Meta is finally addressing one of its biggest shortfalls, creating a customer service group to address complaints over lost Facebook accounts and deleted content.
One of the long-standing issues users have with Facebook is accounts being closed unexpectedly, or content being removed with no warning. Since the company relies on automated systems to help with moderation, accounts are often removed despite the user not violating any rules or guidelines.
Until now users whose accounts or content were removed have had little to no recourse. Facebook technically has a variety of automated tools to appeal a decision, but as virtually anyone who has been in that situation can attest, the automated tools fall woefully short of useful.
According to Bloomberg, Meta is establishing a customer service group that will handle these kind of complaints, hopefully improving the user experience significantly.
“How do we provide care and customer service and responsiveness to people about why their content has been taken down or why their accounts are taken down?” said Brent Harris, Meta’s vice president of governance. Harris confirmed that improving Meta’s customer service is something the company is “spending a bunch of time on.”
The impetus to finally do something to address the issue gained momentum as a result of Meta’s Oversight Board. The board received more than one million appeals from users, many of them having issues with account access.