A Virginia-based author and former middle school teacher is reeling after Meta suspended her Facebook and Instagram accounts with no warning.
Imagine waking up one day, and your ability to communicate with friends, family members, past students and colleagues is gone.
Elizabeth Massie started her Facebook account approximately 15 years ago as a way to stay in touch with her family members all of the world. She’s also connected over the years with former students, colleagues, writers and friends, growing her friend list to nearly 5,000 contacts.
Last week, Massie woke up to a message that her account was suspended because it “doesn’t follow our community standards or account integrity,” she told AFP.
She didn’t panic right away. She knew people who had faced a similar dilemma before and were suspended for a short time while Facebook worked through the issue, but she said she doesn’t know anyone who had their account permanently disabled.
Political historian Heather Cox Richardson encountered some issues recently, and her 3 million followers accused Meta of censorship after many of her posts were no longer on her page and/or no longer showing up when people shared them. Meta eventually got the kinks worked out, giving Massie some hope that somehow her account will be restored.
The suspension message to Massie said she had 180 days to appeal the decision. She immediately appealed and got a message two hours later denying her appeal and telling her she could not appeal again. She was flabbergasted.
The appeal said that she was not complying with Meta’s terms on commerce. She followed some other links that Facebook provided, but it just took her to FAQs and the help center, and didn’t provide her with any useful information for her account situation.
As an author, she admittedly shares her new works with her friends and family members on her personal page. Massie is an award-winning author who was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association in 2023. She is also a two-time Bram Stocker Award-winning and Scribe Award-winning author of horror novels, novellas, short fiction, poetry and nonfiction.
She also posts daily benedictions every morning and evening, shares fun jokes or reviews of movies. She recently set up and shared a GoFundMe for a Waynesboro friend who needed funds to help her get hip replacement surgery.
The overwhelming majority of her posts are about life in general – going to Starbucks for a chai, living in Augusta County or taking a short vacation to the beach.
She recently shared some posts and images at a political rally she attended in Staunton opposing Donald Trump. Could that have played a factor in her account shutdown?
“You try to pin it down, the why, you know,” she told AFP. “Did someone report me as doing nothing but selling stuff on my Facebook page? Was it something political, because I certainly do, as many of us do, post political things on Facebook. Was it some stupid algorithm thing that Facebook has, and it just screws up?
“Obviously, it feels like a huge rug has been pulled out from under me,” Massie said. “I have so many writer friends and other friends and family who I communicate with through Facebook. It’s an easy way to do it, and I feel like I’ve really lost touch.
“It’s like being locked in a cellar and not being able to get out.”
Another possible culprit, she said, was someone recently spoofed her account and created a false profile with a photo of Massie and her husband at the grocery store.
Massie reported the fake page after multiple contacts got friend requests from the fake account. Some of her contacts also reported the false account. Could the fake account and reports have something to do with her page going down? Maybe someone reported the wrong account as the false one accidentally?
For a company that connects people, Massie is frustrated she can’t get past AI or bot filters to talk to an actual person about what she feels is a simple mistake.
“This almost goes without saying, that with a company that depends on having people involved, it would be so nice if they had actual people involved. They can afford to hire enough people to look at something that has been flagged or whatever, just to take a few minutes and see for sure, instead of just some kind of weird algorithm thing that just says, nope.
“It’s a free thing. I understand that, but because we are there, we are seeing ads that they are sharing. You know, if they only had 100 people on Facebook, they wouldn’t be making a cent.”
Despite the setback, Massie said if she can’t get her page back up this week, she will start a new page.
“I definitely am going to start a new account if I have to,” she said.
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Crystal Graham
