Instagram wrongly says some users breached child sex abuse rules

Instagram users have told the BBC of the “extreme stress” of having their accounts banned after being wrongly accused by the platform of breaching its rules on child sexual exploitation.

The BBC has been in touch with three people who were told by parent company Meta that their accounts were being permanently disabled, only to have them reinstated shortly after their cases were highlighted to journalists.

“I’ve lost endless hours of sleep, felt isolated. It’s been horrible, not to mention having an accusation like that over my head,” one of the men told BBC News.

Meta declined to comment.

BBC News has been contacted by more than 100 people who claim to have been wrongly banned by Meta.

Some talk of a loss of earnings after being locked out of their business pages, while others highlight the pain of no longer having access to years of pictures and memories. Many point to the impact it has had on their mental health.

Over 27,000 people have signed a petition that accuses Meta’s moderation system, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), of falsely banning accounts and then having an appeal process that is unfit for purpose.

Thousands of people are also in Reddit forums dedicated to the subject, and many users have posted on social media about being banned.

Meta has previously acknowledged a problem with Facebook Groups but denied its platforms were more widely affected.

The BBC has changed the names of the people in this piece to protect their identities.

David, from Aberdeen in Scotland, was suspended from Instagram on 4 June. He was told he had not followed Meta’s community standards on child sexual exploitation, abuse and nudity.

He appealed that day, and was then permanently disabled on Instagram and his associated Facebook and Facebook Messenger accounts.

David found a Reddit thread, where many others were posting that they had also been wrongly banned over child sexual exploitation.

“We have lost years of memories, in my case over 10 years of messages, photos and posts – due to a completely outrageous and vile accusation,” he told BBC News.

He said Meta was “an embarrassment”, with AI-generated replies and templated responses to his questions. He still has no idea why his account was banned.

“I’ve lost endless hours of sleep, extreme stress, felt isolated. It’s been horrible, not to mention having an accusation like that over my head.

“Although you can speak to people on Reddit, it is hard to go and speak to a family member or a colleague. They probably don’t know the context that there is a ban wave going on.”

The BBC raised David’s case to Meta on 3 July, as one of a number of people who claimed to have been wrongly banned over child sexual exploitation. Within hours, his account was reinstated.

In a message sent to David, and seen by the BBC, the tech giant said: “We’re sorry that we’ve got this wrong, and that you weren’t able to use Instagram for a while. Sometimes, we need to take action to help keep our community safe.”

“It is a massive weight off my shoulders,” said David.

Faisal was banned from Instagram on 6 June over alleged child sexual exploitation and, like David, found his Facebook account suspended too.

The student from London is embarking on a career in the creative arts, and was starting to earn money via commissions on his Instagram page when it was suspended. He appealed after feeling he had done nothing wrong, and his account was then banned a few minutes later.

He told BBC News: “I don’t know what to do and I’m really upset.

“[Meta] falsely accuse me of a crime that I have never done, which also damages my mental state and health and it has put me into pure isolation throughout the past month.”

His case was also raised with Meta by the BBC on 3 July. About five hours later, his accounts were reinstated. He received the exact same email as David, with the apology from Meta.

He told BBC News he was “quite relieved” after hearing the news. “I am trying to limit my time on Instagram now.”

Faisal said he remained upset over the incident, and is now worried the account ban might come up if any background checks are made on him.

A third user Salim told BBC News that he also had accounts falsely banned for child sexual exploitation violations.

He highlighted his case to journalists, stating that appeals are “largely ignored”, business accounts were being affected, and AI was “labelling ordinary people as criminal abusers”.

Almost a week after he was banned, his Instagram and Facebook accounts were reinstated.

When asked by BBC News, Meta declined to comment on the cases of David, Faisal, and Salim, and did not answer questions about whether it had a problem with wrongly accusing users of child abuse offences.

It seems in one part of the world, however, it has acknowledged there is a wider issue.

The BBC has learned that the chair of the Science, ICT, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee at the National Assembly in South Korea, said last month that Meta had acknowledged the possibility of wrongful suspensions for people in her country.

Dr Carolina Are, a social media researcher at Northumbria University’s Centre for Digital Citizens, said it was hard to know what the root of the problem was because Meta was not being open about it.

However, she suggested it could be due to recent changes to the wording of some its community guidelines and an ongoing lack of a workable appeal process.

“Meta often don’t explain what it is that triggered the deletion. We are not privy to what went wrong with the algorithm,” she told BBC News.

In a previous statement, Meta said: “We take action on accounts that violate our policies, and people can appeal if they think we’ve made a mistake.”

Meta, in common with all big technology firms, have come under increased pressure in recent years from regulators and authorities to make their platforms safe spaces.

Meta told the BBC it used a combination of people and technology to find and remove accounts that broke its rules, and was not aware of a spike in erroneous account suspension.

Meta says its child sexual exploitation policy relates to children and “non-real depictions with a human likeness”, such as art, content generated by AI or fictional characters.

Meta also told the BBC a few weeks ago it uses technology to identify potentially suspicious behaviours, such as adult accounts being reported by teen accounts, or adults repeatedly searching for “harmful” terms.

Meta states that when it becomes aware of “apparent child exploitation”, it reports it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the US. NCMEC told BBC News it makes all of those reports available to law enforcement around the world.