What does it take to get banned from X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook?

Many years ago when I lived in Canada, I took a timid step into the Twitterverse by setting up an account and following Kevin Falcon, a rising political star in British Columbia’s governing Liberal Party. Now, the thing to know about politics in British Columbia, if you’re new to BC or not from there, is that the Liberal Party is more like the federal Conservative Party. I liked Mr. Falcon’s moderate approach, his commonsense and clear thinking, and the fact that he maintained a strong presence in his community even though he was a senior Cabinet minister. I tentatively pressed ‘follow’ and waited expectantly to be informed about Mr. Falcon’s thinking on policy decisions. Instead, I learned that he had eaten pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast that morning while at a breakfast hosted by a community group in his Surrey, BC riding. The next morning, his tweet was even shorter, with a note about eating potatoes and sausages for breakfast. Since I didn’t learn anything about his thinking on policy, I stopped following him and my exploration of the Twitterverse ended two days after it began.

Fast forward to life in the Greenville, North Carolina, and the publication of my first novel, See Me: A Jeannie Johal Thriller. I learned, by attending ThrillerFest in New York and hearing from Jeffrey Deaver, Lisa Gardner, and Karin Slaughter, that I needed to have a website. When I returned home to Greenville, I set about creating my website.

I also learned that I needed to have a presence on Facebook/Meta. I tried to create a Facebook account, but couldn’t save my work, despite many, many tries. I had spent hours rewriting the same texts and not being able to save what I wrote. It was after midnight, and I didn’t want to wake up my more tech-savy husband to ask for his help. So I pressed every button I could. In fact, it seems that the many tries led to Facebook suspending my account. When I asked why, I was told I had violated community standards. When I expressed surprise and appealed the decision, I was told that I was suspended, banned from Facebook for life, with my account suspended forever. Particularly challenging was my inability to appeal the suspension to a human. About a week ago, I was able to log in to Facebook, where I updated my page with a photo of my new book. I don’t know if Facebook/Meta will again decide that I am violating community standards. If they do, I would sure like to know why.

This brings me to X (formerly Twitter). When I set up a Twitter account to publicize my first book, I followed a weather forecaster from Texas who was using colored maps to bring more attention to his forecasts. I thought the color-coding looked cool, and complimented him. Then my account got suspended for serious violations, and I was advised the suspension could not be appealed.

Fast forward to 2025, and my X account is still suspended. Since I was hoping to promote my new book on X, I recently tried to log on, to no avail. When I asked the reason for the suspension and appealed it, I wasn’t given a reason, but I am still suspended. Of course, there is no way to appeal this decision to someone/something that has the ability to correct an obvious error, although I did post a message to Elon Musk, pleading for reinstatement. I haven’t received a response.

A social media guru told me my frequent pressing of the ‘save’ button and infrequent posts may have given the impression to Meta and X that I am a ‘bot.’ He added that tweeting about one’s breakfast is not uncommon. My plan had been to use X to encourage a dialogue about my new book, not to list what I eat for breakfast. While I would love to be able to post book-related insights on X, I cannot conceive of any universe where I would post about my breakfast. Although I can share that when Jeannie arrives in the American South and tries grits for the first time, she finds them comparable to upma, her traditional breakfast.