Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | webbdev's commentslogin

Meanwhile an account I created for a new product was permanently disabled by an automated system with no path for me to appeal to a human.

(If anyone at Meta/Instagram sees this I wrote a brief blog post with the details. Please help! https://addisonwebb.com/blog/2026-06-05-Can%20Someone%20at%2... )


> Meanwhile an account I created for a new product

Meta requires the main account to be created for a person, not a product, business, or non-human entity. That's why you got hit with the "Please confirm you are a human" confirmation and then the account was locked for violating community standards, which require primary accounts to be people.

The community standards page in the links they sent you are pretty dense and it's easy to think you're not violating anything if you're not posting adult content and the other obvious categories. This is the section you violated:

> Create an account that represents a non-human entity, such as a business, pet, or fictional character

You have to follow the steps to set up a business page from your personal account. Sorry you didn't know this before going through the process, but it's important to read the proper channels for setting up business pages on all of the social media platforms these days. They're all dealing with an onslaught of spam and scam pages and they're under a lot of pressure to keep them out.


> Sorry you didn't know this before going through the process, but it's important to read the proper channels for setting up business pages on all of the social media platforms these days.

This is exactly why Meta and other large companies need to be regulated with anti-trust regulations really soon. This whole "whoops sorry you didn't know, but it's a private company" thing only works if there are 5-6 other competitors you can go to that will take your business.

Meta is a de facto monopoly for a lot of small businesses; and should either be broken up or be subject to a ton of utility-style regulation.


I’m sorry, but this should have been made clear in the registration process by Meta and not have entered this dead path at all. Tell me it looks like bad engineering and that together with poor customer support is a reputational damage in the long-term. Not that they have good reputation but it’ll only get worse

Standard path is to have sex with a few employees at meta to get it unlocked.

https://popcrush.com/onlyfans-star-slept-meta-employees-inst...


They're awful with this. Any time I try to create an account to use for business purposes I'm asked for id within minutes and then they still ban the account. You need to fun everything through your personal account.

> Any time I try to create an account to use for business purposes I'm asked for id within minutes and then they still ban the account.

That's because they require accounts to represent an individual. They're pretty clear that it can't be for a business or a non-human entity. You can set up a professional account from your personal account, but the account has to be for a person.


You have to no choice but to create a 'personal' account. What I mean is I'm setting up a new 'personal' account (with my real name, age, etc) which uses my business email (firstname@business.com). Requiring everything business related to be tied to a real personal account is insane.

Did you create the account separately? Or as an asset of your main Meta account (like Meta Business Suite)?

I'm creating the accounts in Meta Business Suite, so I would have a recourse with my main personal account which can be linked to some adspend, so I'm assuming it will have better support channels than accounts created through an end-user interface.


This was probably my mistake. This is the first time I've ever done this so I just set up an account like a regular user. I didn't figure out how to link it with my Meta Business Suite until it was too late.

just created a new "Asset portfolio" from my main facebook account, an asset portfolio is like a bucket that holds other assets like instagram accounts, but it's empty so far.

I used a different email which might have prompted a security review, it was instantly blocked "because it looks like it was created with unauthorized automation", I just clicked on submit a review and it asked for a phone number to verify with a code, and then an ID. I think this is pretty standard, the initial block reason can be whatever, it just works as a de facto way for Meta to manually approve accounts. There's a lot of spam, and scams going on, so it makes sense that they are implementing controls, I for one am happy to differentiate myself from people whose job it is to make multiple accounts and promote fake stories and businesses to scam the elderly or stuff like that.


This is extremely common, unfortunately, to a point where it's a known/expected outcome when you're first creating a brand or product page among those in the biz.

If this doesn't work, I'd encourage you to reach out to a brand/ad agency and pay them $100 to ask their meta contact to help you get unblocked. You pretty much have to know someone who knows someone at meta in order to create these.

Tip: Do not post about this on twitter or other platforms - you'll get a ton of automated spam.


Lots of Meta contacts on swapd.com who will take your money and unlock your account. Poster is already at the permanently banned stage, though, which means it's not a simple ticket for a Meta employee, which is normally the $500-1000 range. It's gonna be a $2000+ job.

Can also try here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MetaLawsuits/


What an interesting site. The number of sellers offering services to get YouTube videos and accounts removed (by spamming fake reports) for hundreds of thousands of dollars is amazing.

I would not assume those people have contacts with Meta employees. They might have a connection with a contracted worker who does account reviews who is willing to risk their job for a few thousand extra bucks, but I also suspect many of them are just scams. When I scrolled the subforum there were many new accounts claiming to offer 100% success rate for unbans. Easy way to scam desperate people.


All the tasks on that site are done through escrow, IIRC, so however they are doing the unbans, they are getting done!

Or just leave the pile of crap behind. The more we do, the less the whole system matters. Never been happier since I left last year.

And yes I can already hear the reply the “we need it for…” , sure as a company if you feel you need it. As an individual however, it’s time for the next thing. TikTok, Instagram and Twitter are old and worn and not it. Yesterday’s news. Social media couldn’t be less social if they tried.


> If this doesn't work, I'd encourage you to reach out to a brand/ad agency and pay them $100 to ask their meta contact to help you get unblocked.

I would not recommend paying anybody anything for this. The problem was that they tried to create an account for a non-human entity, which is against the rules. You have to have a primary account set up for a person, not a business.


I had a similar with Google. I couldn't verify my site for ads and there was no route to get a competent human. But it was fine when an agency did it for me. The problem is that agency take a 20% cut.

There's an excellent little book in German called "KI und der Neue Faschismus" [1] (AI and the New Fascism) where the author (Rainer Mühlhoff) tries to warn about the dangers of decisions based on opaque statistical models (like LLMs) instead of a clear, human auditable decision process.

[1]: https://rainermuehlhoff.de/KI-und-der-neue-Faschismus-Reclam...


Isn't there an EU law that allows any EU citizen the right to transparency and/or appeal as to automated decisions made about them?

Yes, it's part of the GDPR (which really seems one of the most well-intentioned pieces of legislation once you read through it).

Yes, but it doesn't actually happen. It's basically impossible for an individual to enforce their GDPR rights.

Try using an anti-detect browser. They're built for making new accounts among other things.

I tried creating an entirely separate account for a meetup group and had the same problem. Nothing I tried worked.

1000% this. The App Store is stagnant because Apple refuses to improve their store to where developers choose to distribute their app on the App Store. 30% may have made sense in 2008, but it certainly doesn’t make any sense in 2020.


Author here. It would be interesting to imagine what Apple could offer SaaS developers that would make them want to pay the App Store a percentage.

Imagine if Amazon was the dominant platform, and they were the ones charging an App Store fee, but somehow that included AWS fees as well...


A subscription fee closer to 10% starts to look attractive at least for smaller ventures. By dealing with taxes, exchange rates and credit cards, that is a fairly nice set of things to not even need to think about.

But the developer APIs/processes for dealing with in-app purchases are brutal and virtually unchanged over the past 5 years.


I sent an email to their support team asking if they had plans to open source their apps and they said, "there are no plans".


What a shame, it was a nice piece of hardware that could have had a few more years of life.


Thank you for doing that. I really wish they did open source their apps also.


It's hard to believe they weren't acquired. The amount of driving data they have must be huge.


They were, SiriusXM acquired them just over three years ago: https://blog.automatic.com/automatic-siriusxm-4dfbc9a6885c


SiriusXM not shutting down yet?


They are kept alive by how annoying it is to cancel the service and avoid future 'complimentary' reactivations.


If you live in California, you can require them to delete your information so that they can't contact you about your radio ID any longer.


Highly unlikely. The big money sink is already spent (launching the satelites).


The satellites are likely much cheaper than the ongoing costs for content.

It looks like they are spending over $2B annually on content fees. They could launch a lot of satellites with $2B per year.


Wow, they spend $2B/year on content and somehow manage to only have Clearchannel garbage stations? They're getting ripped off.


SpaceX should strike a deal with Spotify (StarLink “Constellation” as a competitor to SiriusXM)!


Why would spotify even need spacex? I mean... it's just the internet...they already have access to that, and so does everyone else. 4g connectivity to your car is probably simple and could be done if needed or a lot of people just link their phone to the radio.


Just as XM has use case specific hardware just for audio in cars and semi trucks, you’d need a StarLink terminal to get just audio content over StarLink’s constellation. Hence, a deal with a content provider (Tesla did this with Slacker radio in their cars).

Not every vehicle might need or want a full blown satellite ground terminal that can provide IP service.


Satellites cost a ton to maintain, and need to be replaced eventually.


They just launched two fresh ones last year so they’re good for the next 15-20 years


Perhaps there is better datasets for sale.

The added information compared to what Google or Apple are collecting is perhaps ODB metrics, but I'm not sure whether ODB metrics of gaz cars have a lot of value.


2.4GHz 8-core, 64GB, 2TB, 5500m 8GB, external LG 5k display, no fan problems


I hope to make it out to this lighthouse someday to get photographs. I’m trying to get as many photos of Michigan lighthouses for an app I’m building. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/explore-michigan/id1024621444


+1


Very cool!


I have used EveryDollar (everydollar.com) for the past year and it really helps me track spending. They have a plus version that only works with US banks but I have used the free version for a while now.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: