This country's government is now demanding answers from Meta regarding mass account ban wave

It seems South Korea’s government has had enough of Meta’s mass account suspension mess. Choi Min-hee, head of the Science, ICT, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee, recently announced that the National Assembly will hold an emergency meeting this Thursday with Meta Korea executives and affected users.

The meeting is set for July 10 at 4:00 PM and will bring together Meta Korea’s Vice-President, committee leadership, and lawyers representing suspended account victims. This isn’t really the first time they’ve called out Meta. Around a month ago, Choi Min-hee had an in-person meeting with a Meta spokesperson who stated that it’s part of the ongoing efforts to crack down on CSE, and that some accounts may have accidentally been caught in the crossfire.

That said, this official announcement from them shows just how badly this situation has spiraled. They mentioned receiving “the same texts and calls pouring day and night” from affected users, with people reaching out “late at night or early in the morning” so much that it’s messing up daily operations.

The scale of complaints hitting her office matches what I’ve been seeing across social media. And even though Choi Min-hee mentioned that “last month, Meta said there were technical errors that impacted some groups.” The platform hasn’t exactly made any official public statement confirming the same. In fact, I recently highlighted how Meta is still refusing to own up to the mess it has created.

This government intervention comes right after some pretty shocking developments I’ve been tracking. Just days ago, I reported on how Meta support told a business owner to “find a job” after their Instagram got banned. The user had explained their business was losing thousands daily, only to get this response: “Life is not all about an Instagram account, you can always find a job outside of this.” That level of dismissiveness probably won’t work with government officials, so Meta needs to buckle up.

What stands out about Choi Min-hee’s announcement is that she gets that this isn’t just some technical glitch. This is affecting real people’s lives and businesses. But it’s no longer just memories getting lost; this ban wave has resulted in a serious mental crisis for some users.

The meeting is being held privately, with results shared through a press release afterward. That suggests they’re treating this as serious business rather than a photo op. Having Meta Korea’s Vice-President there shows this isn’t being handled as some minor customer service hiccup.

Choi Min-hee’s frustration really shows through in her post. She’s basically telling people to stop calling her office about the same stuff because it’s become unmanageable. The fact that she had to make that statement publicly shows just how many people are affected in South Korea alone.

This could be a turning point. If South Korea’s National Assembly can get actual commitments from Meta Korea executives, it’s possible that the company actually starts ramping up the process to restore affected accounts. As I highlighted roughly a week ago, some people, particularly Instagram users, did get their accounts back. 

So government intervention like this suggests the situation has become too big for Meta to handle with their usual silence and dismissive support responses. Anyway, I’ll keep an eye out for any further updates on this and will add it to my coverage on the topic. So keep an eye out for more details in our coverage on Meta platforms.

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