Multiple Facebook pages restricted in Vietnam

Thanh Phong, an admin of a Facebook fanpage with over 500,000 follows, said Facebook sent him a notification, saying his page could no longer publish new posts due to violating community standards regarding spams.

Phong said all contents on the page were created by the admin group and published within pre-determined time frames. Before the notification, the page also did not receive any announcement from Facebook, he added.

Mai Thanh Phu, an expert on online marketing, said there have been many people requesting him to help them regain their publication rights on Facebook since Wednesday morning.

“There is no clear reason why these pages are restricted. However, several fanpages being locked this time are pages that sell goods,” he said.

In an announcement to page managers, Facebook also said those who have “liked” these pages would also not be able to find them.

Experts said a restricted Facebook page might not only due to the contents they post, but also due to potential violations of the pages’ admins. Phu said if the restriction falls into the latter cases, admins might be able to regain publication rights, but it would take at least 30 days to do so.

Phan Tuan Quang, the owner of an electronics shop, said most of the store’s revenue comes from customers on Facebook. The restrictions on fanpages would therefore significantly impact business.

“Several customers went on Facebook to ask about warranties and reparation, but they do not see the fanpage, and so got worried and came to the physical store,” he said, adding that bad actors could take advantage of the opportunity to create fake pages for scams.

Quang said he had already filed a complaint per Facebook’s instructions to no avail. Certain third parties offer services to open up the pages, but it would take months to do so.

“I hope it’s only a system error. In the worst case scenario, the store might have to purchase a new fanpage to continue business,” Quang said.

Facebook has yet to give an official announcement on this wave of restriction.

About a year prior, several Facebook users around the world also saw their account restricted for “violating community standards.” Facebook later said it was an algorithm error.