So – I have a separate Facebook account that I set up as an emergency failsafe. I know this is against the Facebook Ts&Cs, but really, when the stakes are so high, the penalties so arbitrary and the review process so opaque it would be unwise not to at least attempt some back door method of decoupling your business from Facebook if you need to. The problem is, if Facebook detects this (which they will) they will block that account too. So far it remains active though I suspect it’s a matter of time.

I’ve finally been able to access this account – this in itself was problematic as to login I was required to login from a browser I had used previously – and I no longer had access to this browser. No alternative method of logging in was provided and this left me somewhat snookered. Luckily I had an old PC in the office which I was able to pull out of a cupboard and use, but if I hadn’t there doesn’t seem to be anyway of resolving this problem.

Having gained access using the aged PC, I went through the process of locking down / tidying up. I changed password, reenabled 2FA, removed lots of old friends and unfollowed lots of old pages. I’m guessing the unfollowing triggered some algorithm that thought I was a bot, as the next message I received was:

Despite paying for ads to a Facebook Page, I now can’t comment on interactions:

So I’ve made two steps forward and only one step back so far. I remain pessimistic about the chances of getting this resolved in a satisfactory way.