Meta repeatedly snubs EU body over Facebook and Instagram user bans

> An independent body which hears disputes from social media users in the EU says Meta virtually never replies when it raises cases of people who say they have been wrongly banned from their accounts.

Yup, "victim" of exactly that here. Had a restaurant with a Facebook + Instagram page, as bunch of people find new places that way apparently, maybe 20-30% of the people we talked to found us via those properties, so hard to just give up even if you disagree, unless you're in a really great location already, which we weren't.

At one point, our Instagram page was banned, no reason provided, and impossible to reach a human, the Facebook page continued working without issues. Must have reached out and "appealed" like 10 times, eventually we gave up and the page seems to remain banned today still.

The EU's attitude to American tech firms is weird. On the one hand, they have extrajudicial private entities they outsource censorship requests to ("trusted flaggers"), which the companies have to follow at the threat of massive fines and which therefore creates the incentive to ban quickly.

On the other hand, there is stuff like this where they created another arbitrary "voluntary" mechanism to punish the companies for banning too much. I think ultimately the EU just wants a set of rules to use as a pretense to levy fines on big tech.

I know a person managing social media for an elected politician in Poland.

On the first day Meta banned the account for impersonation. Protest was closed automatically within a hour with the usual "sorry you aint happy with this but the ban stands" response.

There was no way to contact a human about this... unless you buy meta premium support or whatever that is called. That will give you a human handler to contact!

This person asked for a paper work to verify. Next day after receiving the paper work, account was unbanned. For 15 minutes. It was then banned automatically for impersonation.

At this point the handler suggested not naming the account after politician but instead making it "Fans of the Jane Doe " page or something like that.

My understanding is that this was then escalated to one of ministries who did reach out Meta in Poland with request for explanations, after which account was unbanned and flagged as verified by Meta to exclude it from future automatic bans.

Toothless regulation fails to yield meaningful change - shocker.

The EU should ban his yacht from being serviced in the EU.

https://www.superyachtfan.com/yacht/launchpad/location/#TRPL...

I don't know if the regulations are reasonable (often there is government overreach) but I don't mind if they were just banned outright.

I don't think Meta crates economic civic value.

The time spent away from Meta would be better used for almost any other purpose.

Feels 'authoritarian' but the same reason FB/IN is bad for teens is the same reason it's bad for regular people.

I mean, obviously we can't go around banning companies, but still ... it would be good.

At this point, meta could buy the EU.

Normally I'd go - more fines against Meta are great. So, no problem with that.

But ...

This whole "hate speech" is nothing but censorship. I understand that these greedy US giant corporations ruin a lot and abuse the heck out of everyone, but the EU is also incredibly incompetent here. What the heck is even "hate" speech? We are forbidden from criticism? The USA has the freedom of speech amendment. What's the EU solution here - arbitrary censorship? I totally disagree with that notion, and whether it is Meta or anyone else, this is a principle question. The EU should use all that money to invest into more important things than this fakeroy "hate" speech.

Fuck Zuckerberg, fuck its ilk of careless evil billionaires.

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Honestly Meta is just plain stupid. These formats are an informal way to avoid strong regulation but solve problems and used in many settings of govermental regulation as a first try. Snubbing them will increase the chance of hard regulation.

I guess Zucki, Meta and SV folks (proofed on HN itself) just drunk too much "EU is declining because of regulation" and it will end like Lightning and Apple.

Meta on Facebook: posts about contraception, HIV or family planning will get you banned. Posting photos of drowned migrants on Italian beaches with hateful messages? That’s cool, bro free speech.

I hope they find them a billion dollars a day

Unless a user is paying money or otherwise in a legally binding contract that would be breached by a ban, I see no reason why a company shouldn't be able to ban them even on a whim. Having an account on a company's platform is a privilege, not a right.