A Montreal business owner is seeking an explanation from Meta after losing access to his company’s Instagram and Facebook accounts for a month.
Amir Hosseini is the founder and director of Funktasy Inc., a company that oversees a music magazine and several record labels. On September 11, Funktasy’s Instagram account was deleted and his Facebook page was restricted after Meta’s automatic moderation tools mistakenly flagged Hosseini’s personal page for “child sexual exploitation,” an accusation for which Meta would later apologize.
“Our technology found that your account, or your activity on it, is not following our rules. As a result, our technology took action,” reads Meta’s initial notice, which Hosseini shared with CBC News. Meta is the parent company of social media platforms Facebook, Instagram and Threads and messenger WhatsApp.
Instagram deleted Funktasy’s account, which has nearly 98,000 followers, as well as Hosseini’s DJ account and an account in memory of his dog, while Facebook restricted his access to Funktasy’s page. When he filed appeals with both sites, he says Meta informed him that the ban was related to his personal Facebook page.
Hosseini joins a growing number of Canadians whose personal and business accounts have been mysteriously suspended by the tech giant, cutting off contact with clients, family and friends.
Hosseini, who is also a DJ and producer under the moniker Hoss, says the “serious, false and defamatory allegation” was devastating to his artistic career and business operations. He says it took him years to build an online following for Funktasy and estimates he spent more than $20,000 on advertising on Meta platforms.
“We want to clear this allegation,” Hosseini told CBC News last week. “I have no criminal record, nothing, to be labeled with the worst of the worst.”
He says that when he contacted Meta’s fraud team, their hacked accounts team, and their escalated accounts team, he only received automated responses. Since then, Hosseini has been involved in a frustrating exchange with the tech giant.
“There is no human being who basically supports us in these times of such a harsh accusation to say, ‘Let’s investigate it,'” he said. “There is no support, nothing.”
After CBC News contacted Meta for an explanation, the company responded to Hosseini and reinstated his accounts last Thursday. But then he suspended Funktasy’s Instagram again the next day, saying that it “does not yet follow our Community Standards on Sexualization of Children,” without providing a further explanation.
On Monday, Instagram reinstated the account with an email apology, saying, “We’re sorry we made a mistake and that you weren’t able to use Instagram for a while. Sometimes we need to take steps to help keep our community safe.”
To get a human customer service line, Hosseini signed up Monday for a $171-a-month verified page subscription, which he says is effectively the equivalent of “buying insurance.” meta ads the service as a way for customers to “request a call from an agent.”
After speaking with a human in Meta on Tuesday, Hosseini says he still received no explanation as to what caused the suspension. As of Tuesday afternoon, he said he still couldn’t log into his company’s Instagram account, even though it was back online.
Meta has not responded to CBC News’ requests for comment.
Meta has mistakenly banned other accounts
Many other Canadian businesses have been caught in Meta’s automated bans without explanation.
A Hamilton entrepreneur lost five social media accounts in August after Meta suddenly disabled them, putting her home cooking business on hold for weeks, for reasons she says were never clear to her.
“I was crying, I’m beside myself.” Najwa Cagnin told CBC Hamilton At the moment.
Laurie Viau Gillard, co-owner of Amuse Kitchen & Wine, a small restaurant in Kanata, Ontario, had her Facebook and Instagram accounts. suspended for a week in September for unknown reasons, which she said caused “pure panic.”
The Funktasy case is also not the first time that Meta has wrongly made the accusation of “child sexual exploitation.”
In August, Megan Conte, a high school teacher in Vaughn, Ont., lost his instagram account for several days after Meta accused her of posting material she said showed “child sexual exploitation, abuse and nudity.” He said he had no idea what caused the suspension.
Meta apologized to Conte and unblocked his account hours after CBC Toronto contacted the company.
A history teacher in Vaughan, Ont., has had her Instagram account reinstated after Meta mistakenly closed it. As CBC’s Sarah MacMillan explains, the incident highlights emerging problems as AI replaces human moderators.
‘Up a stream without a paddle’
Carmi Levy, a technology expert based in London, Ontario, says people constantly message her to tell her that their trading accounts have been suspended “for reasons that often make no sense and certainly aren’t explained.”
He says he suspects these accounts are being wrongly flagged by an artificial intelligence tool, not a real human being. Levy points out that replacing human content moderators and custom service agents with AI is an industry trend that saves companies money, at the expense of users who rely on the tools.
“It’s like a vicious cycle of customer service. You don’t know what happened, so you don’t know what you need to fix, but you also can’t contact anyone who can help you fix it in the first place,” he said. “So you’re up a creek without a paddle.”
Levy says social media platforms often have unclear terms of service written in “complex legal jargon,” giving automated tools ample room to make decisions about what is and isn’t acceptable.
“If you have a business here in Canada, you might want to think twice before putting all your eggs in one platform’s social media basket. Because if the company decides to close that account against your will, it could ruin your business,” he said.
Levy advises business owners to diversify their online presence and use multiple tools and platforms from different companies.
Hosseini says the ordeal affected his physical and mental health and that his business’s reputation suffered because his accounts were offline for more than a month.
“If large companies like Meta want to use [AI]”Okay, but at least they can leave a channel of human interaction or human support behind us, so that these issues can be resolved,” Hosseini said.
“It’s unfair for us and for anyone who goes through this.”
