Facebook ‘resolves’ issue for alcohol-related accounts
Meta says it has ‘resolved’ an ongoing issue relating to its Facebook page recommendations, which notified alcohol-related business owners that their accounts would no longer be suggested by the platform’s algorithms.
Earlier this month (January), wine, beer and spirits-related business accounts were told via email and Facebook notification that their accounts were being restricted and their pages would no longer be recommended by the social media platform’s algorithms because their activity “may not follow our rules”.
The alert, received by potentially “millions of pages” globally, went on to state that Meta’s technology had found the affected accounts’ content did not follow its Community Standards, and as a result “our technology took action”.
No further explanation was given; however, one user with Meta Verified, which comes with live support, told US publication Northwest Wine Report that a support agent said the notification and subsequent restriction were a “bug”. However, Meta did not make this information publicly available, and millions of users continued to face issues with the Recommendations page.
Now, a spokesperson for Meta has confirmed that the “technical issue that caused some accounts to receive notifications that their Pages were not eligible for recommendation” has been resolved.
They added: “People can disregard the messages and we apologise for any confusion this may have caused.”
However, as recently as 24 January, The Spirits Business received a notification reiterating that the account does not qualify for recommendation. Its recommendations are still being marked as suspended due to the page not following the platform’s guidelines.
Sources have confirmed that this also remains the case for their business accounts, despite no violations showing on their Community Standards page.
The Spirits Business has reached out to Meta for further clarification as to when all issues will be resolved.
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