Trades\u2019 group account flagged for allegedly breaking child exploitation rules<\/p>\n
Published Jul 23, 2025 \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 Last updated 4\u00a0hours ago \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 5 minute read<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n You can save this article by registering for free here<\/a>. Or sign-in<\/a> if you have an account.<\/p>\n Denise Miller was on her boat when the plug was pulled on her digital existence Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n Advertisement 2<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the e-Edition, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalism and the next generation of journalists.<\/p>\n SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the e-Edition, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalism and the next generation of journalists.<\/p>\n REGISTER \/ SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to keep reading.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one account.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite journalists.<\/p>\n THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authors<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n The Kingston marketing professional, who uses social media for her livelihood, received a strange message from Instagram about an account she manages on behalf of a provincial skilled trades organization.<\/p>\n That account had been suspended, as either it \u2013 or \u201cactivity on it\u201d \u2013 didn\u2019t meet Instagram\u2019s \u201ccommunity standards on child sexual exploitation, nudity and abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n Miller was dumbfounded. Her last post was about a grant for skilled trades education.<\/p>\n Immediately, Miller changed her password, suspecting the account had been hacked based on an inbox full of spam messages. She then started a cumbersome online process where she had to visually prove her identity to appeal the suspension.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m on the boat, I\u2019m doing this video selfie thing, send it in, and within four minutes, it came back and said, \u2018No, (the account is) permanently disabled,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Advertisement 3<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cObviously a human didn\u2019t even look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n But that was only the start of what would become an erasure of Miller\u2019s digital footprint.<\/p>\n Within minutes, Miller lost access to her personal Facebook account. She had used it to run the Instagram account on behalf of the trades\u2019 group.<\/p>\n In order to get back onto Facebook, Miller would need to re-appeal her Instagram suspension \u2013 an online process she couldn\u2019t now access because the account had been permanently deactivated.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just dealing with A.I. hell,\u201d said Miller, who provided Brunswick News Monday with screenshots of the automated messages she\u2019s received from Facebook and Instagram over the last few days.<\/p>\n Miller has reached out multiple times via email to tech giant Meta, which owns both Facebook and Instagram. So far, she says she hasn\u2019t received a single response to her appeals for help.<\/p>\n Morning Email Telegraph-Journal<\/p>\n Thanks for signing up!<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Advertisement 4<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Brunswick News requested comment from Meta. A company spokesperson confirmed an investigation is underway.<\/p>\n \u201cWe take action on accounts that violate our policies, and people can appeal if they think we\u2019ve made a mistake,\u201d Meta said in a statement.<\/p>\n According to Meta, it uses a combination of \u201cpeople and technology\u201d to identify and remove rule-breaking accounts. The company says users have the opportunity to appeal decisions, and if an account or piece of content was removed erroneously, it will be restored.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re a hostage,\u201d Miller said of the situation. \u201cYour digital footprint is hostage. I can see if you broke these community standards or did something wrong, but if you haven\u2019t done anything, there\u2019s no recourse.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement 5<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Miller\u2019s story is far from unique.<\/p>\n Recent news reports from around the world detail accounts of Facebook and Instagram users abruptly losing access to their accounts for allegedly violating community standards.<\/p>\n Australian beautician Madison Archer lost access to both her personal and professional accounts after she posted a photo of herself holding her daughter, according to an Australian Broadcasting Corporation report last week.<\/p>\n Archer told the media outlet she was falsely accused of breaking child exploitation rules.<\/p>\n Closer to home, Brittany Watson, of Ontario, told the BBC her Facebook account was disabled for nine days on the grounds of \u201caccount integrity.\u201d She decided to take action against Meta.<\/p>\n Advertisement 6<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Almost 31,000 people have now signed her online petition calling on the company to \u201cfix its broken systems and treat its users with respect and fairness,\u201d blaming its artificial intelligence (A.I.) moderation system for \u201cdisabling thousands of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp accounts without cause.\u201d<\/p>\n Meta told Brunswick News it tracks data around its enforcement of community standards and hasn\u2019t seen proof of a \u201csignificant\u201d increase in the number of cases where the rules have been incorrectly applied.<\/p>\n Tech giants wield \u2018disproportionate\u2019 share of power: expert<\/p>\n Cybersecurity expert David Shipley isn\u2019t surprised to hear of the plight of Miller and countless other social media users around the world.<\/p>\n Advertisement 7<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cFacebook made a move a couple of years ago to dramatically cut back human oversight of concerns flagged by A.I. systems,\u201d said Shipley, who is the CEO and co-founder of Beauceron Security Inc., a New Brunswick-based cybersecurity software firm.<\/p>\n \u201c(Facebook) had large contracts with content moderators from third-party firms. Those were expensive, they were a drain on their profitability, and absent any requirement for them to have these kinds of functions, they\u2019ve cut them.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the growing permeation of social media in people\u2019s lives, the Canadian government has struggled to deal with the \u201cpower imbalance\u201d between tech giants and citizens, according to Shipley, who previously testified before Parliament\u2019s public safety committee on the topic of cybersecurity.<\/p>\n Advertisement 8<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s frustrating is the disproportionate amount of power (the tech giants) have in our society,\u201d he said. \u201cIf someone now wants to do modern effective digital marketing and advertising, they have to have this presence, and arbitrarily some robot machine made a flawed decision, which they are prone to do, to ruin someone\u2019s livelihood with no recourse.\u201d<\/p>\n A growing form of \u201creputational sabotage\u201d is occurring through social media by pairing account hacking and false flagging, according to Claudiu Popa, CEO of Datarisk Canada, a Toronto-based cybersecurity firm.<\/p>\n \u201cVictims are often unaware their accounts have been compromised until they are locked out entirely and accused of posting criminal content,\u201d Popa said in an email.<\/p>\n Advertisement 9<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cThis tactic is especially damaging because it weaponizes automated moderation systems before users have a chance to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n Miller says she has yet to see any evidence from Meta that content she posted to the trades group\u2019s Instagram account breached any community standards.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very careful,\u201d Miller said. \u201cEven on my own account, I\u2019m not one of those people on Facebook that posts selfies or bikini shots or anything. I\u2019ve had my account for 18 years.\u201d<\/p>\n Shipley wants to see a bill of rights for Canadian digital citizens to ensure they have timely access to a resolution with tech giants. However, he recognizes it\u2019s an \u201cextraordinarily difficult\u201d time right now to introduce regulation against U.S. tech companies.<\/p>\n Advertisement 10<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Last month, the Canadian government cancelled a planned digital service tax on these companies after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would end trade talks between the countries over the tax.<\/p>\n This friction doesn\u2019t help Canadians like Miller. She relies on Facebook access to moderate two business pages, as well as post community and charity happenings in her rural community.<\/p>\n She\u2019s encouraging New Brunswickers to have multiple moderators on Facebook pages they run in their communities and, above all, to back up photos they\u2019ve posted.<\/p>\n She\u2019s learned the hard way by losing access right now to her daughter\u2019s graduation photos.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really kind of gut-punching,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Share this article in your social network<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breadcrumb Trail Links New BrunswickNews Trades\u2019 group account flagged for allegedly breaking child exploitation rules Published Jul 23,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":["post-18115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Denise](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/0722-lb-facebook-block-1-1.jpg\")
Denise Miller, of Kingston, lost access to her Facebook account last weekend following the flagging of an Instagram account she manages on behalf of a skilled trades organization. SUBMITTEDArticle content<\/p>\n![\"Telegraph-Journal\"](\"https:\/\/dcs-static.gprod.postmedia.digital\/19.1.5\/websites\/images\/identity\/logo-identity-tj.svg\"){kind=logo}
<\/p>\n![\"opening](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1752886892_797_1695845024791-TJ_-_V2.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/0722-lb-facebook-block-2.jpg\")
A screenshot of the message Denise Miller received on the Instagram account she manages on behalf of a skilled trades organization. The Kingston woman says she believes the account was hacked based on an inbox full of spam messages. SUBMITTED<\/p>\n