Disclaimer: this article does not provide any instruction on how to recover accounts on Facebook.
We have worked on social media, starting with Facebook, since 2012. In the past 10 years, of all the social media sites, including Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok and Pinterest, none has given us and our clients more complications than Facebook. What problems have we had on Facebook?
Losing Access to Facebook Account
Managing social media accounts for our clients requires our staff to use a Facebook account. Understandably, our staff does not want to use their personal Facebook account as Admin or Editor on a client's Facebook account, nor are staff always comfortable with signing up with their personal Facebook for the agency's Facebook Business Manager. Some of our team thus created new Facebook accounts. Sometimes there were no problems with this and our team members were able to use their "work" Facebook accounts for all of their Facebook-related work tasks. However, sometimes Facebook would flag the account, resulting in our team members losing access. If Facebook could identify the real identity, i.e. the team members real personal Facebook, they may penalize that account as well and revoke access. This happened more than once to our team members where they lost access to their personal accounts because Facebook accused them of faking their identity. There was no way to appeal the decision and Facebook never cared for proof that it was only a work account, not an account used for any nefarious purpose.
In more recent cases, Facebook does not seem to have received the memo that people now really do work from anywhere and yes, sometimes people do purchase new equipment, such as mobile phones and laptops. We recently lost access to a Facebook personal account and thus the page that was connected to it as well. Why did Facebook revoke access? Because we were logging in to the account on a new device from a different country than usual. The account used a business name rather than a personal name so Facebook would not accept the ID for verifying the account. There was no way to appeal the decision despite us owning the domain, the login email address, and the branding. Facebook allowed us to change the password on the account but did not allow us to login. Go figure.
Losing Access to Facebook Ads
Clients ask us to run social media ad campaigns using Facebook Ads. Part of our job requires us to boost the client's Facebook content. We had an instance where Facebook flagged one of our team member's access to Facebook Ads for no apparent reason. When we tried to appeal the decision, her access to Facebook Ads was permanently revoked, though she maintained access to her personal Facebook account.
Given Facebook's popularity in Southeast Asia, we have no choice but to recommend it to our clients. However, if there is a problem on Facebook, good luck getting support from Facebook to resolve it. In this respect, Facebook's competitor Google is actually much better. Google offers support very quickly. Google representatives will call us to help resolve issues. No such luck from Facebook.
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