An online petition that more than 51,000 people have signed on to claims that Meta wrongly disabled their Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Among them: Two moms who claim they were told Meta shut down their accounts for good because of child sexual exploitation, something they say would never happen on their social media.

Everyone agrees that keeping illegal filth off Facebook and Instagram is important. But these petitioners say somehow Facebook and Instagram are flagging people who did nothing wrong.

Meta says it permanently disabled Tara Hanover’s Instagram and Facebook pages – her teenage daughter’s, too – over child sexual exploitation, abuse, and nudity.

“I am worried because it impacts my work. It impacts my business,” Hanover said.

Melodie Edwards got the exact same message from Meta: her account was shut down for child exploitation.

“That’s some pretty heinous accusations, and nothing could be further from the truth,” Edwards said.

For Tara Hanover, it means her business, a regional magazine, has no social media footprint, and her attempts to appeal the decision with Meta have gone nowhere.

“You have got to have a person, a customer service department, that you can go to when this happens because there’s no accountability,” Hanover said.

“I would love for them to send me proof. What made them flag my account?” she added.

Edwards said that within seconds of trying to appeal the Meta decision, her account was permanently disabled.

“Not only have I never posted anything like that, but I’ve never posted on Instagram, not one post.

Hanover and Edwards are not alone.

Tens of thousands have signed the online petition “Hold Meta accountable for wrongfully disabled accounts. Fix the AI. Restore access. Provide real support.”

“We are at the mercy of the MetaBots,” Hanover said.

It was her teenage daughter’s account under hers that was flagged.

Hanover originally thought it was a result of cyberbullying from a classmate before learning this was happening to so many others.

“This could be a Meta glitch, or this could be a backdoor bully. I have no way to know,” Hanover said.

After getting nowhere with Meta, she complained to her Attorney General’s office.

The AG will reach out to Meta on behalf of consumers, but the AG’s Director of Consumer Protection, Shawn Conroy, says those companies should be doing better without the government getting involved.

“They have a responsibility to do right by the people that are on their platforms, and we would like to see that,” he said.

Hanover reached out to Channel 2 Investigates for help after getting nowhere trying to reach a real person at Meta.

Boston 25’s sister station in Atlanta reached out to Meta, which said, “We take action on accounts that violate our policies, and people can appeal if they think we’ve made a mistake.”

Earlier this month, they restored all of the accounts for Edwards.

Hanover, her daughter, and her business Facebook accounts were restored, but her Instagram account is still down.

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