Facebook Adds Appeals Process to Page Lockdowns

In the past few weeks, a rash of Facebook Pages have been denied publishing rights, or the ability to publish updates that go out to their followers' News Feeds. It happens suddenly and without much by way of explanation.

This happened to two of my friends, one of whom maintains a "Yankees Suck!" Page as a hobby and the other who maintains a FB Page for her popular blog, Passive Aggressive Notes. Both publish updates to their followers, much like Twitter users do, and both have big followings on Facebook and have bought Facebook ads in the past.

Both Page admins got the same cryptic message from Facebook in the past couple weeks:

The Page Yankees Suck! has had its publishing rights blocked because it violates our Pages Terms of Use.
Amongst other things, Facebook restricts the publishing rights of Pages that impersonate other entities, represent generic concepts, spam users, or otherwise violate our Terms of Use. These policies are designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trusted environment for all users./p>

But my friends' Pages don't really go against Facebook's TOS, and their appeals to Facebook haven't resulted in a response, nor has the Facebook Help discussion on the topic, last I checked.

I got Facebook spokesperson Brandon McCormick on the phone today, though, and he offered some consolation and hope for spurned Facebook Page admins. In the next week or two, Facebook will be implementing a method for appealing the publishing ban for your Page. So at least Facebook knows about the problem and is taking steps to correct it.

It seems like this lesson needs to be learned over and over again, even by companies like Tumblr, Apple's App Store, and Facebook: If you reject something that your community of users and developers have worked hard to create, give them a way to appeal the decision, or at least the reasoning behind it. And it'd be nice to warn them before yanking their work down. Geez.

Originally posted to AppScout.