Rochelle Marinato, who runs a pilates equipment company, shared the video on her personal Instagram, only to be informed that her account was suspended due to “violating community guidelines regarding child sexual exploitation, abuse, and nudity”.
An AI moderator appeared to have detected an issue with the image and mistaken it for an image of children.
Marinato explained to Nine’s 2GB radio that she got an email sent to her business account, which is used to market her products, stating that this account faced suspension too.
She said she was told it was associated with an account which breached community guidelines.
She appealed the decision multiple times and sent more than 22 emails to Meta but she had no help.
“I had no idea that by putting up this little three-second video of the dogs⦔ she said.
“Even when I received the original email from Meta saying my account was suspended, I thought this will be fine, I’ll get it back shortly.
“I grew more concerned when I received the email concerning my business account, but it initially allowed an appeal, so I went ahead and appealed.
“Immediately, my appeal was also assessed by AI and they were denied, so from then my business account was permanently disabled.”
A Meta spokesperson said Marinato’s case was investigated by the company and restored following an appeal.
“We take action on accounts that violate our policies, and people can appeal if they think we’ve made a mistake,” the spokesperson said.
Before her account was restored, Marinato said she went through the process of paying a third party.
“This is someone my kids actually found on TikTok and their account doesn’t exist anymore,” she said.
“This seems to be what they do.
“The problem is so widespread and I’d heard of people paying to get their accounts back.”
The business owner has spent the last three weeks researching how to get her account back.
“Our revenue dropped by 75 per cent,” she said.
“With losing that account, all of my Instagram advertising was gone as well, because I advertise quite heavily on Meta.
“It was a really significant impact on the business because we rely so heavily on social media, especially in the fitness space.
