Lewis-Manning Hospice Care has lost access to its Meta Business Manager account, saying the unexpected ban has left it unable to access analytics, fundraising tools and at risk of losing its entire online community.
The charity, which offers palliative care for people with life-limiting illnesses and their families across east Dorset, has been left unable to fully manage its Facebook and Instagram accounts for more than a year after an admin was banned by Meta.
Olivia Girling, head of marketing and communications at Lewis-Manning Hospice Care, told Third Sector the ban was imposed on the charity’s former marketing manager’s advertising account, after she posted a fundraising advert.
Girling said Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, told the charity the ad had “violated community guidelines”, but she insisted it was a “generic hospice marketing post”.
When pressed for its reasoning behind the ban, Meta would not give any further explanation, she said.
When another two colleagues posted the exact same ad, one was approved and the other had their account permanently banned, with Girling saying: “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Girling said the former marketing head attempted to appeal the decision a few times but was told the ban was permanent.
“As a result of that, she now has no ability to add any other admins to the business manager at all. So it’s essentially frozen in time,” she said.
Girling said the charity still had access to its Facebook and Instagram accounts but not to the management of them.
This includes access to Facebook’s fundraising tools and Instagram’s analytics, which Girling said was part of the staff’s reporting to the board. “We’ve lost that insight completely. So we literally can’t do that anymore.”
Girling said Facebook and social media was one of the “biggest acquisition sources for fundraisers”, and when the charity looks at “recruiting for our fundraising events and different activities, even non-income events”.
She added that the ban meant the charity’s presence on Facebook and Instagram have been unlinked, so it is unable to schedule any posts on Instagram, affecting staff capacity.
Girling said: “Everything has to be manually posted and when you’re looking at a charity that’s just not sustainable.”
She said that although the charity had followed Meta’s processes, it was “refusing to comply and resolve the issue at all”, adding that the company has said it would not provide any further help with the account.
Meta had advised the charity to start a new Facebook page, Girling said, adding that this was “just not an option for us”.
She said: “We can’t even delete our current [page]. And our patients and their families, they won’t understand why they can’t follow the same page with the videos of their loved ones. They will just be left on that page to gather dust.”
Girling said that as a charity, rebuilding its entire online community would be a “massive” undertaking. The charity’s Facebook page currently has about 4,000 likes and 4,400 followers while its Instagram page has about 1,200 followers.
“It puts us at huge risk of potentially losing that audience and having to rebuild our digital community from scratch.”
Meta declined to comment, but it is understood the company is investigating the issue.