How a three-second Instagram clip featuring dogs sparked trouble for a business owner

Economic Times

15-07-2025

Synopsis
Rochelle Marinato, an Australian business owner, faced account suspension on Instagram. Meta flagged her personal and business accounts for violating community guidelines related to child exploitation. Despite multiple appeals, her business account was permanently disabled, leading to a significant revenue drop until Meta restored it after an investigation. Marinato said that she received an email to her business account where she promotes her products.
TIL Creatives An AI moderator seemed to have detected an issue with the image and mistaken it for an image of children.. An adorable video featuring three dogs looking outside a window invited trouble for an Australian business owner from Meta. The business owner in question here is Rochelle Marinato, who owns a Pilates equipment supplier. She posted the video on her personal Instagram account and said she received an email from the social media giant that her account had been suspended for "breaching community guidelines around child sexual exploitation, abuse, and nudity."The matter surfaced when an AI moderator seemed to have detected an issue with the image and mistaken it for an image of children. Speaking to Nine's 2GB radio, Marinato said that she received an email to her business account where she promotes her products. She was advised that account had been suspended as well.She further stated that she was told it was associated with an account that 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.' But then I received the email about my business account, and I was a little more worried, but it does give you an option to appeal at first, so I appealed. Immediately, my appeal was also assessed by AI, and it was denied, so from then on, my business account was permanently disabled," she further stated.
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, as quoted by 9News.
Prior to the restoration of her account, 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 business owner has been researching for the past three weeks how to recover her account. "The problem is so widespread, and I'd heard of people paying to get their accounts back." "Our revenue dropped by 75 percent," she said."With losing that account, all of my Instagram advertising was gone as well, because I advertise quite heavily on Meta. It had a really significant impact on the business because we rely so heavily on social media, especially in the fitness space. We lost everything," she continued.