How Facebook Censored Me & Blocked Me From Selling Products #CENSORSHIP

In this video I discuss my experience early last year when Facebook and Instagram made sure I could not sell my face masks, even though I designed them myself. It made me angry because I wanted to run ads for my masks after I ordered them and finally received them in the mail. I ended up with products I couldn’t sell and I had to find alternative platforms to promote my work.

As an artist who funds their own products out of pocket, it was a financial loss. Between products I ordered out of pocket taking a chance on them being a successful product, I quickly found out that Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Etsy would not allow me to boost my post, run paid ads, or promote them. In fact, I’m pretty sure they also made sure my reach on those posts was not significant. With all of the shady changes on these platforms, creators need to rely more and more on their own websites and mailing lists.

We cannot get caught up in this battle between platforms for success. The reality now is that Facebook and Instagram do not want to support small creators. They don’t want to help smaller creators find success on their platforms. They only care about the people who put large amounts of money in their pockets. These organizations are the big corporations that spend millions on ad spend every year. Instead, Facebook and Instagram want to control the masses. They want to censor us, collect data on us, and prevent us from profiting in any way on their platforms. I unfortunately have a fully formed opinion about these platforms now after experiencing how they have blocked me from posting about my experience. They even blocked my post on Facebook where I told all of my contacts that FB had blocked me from selling masks. I couldn’t even tell my followers about what happened! Below is the video about what happened. Please share this with any of your friends who may have also been affected by censorship. You’re not alone.

I also made videos on alternative platforms in case you are considering jumping ship to build a presence somewhere else.

How Social Media Platforms Like Pinterest Are Failing Artists

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8_xs4NE9I4&t=233s

Alternative Platforms to Instagram for Artists & Designers (Follow up for Live stream topic 11/19)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTcS3VV7LKg&t=47s

How will Instagram's New Terms of Service Affect Artists? (sorry for the lagging video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYxzir7SqyY&t=248s