Facebook Page Issues - How to Avoid Suspended Pages

Over the past year, some of you may have had your Facebook page shut down. If so, you are not alone. As many of these units who’ve had this bad luck can tell you, once a page is shut down, it is very difficult to have it restored.

In an effort to avoid this happening to any other Facebook pages across the University, below are some of the most common reasons that this will occur, and some tips to avoid it.

• Admins without authentic profiles - All administrators on your Facebook account should have an authentic profile that is used regularly, and not a duplicate profile for the sole purpose of serving as an admin on the page. In addition, admins that violate Community Standards may be cause for page suspension.
• Copyright Violations - If any of the images, videos, or other content that you publish are copyrighted by another entity, this can lead to your page being unpublished. Make sure all content is owned by the University of Minnesota, or that it’s been appropriately licensed from a stock image/video company. One easy way to avoid a copyright infringement is to use a preview link vs. uploading the file directly to Facebook.
• Contest Rule Violation - My personal advice is to never run a Facebook contest. Facebook is very strict about these, and if terms and conditions are broken in any way, it can lead to account suspension. If you choose to run a promotion, make sure to include the official rules of the contest on the post. In addition, you must acknowledge that the promotion is not sponsored, endorsed, or associated with Facebook. Personal timelines and friend connections can’t be used to enter promotions.
• Inappropriate Page name - See what is and isn't allowed.
• Misleading content - If any of your Page’s content could be seen as misleading, this can lead to a page shutdown. Make sure that all content is appropriately tagged, captioned, and information is easily accessible.
• Facebook Terms & Conditions Violation - The reasons above are just some of the most common reasons pages are shut down, but they are not the only ones. Make sure you are familiar with Facebook’s terms and conditions for pages.

If your page does get shut down, by all means appeal the decision. There is a link to appeal within the email that Facebook sends when a page is shut down. However, this process is not often successful.

If you have any questions, reach out to Jacob Spaulding at spaul047@umn.edu.