Over the weekend, I discovered that BINI, an all-Filipina girl group, had their individual members’ TikTok accounts banned—all but one.

Their management quickly reached out to TikTok support, and before the weekend was over, their TikTok accounts were recovered.

This isn't surprising nowadays. Who doesn’t know someone whose social media account has been shadow-banned, restricted, deleted, or worse, hacked? 

I am not as famous as Bini. With a sheepish grin, I must admit I like them, but I don’t know all their names yet. (It took me a month to match the names of the SB19 members and six months for BTS. I am busy building an empire, so beat that.)

Nevertheless, whether you are a celebrity or not, social media can give you these types of headaches. 

Let me share my own story of getting banned—not from TikTok, but from my “beloved” Facebook.

Last month, I wrote my second newsletter for Podwires. As usual, I shared it on my Facebook personal account and then on my Instagram Page. 

I thought of sharing the newsletter announcement from my Facebook personal account to my Facebook Page. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, but I tried it anyway.

[Side note: By the way, have you noticed how sharing posts from personal and page accounts takes so many steps, and it even involves changing profiles? You bet.]

A few seconds after sharing the post from my Facebook personal account to my Facebook Page, I saw a notification that my Page had been banned! 

Meta said that I violated their guidelines. To add insult to injury, Meta said that my Page is restricted for 3,643 days.

That’s equivalent to 10 years! 

Wow, my love and hate relationship with Meta has gone to another level.

Meta may have gone crazy, but not me.

You see, it’s not the first time I have experienced getting restricted. 

My posts and my Page would be restricted for no other reason.

Every single time, I always knew what to do: keep calm and make an appeal. That’s what I did—well, not before I posted about my restricted account experience first.

I made an appeal to Meta, explaining that I wasn’t violating any of their Community Standards. Which is true! My topic was about how weird Meta is, but I was just telling the truth and wasn’t violating anything. 

A few hours later, I received a notification and an email that my Facebook Page was no longer restricted. 

Whew. Just another day in the home office.

So, what would you do if this happens to you? Here are my 4 coins in the fountain:

1. Understand that using social media platforms is a privilege, not a right. 

2. Have a general understanding of each social media platform’s Community Guidelines. Basically, each platform wants a creative space where everyone can be themselves without hurting others in any way possible. 

3. Always contact their Support Team. I created this video on how you can contact Facebook Support. 

4. Never underestimate the power of email marketing. Email may sound like a dinosaur to you, but in any eventuality that all platforms are gone, you can always contact your customers, clients, or fans via email.

So, got a similar story like mine? What did you do?