This morning someone messaged our Facebook page, asking if our ad account had been reactivated yet. It turns out it had been reactivated, though Facebook gave us no notice.
Later this morning the Detroit News called, saying they talked with Facebook last night, and Facebook told the reporter the ban was automated, and it was a mistake. Apparently it had to do with the image on a recent post we advertised.
While it's nice that this mistake was fixed, it would have been nice had Facebook actually told us that, rather than a reporter relaying the news. It would have been nicer still if a human being would have actually done a "careful review" of our account a month ago as their automated e-mail claimed. It also would have been nice to know the image was the problem, and not that our account was posting "misleading" information. Or maybe Facebook's original response was accurate—they purposefully censored our news story—and what they told the reporter later was an excuse. Again, we're left guessing in the absence of any human response.
We want to thank everyone who posted or shared on Facebook about this mistaken ban. You fixed this problem for us! We are still troubled however that other people could find themselves on the wrong end of a social media ban, and they don't have reporters or a massive group of supporters to rely on to make noise on their behalf.
Facebook still needs to address this glaring issue of trust and transparency.
