Jessica Jellick had nearly 4000 people following her business accounts on Facebook and Instagram, which promoted her work as a wedding and family photographer in Whangārei.
“I had many memories and hours’ worth of content that I would spend during the week creating to advertise my business,” Jellick tells the Herald.
It took her 10 years to get that many followers. Last month, she lost them in an instant.
On July 23, Meta, the parent company of the two social media platforms, announced it had removed around 635,000 accounts connected to the act of “leaving sexualised comments or requesting sexual images from adult-managed accounts featuring children under 13″. The previous week it revealed it had purged 10 million profiles “impersonating large content producers” and 500,000 fake accounts over the first half of the year.
Jellick is one of four creative industry workers who spoke to the Herald about their business page being “wrongfully” taken down by Meta. They all say they have been forced to start over with building the social media presence of their business. None of them has their original accounts back.
“The first warning came from Instagram, saying that I had breached their community guidelines by posting content that came up as child sexual exploitation, which is absolutely not true,” Jellick declares.
“They gave me the option to appeal by clicking the appeal button, which I did, and immediately was told that my accounts will be permanently deleted and I will not have access to anything anymore. The same happened to my Facebook account.
“I immediately created a brand new Facebook account, which got taken down 30 minutes later,” she says.
Despite sending numerous messages through a contact form, Jellick says she never received a reply from Meta.
“I have been left in limbo,” she says, adding that she has paid the tech giant for services such as advertising and is now out of pocket with “nothing to show for what I have paid”.
Bailey Chambers of Ashburton found himself in a similar predicament. Chambers, who sold some of his photography as a side hustle alongside fulltime work, says he had around 4200 followers on his Facebook page that promoted his creative work.
“Unfortunately, Meta wrongfully took my page down, and despite trying everything I could, I haven’t been able to recover it,” Chambers tells the Herald.
“I’ve since started a new page, but it’s been tough to rebuild and gain the same traction.”
He is not optimistic: “To be honest, it’s hard to stay motivated knowing that all the effort I put in could be taken away again by mistake.”
When Meta told Kate Summerfield in an email that her Instagram account was suspended, she thought, “You have got to be joking”.
She tells the Herald that she sells second-hand designer clothing on the platform.
“I post pictures of clothes. I post pictures of me wearing clothes. I post the occasional funny meme on a story ... and that would be it.”
Summerfield says she posted the same content on Facebook but only her Instagram profile was targeted – the main one for the business, which had more than 750 followers built over three years. She says she started over with a new account with a different name three weeks ago.
“The reach for me is what’s frustrating for me to have to rebuild,” says Summerfield, who used Instagram to communicate with followers, for example, regarding which clothes were for sale and which market she was going to be at.
“They’re all gone, and I’m like, now, who the hell do I contact?”
Finding support has also been a struggle. Summerfield says she tried to appeal the ban several times to no avail. And when she emailed for support, she claims she “never even got a reply”.
Meta enables account support through live chat, email or a phone call for Meta Verified users, which costs US$14.99 ($25.65) per month on a business standard plan. However, one Meta Verified user claims she did not receive help after her account was suspended in June.
Speaking to RNZ on Friday, Auckland dancer Assryia Brady says job opportunities have been taken away from her as a result of losing access to her Instagram account.
For Lynsey Champion, the issue started in 2022. The Waiheke Island-based hatmaker says she received an email she believed to be from Meta, stating her account contained “objectionable material” and that she had to present proof of ID to retrieve it.
Despite showing her driver’s licence, she was never able to recover her business profile, “Lynsey Champion Hats”, so she set up “Lynsey Champion Hats 2″.
“The worst thing is that, now when people have a look at Instagram, they want to buy something off and they look at how many followers they’ve got. And I’ve got 370. I’ve been in business for 30 years. It doesn’t look good,” she says, adding that she lost about 700 followers on Instagram.
For small business owners who promote their work primarily through social media, losing their following can make them feel helpless, with some experiencing a financial loss.
“The impact this has had on me is huge,” says Jellick, whose clients would book sessions, view her past work and read reviews primarily through her social media profiles.
“Social media is a slow game; it takes a long time to build a following and to feature on the algorithms so that you can therefore reach your ideal clientele. I have spent hours combined creating videography reels and advertising, and researching how to best reach my clients, which is now all gone.
“It is very hard to reach people again and very time-consuming, which I had spent time over the last 10 years doing. Financially, this is having an impact; however, I will keep going and doing what I love to do and need to trust in word of mouth and clients referring me.”
Thousands worldwide have claimed wrongful bans on their Instagram and Facebook account, prompting more than 37,000 to sign a petition on change.org about “Meta’s broken AI enforcement systems”, claiming it is “a widespread, systemic failure that has erased businesses, destroyed livelihoods, and cut people off from years of memories, relationships, and vital communications”.
Meta acknowledges its use of AI, stating it may use the technology to restrict or remove accounts that are harmful to the community.
“We have built a combination of automated and manual systems to restrict and remove accounts that are used to egregiously or persistently violate our policies across any of our products,” it said in a statement on its policy rationale.
In June, the BBC reported that the social media behemoth admitted a “technical error” led to wrongful suspensions of Facebook Groups, but denied there was a wider issue with the platforms.
“Choosing how best to engage with and advertise to your targeted audience is unique to every business and there is no one-size-fits-all option,” Di Loughnan, director of business and consumer at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), tells the Herald.
Loughnan points out that MBIE provides tools and guides on business.govt.nz that business owners can use to find what will work for them. She suggests using the self-assessment tool, which provides practical tips, links to expert advice and a better idea of your digital marketing strengths and weaknesses.
Varsha Anjali is a journalist in the lifestyle team at the Herald. Based in Auckland, she covers culture, travel and more.