WRONGFULLY IMPRISONED BY FACEBOOK

Shock and horror.

After almost eight years on Facebook without a single warning, my EG Manetti account was suspended without notice on Saturday, May 25, during the USA holiday weekend. Not because of anything I posted or commented on, but because the Facebook bots cross-wired EG Manetti with an account belonging to a musician in the UK. Someone I do not know.

The loss of a promotional channel is frustrating. Still, it is nothing compared to the heartbreak of the savagely severed connection to my friends, readers, and the author community that has supported my decade-long adventure in indie publication. From my experience this past week, I doubt Facebook will restore EG Manetti.

Railroaded into Facebook incarceration.

On Saturday, 5/25, at 8:30 a.m. (EDT), my phone and iPad exploded with a Facebook Warning notice that I had 24 hours to address a problem before being suspended.

My first reaction was, huh?

Jumping on Facebook, I found the warning and clicked the link. It looked suspicious. When I followed it to the login screen, it looked more suspicious, especially when the access code to continue did not come through to the email associated with my EG Facebook account.

By hovering over the warning link at the top, I could see the profile of the account meant for the warning. I took this screenshot showing the UK account and sent it to Facebook via the ‘something went wrong’ function. I was not optimistic, but I had 24 hours.

The warnings continued to come, and now I was panicked. I tried several more times to reach Facebook through the warning links, even though they were not for my account. The confirmation codes eventually came through, but all they did was take me to EG Manetti, where there were no issues to correct.

Suspended without notice–Saturday, May 25 ~ 1:00 pm

Increasingly frantic, I was going to try the ‘spam’ reporting feature to get Facebook’s attention, but Meta stopped me. They had suspended EG Manetti—not because of whatever was happening in the UK, but because of an Instagram account that was not my account or one I have ever seen.



After taking a long walk to calm down, I gave Facebook a day. I had managed to get several communications through before the suspension, and since it was clearly an error, Meta might correct it overnight.

Meta did not.

Which was, and is, a problem. My June Facebook-dependent activities include the run-up to the 2024 Space Coast Book Lovers convention, with dozens of posts daily in both the author and attendee groups. Several author friends are also helping me promote a 99c sale on my most recent SFR release, CHRYS. Our communications are via Facebook group posts and Instant Messenger (also suspended).

Several hours of internet research confirmed my worst fear—Facebook’s account review and reinstatement process relies on an email Meta sends to the offending account with a link for remediation. An email EG Manetti has never received. Without it, my only recourse was Facebook’s non-responsive ‘report a problem’ feature.

Since it was my only avenue for communication, I wrote a detailed message explaining the problem, including the screenshots. I submitted it through my personal Facebook account and (still) active EG Manetti Instagram account nine times between Sunday, May 26, and Thursday, May 30. I also dusted off an old author account under a different nom de plume and submitted it seven times. So far, there has been no response from Meta.

As of Friday, May 31, 2024, Meta would not accept support request submissions from my accounts.

he conclusion is inescapable. In its complacency and hubris, Meta does not want to know about or address issues with its process. It has zero interest in dealing with its failure related to one obscure author. This is not a new problem. NPR reported it back in 2017.

At this point, I doubt that EG Manetti will be returning to Facebook. To keep up with me:

Join my mailing list for my twice-monthly newsletter—Red Gems

Follow my blog— http://egmanetti.com

Follow me on X (formerly Twitter)— https://twitter.com/egmanetti

Follow me on Instagram— https://www.instagram.com/egmanetti/

Follow me on TikTok— https://www.tiktok.com/@egmanetti

I’m uncomfortable in front of a camera, but this situation forces me out of my comfort zone, so I’ve started a YouTube channel. It only has some videos built for TikTok, but more to come: https://www.youtube.com/@EGManetti.