Is Facebook / Meta trying to commit suicide?

Is Facebook / Meta trying to commit suicide?

I've heard numerous storied from people who have had their Facebook (which includes Instagram accounts, Pages, etc etc etc) for reasons which remain unknown whether their account is restored or not.

Why am I writing this post though? Well, recently my wife Shanti Korporaal suddently disappeared out of all the join Facebook Messenger groups we have with many people.

Upon logging in Shanti was presented with a page similar to the following (We didn't take a screen shot at the time).

This is quite bizarre. My wife hardly ever posts publically on Facebook or Instagram. She used to, and when she is doing a fitness push she ramps it up with 'Sweaty Selfies', but she has barely posted this year.

We thought it might have been hacked and we reported it as such and attempted to recover the account, but were told to wait, and wait we have, with zero response.

Being told you have violated 'Community Standards' means nothing. Their page which provides details about this also says nothing specific and it could be for many many reasons which seem arbitary.

Many of the reasons Facebook suspend accounts are reasonable, but none of them would be something my wife would have done. Not because she is all sweet and nice, but because she just doesn't use Facebook or Instagram enough.

So, Shanti clicks the 'Request a Review' and waits.... and waits.... and waits... and waits.

After a few days I reached out to a friend who works has worked for Meta/Facebook for nearly 10 years and as I understand it, is in a rather senior role. Their response was that whatever the reason was, she should have been given a warning by way of a few days ban (she wasn't). I asked my friend if they were able to help get her suspension reviewed by a human, and their response was:

I will be honest, I have no idea where to report this.
...
We’re a big monster now so I don’t even know who to ask.        

This is astounding. A company so big that a senior staff member doesn't even know how to address an issue. Obviously there is a lot of issues on Facebook, but their automatic systems should be well refined given just how much they have to deal with.

I'm actually having the same issue with Optus where I was trying to find out which Director had the responsibility for a particular Optus asset, but in 3 months of chasing, still haven't found out who. Even their corporate lawyer who I got onto did not know.

Anyway. What can one do but wait? It's now been about 5 weeks and we still haven't heard back and her account is still suspended.

So, what we did after a few days was Shanti created another Facebook account. I added her back to our group chats and she added a few friends she could keep in contact.

Shanti's new account has NEVER posted publically on her feed. She has been tagged a few times, and chatted on Messenger a bit.

Today (5th October) I noticed Shanti disappeared from our groups again and yes, her account was suspended.

When Shanti logged in on her mobile she received this message.

What the hell? What did she do to cause this? She has not even publically posted.

I told her to just do it. Give them your Drivers Licence - why not, you can trust them right? Also, what choice do you have?

When she did it, she received this response.

"... This means we may not be able to review your account."

Are these people completely mental?

First they want to check on her, then tell her they may not be able to because they are overworked? How many people are they doing this to? Surely this takes up processing power and is happening to many others.

There are stories all over the Internet about how much of a troubled time Faceook/Meta is going through a lot of pain and they are losing users.

Why go to extra efforts to upset people and make them consider if they even need Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, etc as there are alternatives out there, ones that people wouldn't even look at if you don't force them to.

Facebook u need to do better. You have an excellent underlying infrastructure that can be used to power many things. Don't screw it all up by forcing yourself to fail.