Facebook was in turmoil June 24 as thousands of users in the U.S. and around the world reported that their Facebook groups — some many years old, with hundreds of thousands, even millions of members — had been unceremoniously suspended or deleted.
TechCrunch reported that the company was aware of the problem and was working to correct it.
“We’re aware of a technical error that impacted some Facebook Groups. We’re fixing things now,” Facebook told TechCrunch in an emailed statement.
The unexplained purge happened after months of complaints by Facebook and Instagram users about deleted accounts with little success in appeals and complaints about automatic rejections.
While no reason for the issue has been given, Meta, the company behind the social media giants, has been moving toward automating its risk assessment process with AI moderation, NPR reported in May.
Facebook Group admins, even those of the most harmless groups, have reported receiving messages from Meta saying their groups violated Meta standards, supported terrorist organizations, or included nudity, without evidence. Some admins have reported getting locked out of their personal accounts as well, according to a Reddit post pulling together all the reports.
Facebook users comparing notes on Reddit are saying if you have a suspended group, not to report it right away and wait to see if it is automatically restored.
Without word from Meta, rumors are abundant. Many users have accused Meta of intentionally blocking groups that are LGBTQ+, MAGA, anti-Trump, pro-Trump, pro-Palestinian, or whatever cause they represent. Others have suggested that someone is using bot networks to exploit Meta’s AI moderation and mass-reporting groups to cause automatic suspensions.
The mass suspension also comes a day after researchers at Cybernews reported that they discovered a massive data breach with over 16 billion passwords to sites such as Facebook, Google, Apple and more.
Group title pending?
Within a few hours of the problem, some uses were reporting that their groups were trickling back, but with the group names changed to “Group title pending.” Unfortunately, since it counts in Facebook as a name change, it can’t be changed back for 28 days.
A quick Facebook search for “Group title pending” returned an endless stream of responses.
Petition calls for holding Meta accountable for account, group deletions
A change.org petition called “Hold Meta Accountable” has nearly 14,000 signatures.
“In recent weeks, there has been a massive increase in the number of users reporting unfair account suspensions,” the petition says. “Many of these cases appear to be false flags caused by Meta’s newly implemented AI tools. The appeal process is vague, inconsistent, and slow — often taking weeks or even months with no clear resolution.”
Signers demand that Meta fix its AI moderation system and establish a “clear, fair, and timely appeal process” with human support, among other requests.
Not Facebook’s first purge
Facebook users can be excused for thinking the widespread deletions and suspensions were deliberate. It’s happened before.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Group title pending? Thousands of Facebook users report Groups deleted, suspended
Reporting by C. A. Bridges, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
