When Meta Deletes You: A Journalist’s Warning About Social Media Power
A political commentator recounts the sudden deletion of his Instagram and Threads accounts by Meta after an unexplained policy violation involving children. The experience raises concerns about the power social media companies hold over speech, reputation and professional livelihoods.
I have long had a hate/hate relationship with social media. It is the place where people mainly try to impress people they don’t know with knowledge they don’t have, to fake lifestyles they don’t live. And that’s assuming we disregard the anonymous trolls, foreign bots, and random, garden-variety bad actors permeating the landscape.
Nonetheless, as a person who works in news media, social media is a necessary evil. It is necessary to promote oneself and one’s work and to develop an overall footprint. In my business, it is a necessary and accepted form of currency. More generally, one’s social media presence is used equally for job selection and job exclusion. I had already left Twitter/X due to it devolving into a racist hellhole, guided by “Apartheid Clyde” himself, Elon Musk. You know, the guy is more reminiscent of a poorly conceived Bond villain, with ethnostate sugar plums dancing in his head.
But I digress…
For me, Facebook, Instagram, and its companion Threads (Meta) were more than enough to satisfy my social media needs. I get it. I’m old. I’m not cool. Most importantly, I’m good with it. But what little social media I used was essential to my profession, which, as a political and cultural commentator, included discussion of any and all topics, from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein to Palestine to even Diddy.
In fact, my blue check-marked profiles came from years of credibility construction, not from paying a monthly vanity subscription. This is very important. I’ll come back to it later.
But just like that (snap), most of it disappeared.
Recently, my IG (Instagram) and Threads accounts were disabled and deleted due to a supposed post where I violated the terms of service regarding the depiction of children.
Say what?! Children?!
According to Meta, my account was found to have either:
- Showed a child’s genitals
- Showed sexual activity involving children
- Sexualized children
From Meta:
“No one can see or find your account, and you can’t use it. All your information will be permanently deleted. You cannot request another review of this decision.”
No inclusion or mention of the supposed offending post was made. No recourse, review, or redress. All gone. But wait, it gets worse.
Meta also informed me that
“We’re required by law to report suspected cases of child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).”
Was it a discussion of Jeffrey Epstein or some other news-related figure misinterpreted by AI?
I can’t tell you—and Meta won’t either—because I “cannot request another review of this decision,” nor am I aware of the specifics of the supposedly violating post. If your social media experience is anything like mine, I’m called every racial slur imaginable with both regularity and impunity. Oddly enough, these trolls are almost never reprimanded or disabled. I’ve never been suspended for any online behavior on any platform at any time. That’s relevant too.
Was my account hacked by a nefarious actor who posted some offensive and obscene material? I can’t rule it in or out, as I don’t have access to my account to perform a forensic analysis of any logins from suspicious devices or the like. That, and I “cannot request another review of this decision.” Years of posts, pictures, commentaries, and discussions across TWO platforms, gone. And I can’t even verify whether the supposed violation occurred on Instagram or Threads.
But back to being a “verified, blue checkmark” user…
Originally, before people had the option to simply buy a subscription and, with it, a blue checkmark, one had to be a person of some notoriety or credibility within a specific field of expertise. You had to earn it in some way. In addition, you were required to submit your actual driver’s license or state ID as another layer of verification. Meaning, the repercussions of Meta being ‘required by law to report suspected cases of child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)’ could have legal and professional repercussions—the full extent of which neither of us can predict.
In addition, since I work with children in various capacities outside of work, I’m required to be live-scanned. Live Scan technology uses digital fingerprinting to instantly transmit biometric data to state (DOJ) and federal (FBI) databases. Its primary uses include rapid criminal background checks for employment (childcare, healthcare, and law enforcement), professional licensing, volunteer screenings, and firearm permits.
We’re talking about the same DOJ run by Pam Bondi and the FBI by Kash Patel.
The consequences can be substantial and unlimited. I can rule nothing in and can rule nothing out. What I can say for certain is that NEVER has anything even remotely near the sexualization of children or associated imagery graced ANYTHING I do. Not privately. Not publicly. I have served on a federal grand jury for four months, and that service included child pornography cases, inclusive of the underlying photographic evidence. It was horrible. I have worked as an advocate for women pre- and post-Me Too movement. My life’s work is both public and inarguable.
There is no pornography on my phone to “accidentally” upload. There is no hidden double life. There is no behavior to apologize for or explain. The problem with that is I can neither prove it nor even plead my case. Again, I “cannot request another review of this decision,” nor will I be informed of what might happen next in the form of a knock on a door from a federal agent or a federal file created (or added to) with my name on it. Today, it is me. Tomorrow, it may be you.
There is a larger discussion to be had here. Against the backdrop of the politicization of mainstream and legacy media, it is reasonable to wonder whether this isn’t both intentional and coordinated. We remember the blocking of Harris’s presidential endorsements, such as with the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. I can’t rule out the possibility that this is part of a larger attempt to suppress voices critical of this presidential administration. I can’t rule it out and neither can you.
Given the ongoing threats and outright censorship of late night broadcasts in both Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, I can’t rule out whether I was targeted, and neither can you.
Given the recent FCC “investigation” of the Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show, which was controversial ONLY to the MAGA faithful and racists afraid of 12 minutes of Spanish from an American citizen, one could reasonably question whether these are all dots just waiting to be connected. I can’t rule it in, and none of us can rule it out. That is saying nothing of the confirmed presidential “enemies list” and the tactics employed by ICE to monitor, target and intimidate protesters and legal observers. That is saying nothing of the firing of 300 Washington Post journalists and staff, simultaneous to its owner Jeff Bezos pouring 75 million dollars into support and promotion of “Melania” propaganda, which is presently cosplaying as a legitimate documentary, in theaters right now.
Just this week, commuted Trump insider Roger Stone interviewed the owner of the aforementioned Los Angeles Times and avowed Trump supporter, Patrick Soon Shiong. And that’s saying nothing of the ongoing efforts to delegitimize CBS News, a Paramount subsidiary firmly intertwined with the Trump administration.
My account didn’t disappear in a vacuum.
If we check the leaderboard:
The top print media, broadcast media, and social media are ALL owned by Trump acolytes, actively engaged in exerting public pressure by way of their companies to suppress dissent and force compliance from its employees and users. Whether I am a consequence of bad luck and unforgiving terms of service…or part of a larger effort to squelch opposing voices, who is to say? I can’t definitively say, and neither can you. Whereas I’m generally not a conspiracy theorist, I can’t just ignore publicly available and relevant evidence either.
This presidential administration may only be temporary in the grand scheme of things, but the internet is still forever, whether we like it or not.
At this time, I’m not sure what my future social media involvement may be. If I hated social media before, I absolutely hate it even more now. I still have a Facebook (Meta) presence, but I have no desire to start over and rebuild elsewhere, with the same threat and consequences still looming. At the minimum, there is the opportunity to use this moment as a warning to highlight how dangerous a time it is in which we live and how that danger extends to all of us. Even you.
I left Facebook and had my data deleted by request.
I decided to return because very few friends or family ended up going to BlueSky or Mastodon, so I lost my main form of contact with them. I thought the deletion meant I needed to start a new account. Apparently, I was supposed to log in with my old credentials, so by trying to create a new account with all of my correct data, I violated some community policy on something. I believe they thought I was impersonating myself. They gave me an option to verify my identity with a facial recognition thing that doesn’t work, and when it didn’t work, they locked my original Facebook account irretrievably.
Turned out they still gave me access to Instagram and Threads. In disgust, I deleted both accounts.
That was my saving grace. With my Insta account actually deleted, I created a new Instagram account a few months later and I was able, on the strength of that login, to create a new Facebook account. I had to start over, but I’m gradually rebuilding the contacts I had before, though almost none of my followers. I haven’t re-upped with Threads because I almost never used it anyway.
They have ZERO customer service and they take disastrous actions like these because it would be too expensive to actually provide customer service.
If you can prove their bad decision caused you actual economic harm, you can sue them in small claims court and they’ve been known to actually engage and fix issues after they get a subpoena to appear. But if you’re like me, who just lost access to my older relatives and some old friends, you’re screwed.
I had the same experience (account disabled with zero explanation). I am linking it to my failure to verify my age as being over 13 on my Meta Quest account. Bizarre. But I also had the same thought – they can summarily silence a whole swath of accounts and control the narrative. Terrifying.