Did Mark Zuckerberg play an April Fools’ joke?
Dozens of Facebook users had their accounts disabled for no apparent reason this week — and the company temporarily barred many of them from appealing the decisions.
“Apparently my Facebook account has been disabled because it didn’t follow community standards,” one peeved Facebook user wrote on Twitter on Friday morning. “No appeal, no further explanation. Account is just… gone.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong to get my account disabled,” another Twitter user whose account was axed said. “I save memes to my phone to share to my friends, and that’s it… is this an April fools joke, or what?”
“Did something occur last night because a bunch of us that I’m friends with all of a sudden had our Facebook accounts disabled for no apparent reason and with no warning,” a third user said.
Several hours after The Post flagged the issue, Meta said the problem had been fixed as of Friday afternoon.
“Earlier today, a technical issue caused a small number of people to have trouble accessing Facebook,” a company spokesperson told The Post. “We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”
According to screenshots shared online, many banned accounts were also barred from filing appeals.
“We Cannot Review the Decision to Disable Your Account,” read a red box shared in several screenshots. “Your Facebook account was disabled because it did not follow our Community Standards. This decision can’t be reversed.”
The surge in complaints about inexplicable bans appears to go back to roughly Wednesday.
“Just happened to my wife about 30 minutes ago,” one Reddit user wrote on Wednesday in reference to Facebook’s disabling accounts. “She posts pics of our family…that’s about it. Nothing remotely controversial.”
In a follow-up post, the user said his wife’s account was then restored the next morning without explanation.
Users also complained that Facebook gave no explanation of which community standards they had violated. Some of them said they had not posted on the site in months, while others said their Instagram accounts had also been affected.
“The same thing happened to me tonight!!!” another Reddit user wrote about their Facebook account being banned. “I have NO idea what happened – I can’t even remember the last time I commented, posted, or joined a group.”
Reporting by The New York Post.
