By PressGazette, April 29
An independent local news publisher in the UK has had its account disabled by Facebook for unspecified breaches of community standards.
Leicester Gazette, a co-operative news outlet which launched in March 2023, has been told its account “doesn’t follow our community standards on account integrity”.
The Gazette said Facebook was its second-biggest source of social referral traffic after Reddit and raised concerns about the timing of the ban ahead of the Leicestershire County Council elections taking place this week.
The team were not given a reason for the ban. They were initially invited by Facebook to submit a verification video, which they did, but were subsequently told their account had been permanently suspended with no mechanism through which to dispute it.
When they attempt to log into their account, they now receive a message that states: “We’ve disabled your account.
Numerous publishers around the world including in the UK, US and Europe repeatedly had posts linking to their websites removed after being flagged as spam. They all found it difficult to speak to someone at Facebook owner Meta to get to the bottom of the issue.
Meta is however allowing scam ads that steal journalists’ identities to add an air of legitimacy to proliferate across Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp even after being made aware of notable examples.
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