Was this “Facebook Account Disable” online Sabotage?
It was 6:43 PM Central Standard Time. My cell phone rang. “Egberto, can you log into the Coffee Party USA Facebook page?” Bobby Rodrigo asked. “I cannot get in and Victoria cannot get in.” I had been on Facebook a few moments before without a problem.
I tried to get on and got a dreaded message. ‘Account Disabled Your account has been disabled. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here.’
Facebook Account Disabled
Vince another editor emailed me about his ‘Facebook account disabled’ message Bobby and I started calling other editors of the Coffee Party USA Facebook page. Every single one of them had their personal Facebook account disabled. I asked several people that were not editors to attempt to view the Coffee Party USA Facebook page. It was completely gone. I have many other pages that I administer including my own that were accessible. Of course I could not post to it as my personal Facebook profile was in the ‘account disabled’ state.
As time went on I was made aware by Elisabeth, another one of our editors that some big liberal pages were down as well. Being Liberal was down. All of their editors had their accounts disabled as well.
Most editors submitted their appeals to Facebook. Coffee Party USA is a trans-partisan organization that post stories and original content of just about every ideological persuasion so this was a rather perplexing event. Coffee Party USA president Debilyn decided to take it a step further. She directly emailed every Facebook address she could think of that could deal with a disabled account.
Soon after we received an email from Marianne, another Coffee Party USA editor and News Room chair. She found a posting by girl du jour that said following.
Today facebook deleted my one and only REAL facebook profile, my real business page and my Girl Du Jour page. No warning. No reason.
They also deleted:
Being Liberal
Americans Against The Republican Party
Addicting Infoand various other personal profiles associated with those pages.
No one can explain what is happening but we will try to get to the bottom of it. That one could have a Facebook account disabled with no notice is disconcerting and dangerous. Is it external sabotage? If it is shouldn’t there be mechanisms to solve it quickly? Facebook has become tantamount to a utility to most. If external forces can shut down pages for a large enough window they can influece elections and our democracy as Facebook has become another conduit in our democracy.
As I am writing this, my account and the Coffee Party USA Facebook page has come back to life. We will report with a subsequent blog post about what have we found.