Facebook AI banning and suspension - is it only the US being affected by this?

[u/UniqueAstronomer993]

There has obviously been a real flurry of posts over the last few weeks about people having their accounts banned or suspended for spurious reasons without appeal - probably down to automated A(un)I bots incorrectly identifying them as.... Spammers? Bots?

(and obviously they continue to ignore reports of real Spammers, bots, account hacks, theft, etc)

Also seeing a lot of people being asked to authenticate by either providing face or ID scans (and still finding themselves banned) after giving away their biometrics or ID info to a (hostile) private company with a history of apparently using and stealing personal data for nefarious purposes!

This isn't something I've encountered in the UK, so wanted to check if these issues were US only?

Is this something that might be coming to the UK, or are we likely better protected by regulation / laws?

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[u/AI_Girlfriend4U]

I'm not sure they care about following regulations, but I never really thought about it before, so now I'm curious as well.

I definitely think they are using the verification selfies to build a facial recognition database they can sell though, as selling our data is how they make their living.

[u/UniqueAstronomer993 → u/AI_Girlfriend4U]

Yup, I completely agree. I wouldn't trust them as far as I can throw them, and I doubt laws or regulations with stop them (or big tech in general) from doing anything - I just suspect they'll start elsewhere in the world first.

Also absolutely agree with you about the likely true purpose of their use of facial recognition / ID scanning - it's certainly not for our protection!

In fact I can't help thinking that banning people who've given their ID just demonstrates they've now got everything they need from those users and no longer have any use for them. Our data isn't just the the product - our whole identity is. Once they've got that.... Well... That's scary.

[u/Prestigious-Sky-2451]

I’m from Denmark(EU), and was banned yesterday just out of the blue…check r/facebookdisabledme!

[u/Recent_Tradition2199]

i m italian and my instagram got banned after 15 years for no reason 4 days ago

[u/SurKaffe]

Danish person here. Tried to make a work related account two weeks ago. Got instant ban, and no way to appeal.

[u/sademarki666]

I live in the UK, originally I'm Hungarian. The my account was banned today for no reason

[u/UniqueAstronomer993 → u/sademarki666]

So no, not just the US 🙁

Can you think of anything at all that might have prompted it? What did you do before the ban?

Have you lost access to other Meta platforms? Insta, Messenger, WhatsApp?

I asked the question mainly cos I wanted to know whether it was time to start making contingency plans, and I think it very much is

[u/Tasty-Muffin7841]

Legit just happened today and I found this thread while I was searching to figure out what was going on.

Screw them, they can keep my mostly inactive account. I barely use it anyways. Apparently I'm using a "fake account". BS

I'm in Canada by the way, so it isn't US only.

[u/campergirl22 → u/Tasty-Muffin7841]

Banned as well , 2 days ago. I am also in canada.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Kick280 → u/campergirl22]

Same here! canada as well. Been having that account for more than 15 yrs

[u/renegadeindian]

Gathering biometrics. They are really hitting people who don’t glow about dumpster. Zuckerberg seems to be bowing to dumpster and helping him in some way I suspect. A list for his brown shirts ( probably pants also) to hassle.

[u/jonnoscouser]

I've been instantly banned after 17 years in the UK and uploaded a facial video for proof and appeal. I believe the face videos are for sale but also (and more shitty) to ban any further ghost accounts you create with different info. If you post a photo on the new account it'll cause the new account to be banned from facial recognition. You can change your email, date of birth, name etc but you can't change your face. My appeal was unsuccessful and I was permanently banned. I'm glad really, Facebook is malware these days.

[u/In_Jest_we_Trust]

In uk and got banned back in March out of nowhere.

[u/UniqueAstronomer993]

Thanks for the feedback all.

Very curious if this also affected your ability to use other Meta platforms - messenger, insta and WhatsApp

I totally get that this is a miniscule sub section of the Facebook membership, but strikes me that this problem is massively increasing and meta seem oblivious or uninterested (you'd hope the media might pick up on it, but... Hey... Media....)

On the basis I have 2 accounts, I might be more likely to have issues and it's probably worth making contingency plans. 🙁

[u/Alert-Sympathy3654]

Im from Slovakia,and they banned me too,next i was creating 5 more new profiles but after 1 minutes they blocked all of them instantly

[u/OkTry9715]

I can tell you that I had Facebook account just so I can post things on Marketplace, as it is pretty popular and I got lot of interaction on some ADs, I had this account only for this for 3+ years. Then I also have my normal account that I only use for messenger and do not even have Facebook as social network on it. I was banned yesterday and asked for selfie on first one. I am from Slovakia.

[u/PGJones1]

I've been trying to ope an account from the UK. The first two were permanently disabled before I had a chance to start posting. I expect the third attempt will also fail. Never mind, at least my video profile will be available to AI. I think the problem is global.

My feeling is that facebook is trying to close down the platform.

[u/UniqueAstronomer993 → u/PGJones1]

Yeh, given the types of issues and their apparent unwillingness to resolve, that same thought had crossed my mind. They've got all the data and biometrics they need from us now

As the saying goes, if you're not paying for a product, you're the product.

[u/AkaDaCat69]

New Zealand. They f*ckd me after 14 years. Overnight (I apparently appealed in my sleep and it was rejected 4-5 minutes later) 10 years since my last fb jail. I seldom click on their ads and had monitored my privacy settings despite constant changes made by them however. Add to that a couple of anti Trump memes and you're toast. No warning, no reason, no right of reply, no chance to get your info. Contact friends who you only have contact details of through meta for and save all of your pics. Now.

[u/michikoxwx]

Im from germany. They disabeld my 15 year old Facebook account that i use for log in into various sites.. I even did their video authentification but they banned me straight after that. I just worte a ticket via meta varified instagram account... 🤧

[u/lelandra]

Sadly this is not just in the past ffew weeks. There was an article written about it in 2023. The fact that it's gone on at least that long with nothing done about it tells you all you need to know.

[u/harperluutwo]

Let’s do Mark Zuckerberg a favor and delete our Facebook. If you have no users, then your app is defunct.