Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
Facebook, one of the most popular social networking sites in the world, is full of pages and accounts run by small business owners.
In 2019, there were over 90m small businesses on Facebook worldwide. These businesses can post updates, list contact details and services, allow customer reviews, place job adverts and create an online shop.
However, the hashtag #facebookdisabledme has grown on Twitter with frustrated Facebook users unable to access their accounts, their business pages and their ad accounts. Multiple petitions have been created asking Facebook to change how they review accounts and to lift bans on locked-out users.
Facebook’s account reviews are run on artificial intelligence (AI) which favours broad identifiers and lacks nuance. The customer service side is also reliant on AI so when businesses try to get in touch with a human at Facebook to resolve the issue, they can’t.
Users of the platform have bemoaned a lack of transparency and no clarification as to why an account or page has been disabled. It can take months to get these accounts reinstated and even then, they may be disabled again days later.
Having your personal account disabled is aggravating, but for small business owners the