Local shops are having their Facebook pages suspended and even destroyed after wrongly being caught up in the social media giant’s crackdown on fake accounts.

Post Office (PO) branch owners are among those affected, with at least 72 sites having their page “unpublished” since the beginning of the year.

A Morrisons Daily retailer confirmed experiencing a similar issue.

A PO spokesperson confirmed to Better Retailing that after it demanded the pages be republished, 55 had been reinstated.

Pete Mackinnon, of Rimswell Post Office in Stockton-On-Tees, said: “My account was suspended in December. Facebook never responded to my application to have it reinstated, and then it disappeared for good. Posting on our page has won us new customers, especially when there has been new and trending products, so it will affect the business.”

PO area managers were alerted to the problem, and a PO spokesperson stated the pages are being “wrongly unpublished” as part of Facebook “tightening up their global policies in relation to impersonation”.

PO said it was working with Facebook to address the problem.

The statement also warned stores of scam emails in circulation pretending to be from Facebook and threatening to unpublish accounts.

Facebook owner Meta failed to comment when approached.

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