Facebook has disabled the personal account of well-known musician & entrepreneur Nofel Izz, who founded JobsinDubai.com, and as a result, Nofel Izz no longer has administrative access to manage his official Facebook page where he stays connected with fans & friends of his music, nor to the Jobs in Dubai Facebook page. In fact Nofel Izz is unable to communicate with the nearly 700,000 fans of his music page, or assist with the management of the Jobs in Dubai page, which has over 2.2 million fans.
The worst part is Nofel Izz claims to have no idea why this is happening. In a personal statement, Izz writes “To the very best of my knowledge, I didn’t violate any of Facebook’s terms of service. I did not post anything scandalous or engage in some kind of nefarious activity. One morning, I attempted to log into my account as usual, and I was greeted with an error message saying ‘We’ve determined that you are ineligible to use Facebook’. That’s it. No further explanation has been provided to me. I’ve filed a claim and taken all the steps I can to re – enable my account, but I am, sadly, doubtful of getting any response to my many inquiries.”
NofelIzz is not the first person this has happened to, Facebook account disabled with no warning & no explanation. There are multiple accounts of this happening to other people. From the many reports to be found online, when something like this happens, Facebook offers no response or resolution for its seemingly arbitrary actions. This doesn’t seem like a good business practice, especially in cases where the Facebook user runs a business page, as well, alienating one’s advertisers is unwise for a company that relies heavily on advertising income, reportedly earning over $1 billion per year in advertising revenue. NofelIzz claims to have paid “a fortune in advertising” on Facebook.
This also isn’t the only way that Facebook is interfering with and upsetting its users. Facebook has been on the watch with EU for privacy violations. In 2014, the company faced a US class action lawsuit for mining & sharing data from its users’ private messages. In the EU, there are current allegations that Facebook is tracking web users’ activity, even if they don’t have a Facebook account. Use of tracking cookies in this manner is a violation of European privacy laws.
Facebook is a service which billions of people rely on to stay connected, in both their personal & their business lives. When a person is locked out of his account, he is unable to recover the thousands of memories & experiences shared with friends & family. When a business owner & page administrator gets locked out of his personal Facebook account, he also no longer has administrative access to his Facebook business pages. According to Nofel Izz, the effect can be devastating and can cost millions, as he plans to sue: “This has an immediate & potentially irreparable impact on my career and the career potential of hundreds of thousands of Jobs in Dubai Facebook page fans. I am disappointed, confused, hurt & dumbfounded by Facebook’s actions, which are, in my mind, unprovoked & cruel.”