Perth hairdresser and make-up artist Taryn Elliott woke up last Friday with a notification that felt like a punch in the gut. It wasn’t a technical glitch. It was an algorithmic character assassination.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, abruptly suspended both her personal and business accounts.
The reason given was both mysterious and frightening. It was an alleged violation of community standards regarding child sexual exploitation and nudity.
“First of all, I’m a mother, so I feel like I’ve been vilified,” Elliott said.
“It’s just weird and creepy because in my head I know I’m not that person.”
The 45-year-old single mother has been a staple of Perth’s beauty scene for decades. She suspects that her “crime” was simply working during peak school ball season.
After styling her students for their special day, she follows strict professional protocols and asks permission from both the 17-year-old student and his mother to post photos of her work.
Elliott suspects that the last photo she posted, a photo of the student and her boyfriend in formal wear, sent to her by the girl’s mother, may have been flagged by the meta, but she doesn’t know why.
“I wrote to Mehta and said, ‘Can you please explain to me what this means because I’m so confused? I’m a makeup artist and I only post photos of my makeup work,'” she said.
Getting caught up in Meta’s AI surveillance system is an increasingly dangerous risk for small business owners, many of whom, like Elliott, rely on Facebook to find customers.
Mr Elliott said he was now part of a WhatsApp group titled ‘Meth-influenced Perth businesses’, along with 14 other local entrepreneurs who have faced similar ‘unjustified’ suspensions.
Thousands of disgruntled Facebook users have taken to Reddit’s forums to call for a class action lawsuit against Meta over account suspensions.
Most users commenting on Reddit expressed despair and frustration at not getting any human support from Meta or having their accounts restored.
Meta had previously hailed its AI as the “single most important improvement” in policing the platform, but technology expert Trevor Long said the system had become a blunt instrument.
“It’s good that they’re cracking down on child pornography… but when it goes too far, they need to call people out,” Long recently told A Current Affair.
Long believes Meta is effectively steering desperate business owners to Meta Verified, a paid subscription that ranges from $20 to several hundred dollars a month.
“They’re saying if you don’t pay us, we won’t help you if something goes wrong. Without that, you won’t be able to talk to a human or get your account back.”
“We take action against accounts that violate our policies, and you can dispute them if you believe we made a mistake,” a spokesperson said.
Elliott said the experience of falling into the “black hole” of Meta’s support system was eye-opening and extremely stressful.
“Panic sets in and I find myself in a worst-case scenario. I think I have to find a new career. [my son] I walked out of school,” she said.
“With Meta’s one action, my life began to change before my eyes.”
To keep her business afloat, Elliott was forced to spend $200 on an emergency text campaign to access her customer database, money she said she “couldn’t afford to spare” amid the cost of living crisis.
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