Facebook Groups Face Sudden Mysterious Mass Bans; Meta Cites ‘Technical Error’

Several Meta users are now reporting that their popular Facebook Groups with thousands of members have mysteriously been suspended or deleted without any prior warning. Thousands of groups ranging from pet lovers, interior designing communities, parenting, to Pokemon fans –have been affected. Meta has acknowledged this error and claims that it is fixing this issue.

Several affected Meta users have taken to Reddit to report on this mysterious suspension of Facebook Groups. While Facebook reserves the right to suspend groups that may pose security threats or have disseminating information that violates its guideline, but most users that have been affected were admins of non-controversial groups like gaming discussions, budget shipping tips, and even bird photography.

A Meta spokesperson, Andy Stone, confirmed to Tech Crunch, “We’re aware of a technical error that impacted some Facebook Groups. We’re fixing things now.” Admins of the affected Facebook groups claim that they received violation notices with flags of ‘terrorism-related content’ or ‘nudity’ despite having no such content on their groups. For instance, one bird photo group with close to a million members was reportedly flagged for nudity, and A family-friendly Pokémon group was flagged for “dangerous organisations.”

Reportedly, Meta Verified subscription plan users were able to retrieve their accounts back to normalcy on priority, while several others are still in the dark. Users on Reddit and social media are blaming AI-based automated moderation as the culprit. However, Meta hasn’t revealed the cause of this error.