Please help, my Facebook page has disappeared!

I got no notification about removal of my page.

[MayankParmar]

I am Mayank Parmar from India. On 2nd May, 2017 when I woke up I found my Facebook Page MISSING from Facebook completely!

When I try to access my Facebook page, I see an error displayed on my computer screen, "Sorry, this content isn't available at the moment. The link you followed may have expired, or the Page may only be visible to an audience that you aren't in."

I checked my notifications, email, I didn't find any warning of my page was been unpublished, deleted or it has violated Facebook's TOS. In fact, I'm sure nothing was posted on page violating the rules. Furthermore, when I checked my last 7 days notifications, no traces of notification related to my page was available, it was gone from every place.

That day has become a nightmare for me. The page is really important for me, it had 273K Likes and we worked hard to make it a big page. Without any reason, warning, notification, the page is GONE!

[edited by: not2easy at 5:53 am (utc) on May 10, 2017]
[edit reason] ToS - No Links Pease [/edit]

[not2easy]

If you have multiple Page Admins, check to see whether others can access the page. If others can access the page, then you can try some common suggestions they offer for this kind of problem.

Have you visited the Help Pages at Facebook? Facebook suggests that you disable or remove any browser tools, addons or extensions. They also suggest that you clear your cache and cookies and log in again. Other suggestions are to try using a different browser or a different computer. If other admins cannot access the page, you should contact Facebook in case your account has been compromised.

[MayankParmar]

I tried on different browsers, asked editors. Even logged out and the page is not accessible. I got to know from social media examiner that something is causing the page to go invisible temporary. However, they had their own sources at Facebook hence they managed to get their page back. But I don't have any sources. I am even ready to pay in order to get the page back.

I filled contacts forms. Asked on Facebook Help community and I got no response.

[tangor]

Is that page a source of "news"? It is possible you might have been caught by FBs recent effort to police fake news and other problematic content or their continuing effort to comply with local country laws and regulations. It is possible your page got caught up during the roll out of their new guidelines.

[MayankParmar]

@Tangor +. It was basically a fan page with no content violating any rules. The page had images (no copyright issue), links that were legit news - shared on several pages.

[keyplyr]

Whatever the reason, only FB can do anything about it.

If it happened to me, whether I knew the reason or not, I would continue to contact FB with persistence.

[MayankParmar]

@Keyplr +. I filled contacts forms. Doing it on every alternate day. Nothing works :(

[keyplyr]

Looking around the FB Help pages and considering your absent page was a Fan Page, the most likey reason (whether valid or not) IMO is:

Your Page was reported and removed for infringing someone's intellectual property rights

Sadly, I see no resolution for this unless they return your correspondence.

[MayankParmar]

@Keyplyr+. I doubt it was removed because of violation as everything posted on the page was not someone's intellectual property. I always made this sure as the page was giving me over 10K page views to my website per link. The page was on an Indian TV actor. The images of the actor were from on-location shoot, it was not owned by anyone.

I got no notification. Earlier when Facebook removed my page, I got email and notification. Plus when visiting a removed page, it give a different error but my page says, "Sorry, this content isn't available at the moment. The link you followed may have expired, or the Page may only be visible to an audience that you aren't in." I googled and found on social media examiner that this error means the page gone temporary invisible and they actually managed to get the page back.

[keyplyr]

I feel you may be ignoring the obvious, where it says:

Your Page was reported...

Someone with credentials may have reported your page and made a convincing case for it being removed. Possibly someone representing this Indian TV actor.

Anyway, good luck. As I said, only FB can resolve this (or not.)

[topr8]

>>The images of the actor were from on-location shoot, it was not owned by anyone.

all images are owned by someone! were you the photographer?

[Robert Charlton]

MayankParmar, I've been on the other end of a content removal like this... (assuming this was a content removal). I was working with the marketing office for a major US film production company when the VP of marketing made a call to an advertising agency to have a series of TV commercials taken off the air. A character in the commercials was similar enough to one of the main characters in the film we were doing... a sequel in a well-known Hollywood film franchise... that not much discussion was necessary.

I only heard one end of the call... but it was clear that demands for removal were immediately effective... The "negotiations" probably didn't even last 30 seconds. The loss to the ad agency and sponsor probably amounted to many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In your case...

The page was on an Indian TV actor. The images of the actor were from on-location shoot, it was not owned by anyone.

Well, the whole shoot was owned and paid for by someone... and the actor probably always got paid for use of his likeness unless he was in a public place. No telling what the reasons or conditions for removal might have been... but I'd guess that unless the page is an official fan site for the actor, and you have explicit permission to publish the images you got, you could be in a difficult situation regarding use of the material you have.

I am not a lawyer, but I have seen that when someone with the obvious "rights" in the situation complains, you don't have much room for appeal, unless those rights were pre-negotiated. Facebook would immediately yield to the demands of the copyright holder. Where the images of the actor walking down the street or on a public beach, the situation might be different. This was a movie set or location.

I should add, too, that this might be any one of a number of reasons why a page might have gotten turned off, but, as you describe the situation, it's the most likely one. That said, as keyplyr suggests, you should definitely be persistent... but you may need clearances from the actor and production company for Facebook to be willing to deal with you. . If you have a postitive relationship with the actor, that may be a route to follow up. The page might be good publicity for the actor, and that might be a sales point that can help you.

[tangor]

As an ultimate last resort, if you think you have truly been wronged and a lawyer agrees and will stand at your side, take your case to the largest public you can find, such as a national website, newspaper, television or radio show. Recent page removals for "political and freedom of speech" FB pages have been restored once publicly reported. But do consult an attorney familiar with intellectual properties before you make such a move ... and even then think twice!

As noted, IANAL and WW does not give legal advice.

[not2easy]

The page was on an Indian TV actor.

If this TV actor has their own Facebook Fan Page, they can certainly have your page removed. They would not want confusion over "which" fan page is officially able to represent the actor's interests and as owners of the intellectual property rights of that actor it is their obligation to remove competing fan pages to protect their property.

As others have mentioned, this is not legal advice and if you feel securely that you have been wronged, you should talk with a lawyer who is well versed in your local laws.

[ali630]

I had a page which was a fan club page and suddenly it got shut because the page was reported by the actor himself for using his page. That was really heart broken moment for me and my team but we contacted the support team and told them that we are not violating any rules and also the page was a fan page and share the examples of other related fan pages . They reviewed my application and luckily I got my page back. Please contact the support and tell them briefly with example if your page is not violating any rules

[MayankParmar]

Hi all,

I finally managed to get in touch with a Facebook employee on Twitter. He revealed what exactly happened to my page. The page was taken down and it was later merged into the official page! I didn't receive any notification from Facebook on removal because of a technical issue, most probably.

He said nothing can be done now.

Anyways, I would like to thank all of you here for helping me!