WA Small Businesses Reeling After Wrongful Facebook, Instagram Bans

Small businesses across regional Western Australia say they've been left reeling after tech giant Meta wrongfully accused them of sharing child abuse material on their social media accounts.

Several business owners were shocked when Meta - which owns Facebook and Instagram - suspended their pages, alleging they contained child exploitation content. In many cases, the shutdown also extended to the personal accounts linked to the businesses.

Margaret River make-up artist Samantha Enticknap, 271 kilometres south of Perth, said all her social media accounts were blocked on 14 July.

"I opened my email and saw that I'd been suspended due to sexually explicit content and nudity with children," she said.
"I have a make-up page with pictures of make-up on women. There's no nudity.
It was horrifying to see this accusation - it really affected my business and me personally."

Meta told Ms Enticknap the ban was for breaching its community standards.

Cindy Kempton, who runs a fitness business across the Kimberley and Pilbara, has been offline for six weeks after Meta made the same allegation.

"It's completely untrue. We rarely, if ever, post photos of children because of the regulations," she said.
"We've lost tens of thousands of followers, and enquiries have dropped dramatically because there's no way for people to contact us.
It's caused huge problems, not just for us but for our clients and communities."

Both business owners described Meta's appeals process as frustrating and inaccessible, saying there was no way to speak directly with a company representative.

Meta says it uses a combination of human reviewers and AI to detect and remove accounts that break its rules, and denies there's been an increase in wrongful suspensions.

"People can appeal if they think we've made a mistake," a company spokesperson said.

The Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC), a WA government agency offering free advice to small businesses, warned operators not to rely solely on Meta platforms for customer engagement.

SBDC director Caragh Waller likened it to "building a house on someone else's land."

"Your house is your business, so make sure you own the land," she said.
"These cases show the financial and reputational damage that can occur when a platform wrongly links a business to something so unsavoury."

Meta has since reinstated Ms Enticknap's accounts, but Ms Kempton's remain suspended.