{"id":1740,"date":"2025-07-15T08:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T08:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/1740\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T08:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T08:40:07","slug":"dog-picture-posted-to-instagram-costs-an-australian-woman-50000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/1740\/","title":{"rendered":"Dog picture posted to Instagram costs an Australian woman $50,000"},"content":{"rendered":"

By MATT JONES FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA <\/p>\n

Published: 04:49 BST, 15 July 2025 | Updated: 05:27 BST, 15 July 2025 <\/p>\n

An Australian small business owner says she lost about $50,000 after Instagram<\/a> suspended her accounts over what she describes as an innocent photo of three dogs.<\/p>\n

Rochelle Marinato, managing director at Pilates World Australia, recently received an email from Instagram’s parent company Meta<\/a> stating her accounts had been suspended because the image breached community guidelines relating to ‘child sexual exploitation, abuse and nudity’.<\/p>\n

The photo had been mistakenly flagged by an AI<\/a> moderator which confused the image of the dogs with those of children.<\/p>\n

She appealed the decision and sent 22 emails to Meta, but received no assistance from the global tech giant, which owns Instagram, Facebook<\/a>, Threads, Messenger and WhatsApp.<\/p>\n

Ms Marinato told Daily Mail Australia the suspension had a serious financial impact on her business.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘When it first happened I thought it was just a silly mistake and we’ll fix it and it might take an hour,’ she said.<\/p>\n

‘We were in the middle of the end of financial year sales for the business so it was pretty horrendous timing.<\/p>\n

‘I appealed and pretty quickly I received notification from Meta that my accounts were permanently disabled with no further course of action available.’<\/p>\n

\"Rochelle <\/p>\n

Rochelle Marinato’s social media business account was taken down by Meta after she posted an innocent photo of three dogs<\/p>\n

Left with few options, Ms Marinato said she was forced to take an unconventional route and pay a third party to get the accounts reinstated.<\/p>\n

‘I spent three weeks researching how to get my account back. In that time our revenue dropped by 75 per cent,’ she said.<\/p>\n

‘For a small business like us, social media is critical. Everything just stopped when our accounts were suspended.<\/p>\n

‘In losing my account, all my Instagram advertising was gone. It had a really significant impact on the business because we rely so heavily on social media.’<\/p>\n

She claims the sudden disappearance from the platform had a direct cost to her bottom line.<\/p>\n

‘I did a basic comparison to last year, just so I could be sure of the figures, and it cost me about $50,000,’ she said.<\/p>\n

But beyond the financial loss, Ms Marinato said she was outraged by the implication behind the platform’s suspension notice.<\/p>\n

\u00a0‘It’s a horrible, disgusting allegation to have thrown your way and to be associated with. People will think we’ve done something wrong to lose our account,’ she said.<\/p>\n

‘It’s scary that AI has this power and also gets it this wrong. We could be on a slippery slope.’<\/p>\n

\"Rochelle <\/p>\n

Rochelle Marinato couldn’t access her Meta accounts after it threw a wild accusation at her (stock image)<\/p>\n

Despite losing $50,000, Ms Marinato said she was now only focusing on getting her business back to where it was before Meta’s AI intervened.<\/p>\n

‘I don’t think anyone’s been successful in recouping any loss and that would be an extra expense. I just need to keep working hard and hope this doesn’t happen again,’ she said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ms Marinato claimed her story was just one of many and that the problem was widespread.<\/p>\n

She also said it was impossible to talk to a human at Meta to explain her situation.<\/p>\n

‘I couldn’t get a human to look at it. Clearly any human that looks at this photo is going to know it’s completely innocent,’ she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘You can’t contact a human at Meta. There’s no phone number, there’s no email, there’s nothing and you’re literally left in the dark.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

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