A disability advocate who relies on social media for work has had his long-standing Facebook account shut down for unspecified reasons.
Meta — which owns Facebook — has told Blake Forbes the account breached its "community standards" — but he suspects he was targeted for his political activism.
Late last month, he posted about the current review of the Total Mobility Scheme, which subsidises transport for people with disabilities — and called on Transport Minister Chris Bishop to listen to the community's fears for its future.
"Within an hour or two it got taken down. I appealed to get it back the next morning, but then within five minutes it got reported again. Went back in four more times and it got reported within a few minutes each time, until it got taken down entirely."
There was nothing offensive or derogatory in the post — but Facebook's message was that the account had been "disabled" permanently, Forbes said.
"We've reviewed your account and found that it still doesn't follow our Community Standards on cybersecurity. You cannot request another review of this decision."
There was no information about how he has breached those community standards or any detail about the complaint against him.
Desperate to get his account reactivated, Forbes paid for the Meta Verified service and was granted an online chat with a real person from the Meta Pro Team.
"They just basically said they couldn't help because it was disabled. So that was not very helpful."
Fifteen years' worth of data, including photographs and contacts, is gone.
Forbes — who co-hosts a podcast on disability issues called Behind The Walls — has set up another Facebook account and is trying to rebuild his database of more than 1500 contacts, from New Zealand politicians and sector leaders, to other people with disabilities who are more isolated.
"Some people don't know where I've gone. They might even think I have passed away.
"Some of them only use Facebook because they don't have a phone or any other form of contact."
Forbes has been contacted by two other disability advocates who had also had their Facebook accounts disabled after making similar posts, although they were able to get them reactivated after successful appeals.
Facebook has been approached for comment about Blake Forbes' case.
Transport Minister Chris Bishop told RNZ that neither he nor his staff had anything to do with the complaint to Facebook.
"I've met with Blake before and am happy to do so again."
Facebook cracking down to avoid regulation — commentator
Technology commentator Vaughn Davis said Facebook was increasingly "bumping people off its platform" because it's trying to defend itself against accusations of harbouring illegal or unpleasant content.
"The issue that goes hand in hand with that is that Facebook has billions of users and thousands of staff so you can't humanly do this policing, which is why everything reverts to bots. It's why all human-based interventions take so long and it's so difficult to get a decision reversed once it's made."
Vaughn Davis, who runs The Goat Farm advertising agency, said while he was not defending Facebook, there was a reason that it was "free" to use.
"Facebook is an advertising company, and as you would expect, most of their staff are developers and people involved in advertising and marketing products, rather than community moderation."
That did however make users potentially vulnerable to malicious complaints by business competitors or just someone with a grudge, he said.
"Facebook has no reason to ban anyone who's not causing any trouble. But what they are doing is acting conservatively — if in doubt, cut them off — because their greater responsibility is to protect their own reputation and avoid regulation, and of course protect their users from harmful content."
Meanwhile, the petition calling for increased funding for the Total Mobility Scheme (the subject of Forbes' original post) has been signed by more than 1500 people so far. It closes on November 28.
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