The Internet is full of cute cats, but apparently Facebook isn’t a fan of them in suits.
On Friday evening, Chennai-based technology blogger Varun Krishnan claimed he was locked out of his Facebook account after he shared an innocent photo of a cat in a business suit with a friend.
Varun told Mashable:
It might sound stupid but this just happened to me. I was chatting with friends, got one cat image on WhatsApp, it was so cute that I sent it to a friend.
Before I realized, my devices were getting logged off. Even on PC, Messenger notified me that my Facebook account has been disabled. My photos, my Facebook Ads account (Varun runs FoneArena, a tech blog), they wiped my presence off Facebook in a matter of seconds for a cat photo.
GiphySo what’s the photo promoting that’s so bad? It doesn’t bully, intimidate, or harass anyone. And it’s definitely not porn.
According to Varun, Facebook didn’t offer any explanation as to how that photo violated its terms of service, but when examined closely, the photo does also have some blurred text in what looks like Sinhalese. Though it’s not clear what it says.
Reports suggest that others who have tried sharing the same photo — some after making alterations — have also had their Facebook accounts disabled. However, Mashable reports that after doing this with a test account nothing happened.
Jay, a tech blogger from website Techzei, has claimed he was also banned for sharing the same image.
He claimed:
Sharing the photo of a cat in a suit (via a private message) is all it takes to get locked out of your Facebook account.
I did not buy it, but a few screenshots later I realised it was totally true.
I tried some basic changes like changing the file name, removing exif data. The end result always remained the same. It was confirmed on 7 other accounts and none of the accounts have been re enabled yet.
Sounds a bit like bullshit, but Jay claims that his accounts were disabled, only to be re-enabled within the last day.
Mysterious.
