Lake Eacham based animal farm sanctuary FNQ Foster Farms has recently encountered the strict rigidity of the overlords of Facebook. Following the social media giant’s recent community standards updates, the not-for-profit page with over 1,200 supporters was unpublished for being like a page that broke community standards.
With 24 hours to respond, administrators’ only recourse was to select an appeal button, with no ability to provide additional information. After notification that the primary location for FNQ Foster
Farms would show as Australia, Public Relations volunteer Chantelle was hopeful that the appeal was successful, and the page restored.
‘Straight away I checked to see if the page had returned, only to find it was now non-existent and the location notification had also disappeared, she said. ‘Sue and I searched for help request forms to assist us in our plight but found that we couldn’t submit them specific to the asset as it no longer existed.’
One of the only options for the small team behind FNQ Foster Farms was to report a page unavailable error and encourage loyal supporters to do the same. Still, they received no response from the platform. Frustrated, Chantelle sent a help request through another of her pages.
The Customer Concierge responded that they have no visibility of pages and if the internal team communicated the decision, it was irrevocable. The ticket was closed almost immediately. When Foster Farms refuted any correspondence had been delivered communicating the decision, another concierge responded, reiterating that a final decision had been enforced by the Internal Team leading to the page deletion.
After more back and forth and checking Support Inbox and Account Quality for any information; Foster Farms still found nothing to indicate why page was deleted. Among the myriad non-applicable and even contradictory reasons provided by five different concierge team members were disapproved ads, posts/page content flagged or reported and user-initiated deletion.
As a registered charity, Foster Farms has never had budget for paid advertising, nor an ad account. No content has ever been flagged or reported for policy violation and neither of the two active administrators requested deletion.
Advised that direct escalation for this type of issue is yet to be available and under these
circumstances, the Facebook team has decided to maintain the original decision, the FNQ Foster Farms team is still none the wiser as to why this happened and do not feel that creating a replacement page is a suitable solution. If this were to occur again, they would be back at square one.
The page was important for connecting with the animal sanctuary’s primary demographic and in 2020 assisted FNQ Foster Farms to rehome six horses, one pig, three sheep, five guinea pigs and assorted poultry.
‘We almost feel like giving up, said Sue Ehrmann, FNQ Foster Farms founder. ‘We’ve spent years building the page. Our other platforms have significantly less followers and little representation of the audience we engage with to share updates and promote animal welfare, sponsorship, volunteering, donation, and other support.’
While everyone had their share of struggles in 2020, this was not the way that FNQ Foster Farms hoped to see the year out and welcome in 2021. The page needed to be restored within 14 days or the deletion is permanent, and the Facebook team did not seem to wish to genuinely support Foster Farms to resolve the issue within that timeframe.
The ramifications of the Covid-19 outbreak imposed difficulties on fundraising and educational events, forcing the cancellation of what would have been the third annual FNQ Foster Farms trivia night. Members of the small volunteer team suffered health issues, including recovery from spinal surgery whilst fighting this battle with Facebook.
Though the team is worn out and disillusioned by this saga, just like they place their faith in the underdog animals they strive to rehabilitate and rehome, they won’t give up.
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