The Caregiver Space Facebook account has received numerous violation notices, accusing us of lying about where we’re operating from, spreading misinformation, encouraging violence and suicide, and making threats. This is, unfortunately, a fact of life when platforms like Facebook use automated systems to police their platforms without any human oversight.

Because it’s reasonably likely that our groups will be deleted from the Facebook platform without notice, we’ve created this contact list. This is not a signup for a mailing list. This list will only be used to contact you if The Caregiver Space is removed from Facebook.

Click “start” to enter your information in the form or click here to have it open in a new tab.

Here’s the scoop, for those of you who want the details…

We put a tremendous amount of effort into building and maintaining a welcoming community in all of our Facebook groups. Our team of volunteer moderators carefully screens all new members and every post before they’re approved. We also keep an eye on comments in order to create a warm space to discuss difficult topics. That hasn’t kept us safe from being restricted by Facebook and accused of sharing spam and promoting violence.

Every few weeks Facebook restricts my access to The Caregiver Space, accusing me of lying about my identity. I have my location services turned on for the Facebook app on my phone. I’m not using a VPN. I’ve uploaded photos of my drivers license and passport at the demand of Facebook. We keep getting restricted nonetheless.

Our account hasn’t been hacked. Neither has mine. Nothing inappropriate has been posted.

At this point, all of our groups and our page have violation notices.

In the past, Facebook has included us in special programs because we’re such an active and welcoming community. These days, that’s not enough to keep us from being at risk of being removed from the platform.

Image text: Group is at risk! Don’t lose your Group! Your Group is at risk due to continued Community Standards violations. Any additional violations could get your Group taken down permanently.

Image text: Restrictions: Your group is restricted because it didn’t follow Community Standards. We know we’re not always right, if you think we got it wrong you can disagree with our decision and in some cases get the restriction removed. Your group is at risk of being disabled, and has reduced distribution and other restrictions, due to continued community standards violations.

Image text: A group admin approved a post that goes against our community standards on suicide and self injury. No one else can see this post. We have these standards because we want discussions on Facebook to be respectful. Notice visible until Saturday. Details: The following post goes against our community standards on suicide and self-injury: Post unavailable. We are unable to show content that goes against our community standards on suicide and self injury. To respect others’ privacy and keep everyone safe from harmful content, we do not show content that violates community standards on suicide and self injury. Posts like this…put this group at risk of restrictions. Other pages or groups you manage are not at risk. If your group gets too many community standards violations in too short a time, it may be permanently disabled.

Image text: What you can do: You can disagree with most violation decisions and help prevent new issues from affecting your Group with the following actions. Choices are: Review our community standards or remove moderators who break the rules.

Image text: “Your post goes against our community standards on spam. Only people who manage The Caregiver Space can see this post. We have these standards to prevent things like false advertising, fraud and security breaches. If your content goes against our community standards again, your account may be restricted or disabled.” The offending post reads: “Why do we need to fight for decent nursing home care?” and links to https://www.thecaregiverspace.org/a-nursing-home-nightmare/

Image text: Phone screenshot showing a notification: “Your post goes against our community standards on spam. Only people who manage The Caregiver Space can see this post. We have these standards to prevent things like false advertising, fraud and security breaches. If your content goes against our community standards again, your account may be restricted or disabled.” The offending post displayed in the background contains no text. It appears to be a glitch with our post scheduling tool, Hootsuite.

Image text: You disagreed with the decision. We usually offer the chance to request a review and follow up if we got decisions wrong. We have fewer reviewers available right now because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. We’re trying hard to prioritize reviewing content with the most potential for harm. This means we may not be able to follow up with you, though your feedback helps us to do better in the future. Thank you for understanding. If your content goes against our community standards again, your account may be restricted or disabled.

Image text: Page Publishing Authorization is Required. Because you manage one or more Pages with high potential reach, we require you to verify your account by completing the steps below. Please note that verification is not instant and could take a few days to process, so we recommend you take these steps today. Certify where you’re based by confirming your primary country location. Access to your pages is temporarily restricted until you complete publishing authorization.