NBC Responds teams across the country — including here in Chicago — are hearing from frustrated Facebook and Instagram users who say their accounts were shut down without warning.
No human review. No meaningful appeal. And in many cases, years of photos and memories gone.
Jennifer Freeman of Highland Park says her account was disabled in October. Freeman told NBC 5 Responds: “It told me that I violated community standards for child sexual exploitation.”
She said she was horrified by the accusation.
“I freaked out and sought various remedies to try to fix this, get through to someone at Meta that could help me. And none of that worked,” she said.
Problems Reported in Multiple States
Freeman depends on Facebook not only socially, but also professionally. She’s a park commissioner in Highland Park.
“I’m also an elected official, so I have a political page and some other things, fundraising for the kids,” she said.
Around the same time Freeman’s account was disabled, Dallas resident Tauseef Afraz lost access to his Meta accounts.
“I checked my email saying ‘your account has currently been disabled due to child exploitation, sexual abuse and nudity,’ which is absolutely absurd,” Afraz said.
He submitted an appeal through Instagram, but the denial came within minutes. Like Freeman, Afraz said he couldn’t reach a person at Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
“Their help website is just a bunch of links — frequently asked questions basically. It doesn’t really help. It doesn’t give us any communication to Meta or Instagram if anything happens to my account,” Afraz told NBC 5 Responds.
In Connecticut, competitive climber Mitchell Boyer said his Meta accounts were also shut down. His appeal was quickly denied.
“There’s no way that it’s a person that had looked at my account in just 10 minutes. I was like, okay, it has to have been the algorithm or the bot,” Boyer said.
Hundreds Ask NBC Responds for Help
NBC and Telemundo Responds teams counted 504 complaints over the last three years involving Meta accounts being closed or banned. Sixty-one of those referenced “child exploitation,” “abuse” or “nudity,” with an uptick in complaints in 2025.
Last year, Meta announced new child safety features, saying it was taking aggressive action to remove 635,000 Instagram and Facebook accounts. In its third-quarter integrity report, Meta said it uses automated systems to enforce community standards.
Meta says it gets decisions right most of the time, claiming 90% accuracy for removals on Facebook and 87% on Instagram.
After NBC 5 Responds contacted Meta about Freeman’s account, an employee reached out to her and restored her access. The company told NBC Chicago that it could not comment on her case due to privacy reasons.
Paying Meta for Help
Then in January, her account was disabled again. Freeman paid for Meta’s enhanced support hoping for answers.
“They have tiers. It’s $150 a month to have the ability to request a phone call with a human, which I did,” she said.
But Freeman said the call wasn’t helpful. As a lawyer, she believes Meta is committing fraud by charging Meta Verified subscribers for human support while providing only automated chat responses.
The company recently announced a broad shift to new AI-powered service assistants.
“It’s fraud. That is a company trying to pretend that little AI agents, little computer agents, are there to help you and taking your money for it. And charging you for it,” Freeman said.
Freeman said Meta restored her account only after she threatened legal action over the alleged fraud and contacted NBC 5 Responds again.
“There’s just a lot of reasons that this is strange, alarming, upsetting, and hopefully this can be resolved,” she said. “But I just think there needs to be more attention to it, so I was happy to sit down and talk to you about it because I know I’m not the only one.”
NBC Responds teams in Dallas and Connecticut also obtained results for Afraz and Boyer.
Meta told NBC Responds: “We take action on accounts that violate our policies, and people can appeal if they think we’ve made a mistake.” The company did not acknowledge our latest interview requests.
Safeguarding Your Accounts
- Back up important photos, videos and contacts stored on social media.
- If you run a business, maintain additional ways to connect with customers.
- Set up two-factor authentication to make it harder for hackers to access your accounts.
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