ORLANDO, Fla. – WKMG-TV News 6 Chief Meteorologist Candace Campos tried to post a reel about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecast for the 2025 Atlantic Hurricane season, but something strange happened.
It did not work, instead the post was removed, and she got a message from Instagram saying, “The post may contain misleading links or content. This goes against our Community Standards on spam.”
Campos requested a review and received the following response, “You’ll hear back from us soon.”
That was May 27, over three months ago.
“I sent emails, I sent an appeal, I did all of it, and nothing. Nothing,” she said.
Thousands of Instagram and Facebook users across the country are facing the same issue.
Amira Irfan, of Fort Lauderdale, reached out to News 6 through our ClickOrlando Results Desk and notified us of a petition on Change.org to “hold Meta accountable for disabling accounts with no human support.” There are currently more than 40,000 verified signatures.
Irfan, a business lawyer and founder of “A Self Guru,” said her Facebook accounts were disabled on July 12 and she has struggled to get a response.
“I even sent them a demand letter because each passing day was affecting my business,” Irfan said.
Her business helps other businesses launch or scale legally, by providing legal templates, LLC formation, and contract reviews. Irfan even has an advertising account with Facebook.
The demand letter restored her personal Facebook account, but she said her business account remains disabled, and Meta continued charging her credit card for ads.
“They charged close to $1,500.” Irfan told News 6 anchor Matt Austin.
“You couldn’t control what was happening, but they were still pulling money out of your account?” Matt asked.
“Absolutely,” she confirmed.
Irfan also told Austin that she believes the disabling of accounts is related to Meta’s use of artificial intelligence to moderate content. Irfan received a message from Meta explaining why they initially disabled her account.
“Our technology found your account to be in violation. And then our technology took action. Those were the exact words." Irfan said.
News 6 reached out to Meta for this story but have yet to receive any response.
Instagram’s Help Center says they rely on a combination of technology and human oversight:
“To find, review, and take action on content that may go against Community Standards, we use technology and human reviewers,” the statement continues. “Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is central to our content review process. AI can detect and remove content that goes against our Community Standards before anyone reports it. Other times, our technology sends content to human review teams to take a closer look and make a decision on it. These thousands of reviewers around the world focus on content that is most harmful to Instagram users.”
The Help Center also says, "Meta, including Meta products like Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, Meta for Work, Meta Horizon and Quest, doesn’t have a general public phone number available for customer service."
Meanwhile, Campos says she has stopped fighting to get her account back.
“I’m not going to keep battling it because you’re battling bots at this point,” she said.