“Facebook was our biggest problem of 2024.” Sister Kate
For the Sisters of the Valley, 2024 was meant to be a year of renewal and growth. After navigating the challenges of a pandemic economy and rebuilding from years of uncertainty, we finally began to see hope on the horizon. Our small business, born in 2015 alongside our Facebook page, was thriving, and our connection with nearly 300,000 followers worldwide had become a cornerstone of our success. But this year—our tenth anniversary—turned out to be one of the most painful in our journey, thanks to the relentless exploitation and negligence of Meta.
A Decade of Building, Undermined in a Year
When Meta invited us to advertise on their platform in February 2023, we were skeptical but intrigued. We had grown organically for years, building a loyal community that valued our holistic products and our way of life. Meta’s promise of expanded reach and new opportunities seemed worth exploring. But what followed was a masterclass in corporate betrayal.
Understand that prior to engaging with Facebook’s advertising team, there were no instances over our decade long ride with Facebook that our page was shadow-banned or blocked. No cases whatsoever. The terrorizing came after we began PAYING facebook for services, ironically enough.
The advertising tools that Meta touted as game-changing turned out to be traps. We were prompted to boost posts with projections that seemed too good to be true—and they were. Shadow-banning practices meant that we could pay for promoting our content, but even our most faithful followers wouldn’t see it in their feeds. Revenue from reels—once a promising stream to offset the advertising spend—dropped from $400 a week to a mere $6.
Despite spending hours on the phone with Meta representatives, we got no answers and no solutions. In fact, I’m quite sure that no one at Meta is empowered to fix anything. The botts are running the show over there.
The Hack That Nearly Broke Us
The turning point came in July when our page was hacked. For 34 agonizing days, our business was at a standstill. Meta’s response was infuriatingly slow. It took three press releases, countless hours of calls, and relentless follow-up to regain control of our account. Even then, the damage was done. Our URL, which had been ours for nine years, was replaced with a generic link that made it harder for followers to find us. The financial impact was devastating: 1/12th of our year—and 1/12th of our sales—was lost.
The recovery was short-lived and apparently, Meta felt like it hadn’t done enough damage to our business. Allowing a month of sales to fall away during a hack was one thing, but Meta needed to damage our Christmas season sales and on Thanksgiving weekend, they once again banned our content from showing up in our followers’ feeds. Our biggest sales month of the year, and we were rendered mute to the audience of followers who have been with us on this decade-long journey.
Because the posts we make five times a day are going to the wind, engagement plummeted, and our advertising efforts proved fruitless. We were paying Meta to undermine us, a bitter realization that forced us to pull all advertising.
First Amendment and the Hypocrisy of Shadow-Banning
It’s deeply troubling that federally legal and regulated industries, like hemp, and other emerging fields of holistic and alternative medicine are being targeted through shadow-banning practices. Practitioners of holistic healing, mycologists, MDMA therapists, and others who offer natural or innovative solutions to health challenges face the same suppression. These platforms act as de facto regulators of speech and commerce, often without transparency or accountability.
Hemp, for example, is protected under federal law, yet businesses like ours are censored, damaging both our livelihoods and public access to information. This raises serious questions about fairness and First Amendment principles. While private companies like Meta aren’t bound by the same free speech rules as the government, their actions stifle public discourse and limit the ability of small businesses, therapists, and scientists to communicate freely. If platforms like Meta continue to wield their immense power unchecked, they undermine federal protections, limit innovation, and set a dangerous precedent for industries advocating for more sustainable and compassionate ways of living.
A System Designed to Exploit
Meta’s practices highlight a systemic issue that goes beyond one small business. The platform encourages small businesses to spend money on ads, all while suppressing their content. It provides no transparency, no accountability, and no meaningful support.
In regard to this same problem, my first call with a technician, I was told that he checked everything and everything is just fine. No suppression happening here! He recommended that when I post, I use the hashtag #followers.
The second technician that I was on an hour long call with said, ‘it’s because your page isn’t verified’ and then he looked up my tangled history of trying to make that happen and facebook constantly dropping the ball and promised to get that escalated. He didn’t.
The third technician told me the whole thing with my account had to be escalated, and that he would open a trouble ticket. He didn’t.
The fourth call was yesterday, when the technician told my I had to just wait our this jail sentence on my page. Couldn’t tell me why my page was in jail, or what caused it, but he could say it would probably be lifted sometime in the week or two past our tenth anniversary. Sometime in mid January, when we are past all holiday sales and our tenth anniversary celebration. He suggested I made another press release campaign because he even admitted that facebook has no way out of this, without extreme public pressure. So here we are. Another campaign to shame a large corporation into doing the right thing.
Meta’s negligence doesn’t just harm businesses—it damages the trust between creators and their communities. Our followers want to connect with us, to see the journey behind the products they love. Meta’s actions make that connection impossible, leaving both businesses and customers disillusioned.
Policies That Kill Small Farms and Businesses
Meta’s victimization of small businesses is not just a digital issue—it’s part of a larger pattern of systemic neglect and exploitation that affects the entire American economy. Small farms and small businesses, once the backbone of this country, are being strangled by unfair practices and rigged regulations.
The laws and corporate policies we face are designed to favor large mono-farms and mega-corporations, effectively forcing smaller enterprises to the sidelines. Mono-farming devastates biodiversity, depletes soil health, and harms the environment, while also eroding rural communities and local economies. Small businesses, like small farms, offer sustainable, personalized alternatives, but the deck is stacked against us.
Meta’s practices pile on to this already dire situation. Shadow-banning, ineffective advertising, and negligent security are all tools that drain resources from small businesses while denying them the visibility they need to survive. These practices aren’t just bad for entrepreneurs—they’re bad for America. Every small business that closes its doors is another nail in the coffin of local economies, innovation, and the American dream.
Join the Fight
This year has been a painful reminder of the power Meta wields and how carelessly it is used. But it has also strengthened our resolve. We’re fighting not just for ourselves but for every small business that has been exploited and neglected by Meta’s corporate machine.
One way that our facebook followers can help us is by reporting a problem to facebook. By clicking on the profile image in the upper right corner, one gets the option for Help & Support. There, you can report a problem and you can attach a screenshot of our page, but it isn’t necessary. You can just report that Sisters of the Valley business page is being blocked from your feed, and you want that to stop.
Better yet, we invite you to join us in an ‘off platform’ media battle to shame facebook into stopping these victimizing practices against small businesses.
Our demands are simple:
- Transparency: End shadow-banning practices and ensure followers can see the content they choose to follow.
- Accountability: Provide accessible, effective customer support.
- Fairness: Offer refunds or credits for ineffective advertising campaigns.
- Security: Protect business pages from hacking and streamline recovery processes.
Sign the Petition
2024 has tested us in unimaginable ways, but it has also shown us the strength of our community. We’re asking for your help to demand change. Sign our Change.org petition (https://chng.it/W4hyf5w9sP) and stand with small businesses. Together, we can hold Meta accountable and ensure a future where small businesses thrive.
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