Elizabeth Massie is the author of more than 30 books – many of them scary stories. She’s won the Bram Stoker award from the Horror Writers Association twice, and in 2023 got a lifetime achievement award. But last month she woke up to her own personal horror story – a note from Facebook.
“It says, ‘Hi, Elizabeth. Your Facebook account has been suspended. This is because your account or activity on it doesn’t follow our community standards. If you think we suspended your account by mistake, you have 180 days to appeal the decision.’”
Massie was baffled. She had used Facebook for years to stay in touch with readers, friends and family, but could think of nothing objectionable -- so she clicked the appeal box and waited for word from Facebook. It came two hours later.
“It said that my appeal had been denied, and I could no longer appeal again, and they had a link as to how to find out about community standards.”
She clicked to learn more about community standards and discovered a list of more than two dozen things that can get people thrown off Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger and What’s App along with a video in which parent company META explains.
“These standards are based on established norms and input from experts in fields like technology, public safety and human rights. The community standards apply to everyone and outline what can and cannot be shared. For example, while opinions and debate are allowed, bullying and harassment are not. Neither are hate speech and incitement to violence.”
Massie didn’t think she’d done any of those things, so she e-mailed Facebook – and got no response. She tried calling a toll-free number, but was told Facebook didn’t answer questions by phone. This kind of thing, it turns out, is not uncommon.
“What a lot of people have experienced is that they don’t hear anything back, and the way that it’s structured is they can’t really get through to anyone," says Cayce Myers, a professor of communication at Virginia Tech and author of a new book -- Artificial Intelligence and Law in the Communication Professions.
The problem, he thinks, is that the content of millions of users is not being monitored by people but by computers.
“It may be an AI system is monitoring. It may just be an algorithm that’s monitoring -- going through and flagging content. The account gets shut down. A lot of times you also have people who are hacked.”
That seems likely in Massie’s case.
“Before I got my notice there was a fake account with my name set up. Now I know there are people who have the same name as me, but what made this different was they had taken a photo from my collection, and they used that as their profile photo, but it shows my husband and me in a grocery store.”
She reported that to Facebook, but the company did nothing, and now she’s lost pictures, correspondence and contacts that were stored on the platform.
“All my friends, all my photos, all sorts of things just gone!”
Professor Myers says some consumers in that situation have taken Facebook to small claims court and won.
“Sometimes they just don’t even respond to the lawsuit. The person may win by default judgement, but it doesn’t necessarily result in a restoration of their content.”
Radio IQ e-mailed parent company Meta’s media relations team, and while the firm did not respond directly, Massie was able to open a new account – something she was blocked from doing before – and the account opened by a possible hacker has been suspended.
Professor Myers says there are no laws specifically protecting consumers from being banned from social media sites, but market forces may push these platforms to be more responsive.
“They need the user, because the company leverages the connections and the content of users that then attracts advertisers and other users to these platforms.”
Massie says she’s now rebuilding her life online but worries that she could, again, be booted off Facebook and lose the contacts and memories stored there.
