; I'm getting a message that I did something which violated Facebook's community standards (which is odd, given I haven't done practically anything at all with this account).

Facebook asked me to upload a photo showing my face and said they would review my appeal. Now the only screen I can see when I attempt to access my Facebook account says "We Received Your Information. If we still find that your account didn't follow our Community Standards, it will remain disabled. We're always looking out for the security of people on Facebook, so until then you can't use your account."

Has this happened to anyone else before? Anyone have any tips for what I can do here, other than just wait? Honestly baffling considering I haven't done anything that I'd imagine an automated system misconstruing as violating any community standards.

I think they use other methods for identity verification, including WhatsApp and Instagram. If you don't exist in their ecosystem, it's possible they think you don't exist.

A lot of friends who post blank avatars have been randomly banned as well, so you can't do that. Someone leaked an internal document several years back on their anti-troll/raid measures, and a lot of them try to identify if your personality aligns with those from 4chan, etc.

I've had issues with some items I've posted for sale. I ended up just deleting the ad and then creating it with some tweaked working. Then it got approved.

I think it's mostly just algorithms for wording and if people report it. I would guess that you're basically screwed. I'm starting to accept that's just what systems do to people, whether it's Facebook or the "justice" system.

A couple years ago my account was flagged as spam. I'd uploaded a silly picture with a silly location tag. They sent an email requesting identity validation. I took it as a great opportunity to quit and haven't been back since. Well, not entirely. I did end up making a new account just for family, but I check it only a couple times a year.

But I've done nothing with business with FB. Good luck :-/

Open another account?

Create couple posts praising party/politicians Zuck is favoring and you should be all set.

I know of someone who shared an event to their timeline, but the event title had the word Qanon in it. The event wasn't a Qanon one, but was supposed to be an educational seminary about it.

They were banned very shortly after that, but thanks to personal connections they were able to get their account back.

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