Latest news with #accountban
ABC News
6 days ago
- ABC News
Meta falsely accuses Instagram user of breaking child exploitation rules
An Australian beautician says she is frustrated and disheartened after Meta suspended her business and personal accounts, falsely accusing her of posting child exploitation material. The morning of the ban, Madison Archer posted a video capturing her life as a mother and businesswoman, including a brief shot of her holding her daughter. She said she never posted anything untoward on her account and did not know what exactly triggered the suspension. But shortly after the June 14 post, Ms Archer received an email that her business's Instagram account had been suspended. Her case reflects a growing number of people in Australia and around the world complaining of harsh enforcement of account-banning and a lack of thorough review when mistakes are made. The email Ms Archer received from Meta said she had not followed community standards on child sexual exploitation, abuse and nudity. "When I saw the email I initially thought it was a scam, so I didn't open it," Ms Archer told the ABC. "But when I logged into the Instagram app, a pop-up came up saying action was needed and I was like, 'What the hell?' "I felt sick because I'm so conscious of protecting my daughter as it is that I would never do anything they were accusing me of." In an effort to reinstate her account, she immediately appealed against the decision, believing the social media platform would see it was an error. An email from Meta said it would take 24–48 hours to provide a response. But within 15 minutes, an email said the appeal was unsuccessful and that the account would be permanently disabled on Instagram, leaving Ms Archer to suspect the process was entirely handled by AI. "If a human actually did the review they would see that I'm not sexually exploiting children or haven't even looked at any of that stuff on my platform," she said. Because all of Ms Archer's Meta platforms are linked, all her pages were suspended, including her personal Instagram and Facebook accounts. An option to escalate her appeal was never given, and her access to the accounts was only restored after the ABC contacted Meta for comment. When the accounts were disabled after the appeal, Ms Archer reached out to every Meta staff member whose contact details she could find in order to dispute the decision. She said the process was "incredibly difficult". "I had to create a new Facebook page and pay for Meta verification to even get in contact with a real person. "When I did manage to talk to someone, I was always met with the same answer: that it's a separate team and that I need to wait for the system to cool down and then hopefully I'll be given another chance to re-appeal." This advice seemed to contradict the initial information provided to Ms Archer when her first appeal failed — that further escalation would not be possible. At one point, she was even temporarily banned from contacting the support team because it said she had reached her "limit". "It's so disheartening that you put your trust in a platform that is designed to connect you with others, you follow the rules, and then your account can just be taken away with no proper support," she said. In a bid to rebuild nine years' worth of work building up a customer and subscriber base, Ms Archer created a new Instagram account, but was only able to attract about 2,000 of her followers — 9,000 shy of the previous number. "A lot of people that come across my profile were inclined to book [my business] from the portfolio of work they saw on my account. "They were also able to see the large following I had which backed my reputation. The ABC raised Ms Archer's case with Meta on July 15. Within hours, her account was reinstated. In an email sent to Ms Archer, seen by the ABC, the tech giant said: "We're sorry that we've got this wrong and that you weren't able to use Instagram for a while. Sometimes, we need to take action to help keep our community safe." Before her account was restored, Ms Archer also went through the process of paying a third party. She lost $1,500 to a scammer, who was referred to her by someone in the industry who is reputable and was successful in recovering their accounts. When asked by ABC News, Meta declined to comment on Ms Archer's case. "We take action on accounts that violate our policies, and people can appeal if they think we've made a mistake," a Meta spokesperson said. Ms Archer's social media account is not the only one to have been falsely accused of breaching community standards. Other Australians contacted the ABC about the issue, including Katie, who said her personal Facebook account was suspended for "misrepresenting your identity". Katie said she had always used her own name, profile picture, email and phone number on the account she created in 2007. "I have 18 years of contacts on Facebook, which includes people from different cities and countries I've lived in, as well as deceased families and relatives," she said. "I use Marketplace to buy, sell and swap household items and children's clothing for my young family." In a similar case to Ms Archer, Katie said the Meta support team was "incredibly unhelpful". "Sometimes I can't access any support, and then when I do, the tickets are closed without a resolution," she said. "My account is still under review and it's been two and a half weeks with no updates." More than 30,000 people have signed a petition accusing Meta's moderation system of wrongly banning accounts and giving people no functional way to appeal. Thousands of people are also in Reddit forums dedicated to the subject. Many users have also posted on social media platforms such as X about being banned. Meta has previously acknowledged a "technical problem" with Facebook groups, but has denied its platforms are more widely affected. It is understood Meta has not seen evidence of a significant increase in incorrect enforcement of its rules. A Meta spokesperson did not answer ABC questions about why it wrongly accused Ms Archer of violating its policies. But according to an X post from Korean National Assembly member Minhee Choi, Meta has acknowledged the possibility of wrongful suspensions of accounts in her country: "Meta is currently conducting a global crackdown on activities related to child and youth pornography on social media platforms, including Instagram. During this process, they have acknowledged that some user accounts are being excessively blocked and are being restored sequentially, while they are working to identify specific issues," she said. University of Melbourne deputy head of school of computing and information systems Shaanan Cohney said large companies such as Meta had been using AI to identify accounts in breach of their guidelines for many years. "But what does change from time to time, though, is the specific AI techniques that they use," Dr Cohney said. "What these large platforms are doing behind the scenes is they're collecting a whole bunch of things called signals that might be an indicator that something is wrong or dangerous about an account. "Even if your account is innocent, but for some reason has a lot of these signals associated with it, it might be automatically picked up by one of these algorithms." Exactly what goes into the latest version of these algorithms, how they change and when they change are not known to the public. Dr Cohney said information like this was a "trade secret". "You could say that the public should have a right to know what's in these algorithms because it can impact people pretty deeply because of the way in which these platforms are integrated into our lives," he said. "But there is a legitimate counter to that. "The effectiveness of these technologies to identify harmful behaviour is partially predicated on the ability of these companies to keep the methods secret so people can't devise tricky ways to get around them." When it comes to appealing against a breach, Dr Cohney said major social media players had fairly opaque procedures for users which generally involved some sort of semi-automated process. "It would be a very, very large undertaking to require a large company like this to provide everyone with a human appeal," he said. Meta told the ABC it used a combination of people and technology to find and remove accounts that broke its rules. Ms Archer is relieved to be posting content on her original business account again. But the feeling of uncertainty that this could happen again remains. "The fear of losing it again still sits heavy," she said. "It's hard to fully relax when you've already seen how quickly it can be taken without warning. "I'm following the rules, as I have always done, and will be keeping my backup account I created just in case."
Yahoo
16-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Instagram users complain of mass bans, pointing finger at AI
Instagram users have for weeks complained about a significant increase in accounts being mistakenly banned or suspended. Many suspect, without direct evidence, that the issues may have to do with the use of AI automation. Reached for comment, Meta has so far not offered an on-record statement. According to a growing number of social media posts, including on sites like Reddit and X, Instagram users report that their accounts were banned even though they had not violated the company's terms of service or other policies. In addition, when they submitted an appeal to have their account reviewed, some claimed they received no response. Others pointed out that they have no other way to directly contact a member of Meta's support team, leaving them at a loss for what to do next. 'I've already submitted multiple appeals, uploaded my ID, and tried reaching out to Meta through all the official channels, but I've been completely ignored. It feels like I'm shouting into a void,' wrote one Reddit user (u/Dyrovicious) about having their personal Instagram account banned. (We should note that Meta offers Verified account subscriptions for creators and businesses that offer priority access to customer service.) The Instagram Reddit community's top posts are nearly entirely focused on the ban wave and have been for weeks. On X, users are flooding Instagram's replies with pleas for the company to do something about the account suspensions or, at the very least, acknowledge the problem publicly. A petition about the bans now has over 4,000 signatures. The situation has gotten so tense that some are now threatening to file a class action lawsuit against Meta over the bans. Of course, large internet companies will inevitably encounter a certain number of false positives due to their reliance on automated moderation systems, which occasionally make mistakes. However, an excessive number of bans is something that's become a more recent focus — and one where many immediately suspect AI may be at fault. For instance, Pinterest earlier this year was facing a similar problem with mass bans, which saw users complaining that their actions and posts hadn't violated the company's policies. One group of users had also threatened legal action over the bans at the time. Pinterest in May finally admitted that the mass bans were a mistake caused by an 'internal error,' but wouldn't pinpoint the exact cause. The company claimed that the error was not due to AI moderation, though. In Instagram's case, the issues aren't just affecting personal use of the app but also people's livelihoods, as businesses have been caught up in the mass bans. 'This is my livelihood, my full-time job. I heavily rely on Instagram for leads,' wrote one Reddit user (u/Paigejust) about their suspension. 'This ban has directly affected my business and all of the hard work and branding that I've spent countless hours pouring into my business, my gym, and my students,' a gym owner on Reddit (u/CourtShaw) shared. Without access to internal company data, it's hard from the outside to tell whether recent bans represent an uptick in the number of typical false positives or not. To date, Meta has not publicly acknowledged the issue. In addition, some of the Instagram users affected have reported that they're being falsely banned for serious offenses, including CSE (child sexual exploitation). They pointed out that this is a career and reputation-ruining accusation, leaving them highly concerned. Sign in to access your portfolio
TechCrunch
16-06-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
Instagram users complain of mass bans, pointing finger at AI
Instagram users have for weeks complained about a significant increase in accounts being mistakenly banned or suspended. Many suspect, without direct evidence, that the issues may have to do with the use of AI automation. Reached for comment, Meta has so far not offered an on-record statement. According to a growing number of social media posts, including on sites like Reddit and X, Instagram users report that their accounts were banned even though they had not violated the company's terms of service or other policies. In addition, when they submitted an appeal to have their account reviewed, some claimed they received no response. Others pointed out that they have no other way to directly contact a member of Meta's support team, leaving them at a loss for what to do next. 'I've already submitted multiple appeals, uploaded my ID, and tried reaching out to Meta through all the official channels, but I've been completely ignored. It feels like I'm shouting into a void,' wrote one Reddit user (u/Dyrovicious) about having their personal Instagram account banned. (We should note that Meta offers Verified account subscriptions for creators and businesses that offer priority access to customer service.) The Instagram Reddit community's top posts are nearly entirely focused on the ban wave and have been for weeks. On X, users are flooding Instagram's replies with pleas for the company to do something about the account suspensions or, at the very least, acknowledge the problem publicly. A petition about the bans now has over 4,000 signatures. Techcrunch event Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW The situation has gotten so tense that some are now threatening to file a class action lawsuit against Meta over the bans. Of course, large internet companies will inevitably encounter a certain number of false positives due to their reliance on automated moderation systems, which occasionally make mistakes. However, an excessive number of bans is something that's become a more recent focus — and one where many immediately suspect AI may be at fault. For instance, Pinterest earlier this year was facing a similar problem with mass bans, which saw users complaining that their actions and posts hadn't violated the company's policies. One group of users had also threatened legal action over the bans at the time. Pinterest in May finally admitted that the mass bans were a mistake caused by an 'internal error,' but wouldn't pinpoint the exact cause. The company claimed that the error was not due to AI moderation, though. In Instagram's case, the issues aren't just affecting personal use of the app but also people's livelihoods, as businesses have been caught up in the mass bans. 'This is my livelihood, my full-time job. I heavily rely on Instagram for leads,' wrote one Reddit user (u/Paigejust) about their suspension. 'This ban has directly affected my business and all of the hard work and branding that I've spent countless hours pouring into my business, my gym, and my students,' a gym owner on Reddit (u/CourtShaw) shared. Without access to internal comapny data, it's hard from the outside to tell whether recent bans represent an uptick in the number of typical false positives or not. To date, Meta has not publicly acknowledged the issue. In addition, some of the Instagram users affected have reported that they're being falsely banned for serious offenses, including CSE (child sexual exploitation). They pointed out that this is a career and reputation-ruining accusation, leaving them highly concerned.
The Sun
16-05-2025
- The Sun
WhatsApp users say they're being BANNED from app over ‘silly' group chat mistake
WHATSAPP users say Meta is banning their accounts over "silly" group chat names. The group chat names, while claimed to be innocent, appear to violate WhatsApp's terms of service. 1 But many banned users are struggling to appeal their case with WhatsApp's automated user service system. "A friend of mine made a group chat, with a silly name - "strippers and cocaine" because who doesn't want an absurd name for a silly little group chat," one user wrote on Reddit. "The group chat got banned even though we haven't even used it yet and my friend who made the group chat had his whole account banned. "However this seems to be a prevalent problem as a lot of the posts on this subreddit are people getting banned for similar things." On a separate Reddit thread, another WhatsApp user alleged their account was banned for the same reason. "I've got a pretty bizarre ban today," they wrote. "I think I know the reason why." "You see, I have made a group chat for a college subject and called it ISIS because it is an abbreviation of that subjects name (I really did not think much of it)," they added. "And WhatsApp has probably flagged it for breaking the terms of use." WhatsApp's terms of service says users must not "instigate or encourage conduct that would be illegal... such as promoting violent crime" or "coordinating harm". WhatsApp reveals exacty how to block one of your contacts Yet users say that having a "silly" group chat name should not be grounds for getting banned. While one user claimed that Meta's AI was used to detect the rule-breaking group chat name, citing a notification they received - WhatsApp says this is not the case. "Only messages that mention @Meta AI, or that people choose to share with Meta AI, can be read by Meta," WhatsApp writes in a help page on its website. "Meta can't read any other messages in your personal chats." What is Meta AI? You may have spotted Meta AI on your social media feed - here's how it works: Meta AI is a conversational artificial intelligence tool, also known as a chatbot. It responds to a user's questions in a similar fashion to competitors like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. Meta AI is what's known as generative AI, so-called due to its ability to generate content. It can produced text or images in response to a user's request. The tool is trained on data that's available online. It can mimic patterns commonly found in human language as it provides responses. Meta AI appears on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, where it launches a chat when a question is sent. All WhatsApp conversations are end-to-end encrypted - meaning that no one can read them besides the sender and the recipient, not Meta, or even the government. If a user thinks their account has been wrongly banned, they can appeal. "We ban accounts if we believe the account activity violates our Terms of Service, for example if it involves spam, scams or if it puts WhatsApp users' safety at risk," WhatsApp writes in another frequently asked questions page. "We recommend carefully reviewing the "Acceptable Use of Our Services' section of our Terms of Service to learn more about the appropriate uses of WhatsApp and the activities that violate our Terms of Service." The Sun has contacted Meta for comment.
Fast Company
06-05-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
‘My library of Alexandria has been burned down': Pinterest users are fuming over sudden bans
Pinterest fans are nothing if not loyal. Many have spent years—sometimes decades—carefully curating boards filled with wedding inspiration, home decor ideas, fashion, and more. Now users are logging in only to find themselves locked out of their accounts without warning, with all their pins gone. Frustrated users have taken to platforms like X and r/Pinterest to vent. The comment sections on Pinterest's official Instagram and TikTok pages are flooded with pleas from angry users demanding answers. 'I had a beautiful Pinterest board with over 26,000 of the most beautiful images and my account was just permanently banned,' one user posted on X. 'Pinterest you will be dealt with.' Another, who reportedly lost an account they had maintained for seven years, wrote, 'I feel like my library of Alexandria has been burned down.' For creatives, Pinterest isn't just for fun—it's also a professional tool. 'It's the industry standard to present a moodboard before any project goes into action, and the sheer amount of valuable references I've lost out on since being banned is hard to describe,' wrote one Reddit user. 'I've had to postpone shoots and scramble to reassemble projects. Years and years of curating down the drain and multiple projects stuck in limbo.' Those who've lost accounts claim they've done nothing wrong. 'I made a new account, didn't even add anything yet. Get an email saying I'm banned/suspended,' one user posted on X. 'I try to dispute it and your typical bot responds saying there's nothing it can do.' Others are now afraid to even open their accounts for fear of what they might find. Many are pointing the finger at AI. Pinterest's Help Center states that it uses AI in 'improving content moderation,' a system it has relied on for years to enforce its Community Guidelines. Like many platforms, Pinterest uses a mix of AI and human review. A Pinterest spokesperson tells Fast Company: 'Pinterest has long-established public Community Guidelines that clearly outline what is and isn't allowed on the platform. We're committed to building a safer and more positive platform, and enforce these policies rigorously and continuously. Users who believe their account may have been deactivated mistakenly may submit an appeal.'
