Man sues Facebook for locking his account and receives Rs 41 lakh in penalties

• Image Credit: Internet

• Jun 16, 2023 | Kabir Chakraborty

He attempted to contact Facebook in order to recover access to his account, but received no response. As a result, he had to go to court and deal with the corporation legally.

Digital Desk:  It appears that locking a user's account
for no apparent reason costs Facebook a lot of money. A lawyer in the United
States sued Facebook for shutting him out of his account and won a legal
battle, with the court ordering the tech firm to pay him $50,000. When
converted to Indian money, this comes to roughly Rs 41 lakh. But what prompted
the social media behemoth to pay such a large sum? To fix the issue, the
corporation just ignored the man. Here's the whole tale.

According to FOX 5 Atlanta,
Jason Crawford filed a complaint against Facebook after his account was
cancelled without appropriate explanation, and the tech giant also disregarded
him to address the situation.

mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;color:black">Because
of some political comments he posted on Facebook, he had already gotten a
violation notice from the platform. However, this time, his Facebook account
was disabled by the corporation for no apparent reason. He attempted to contact
Facebook in order to recover access to his account, but received no response.
As a result, he had to go to court and deal with the corporation legally.

mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;color:black">He
was irritated by the whole thing, partially because it was so difficult to get
in touch with a real person for help with Facebook concerns. Crawford
discovered that he could only appeal the company's decision using his own
Facebook page, which made the procedure much more cumbersome. However, because his
account was locked, he couldn't access it.

color:black">"I just think it's bad business." He described it as a
poor way to treat people. The individual felt trapped in a never-ending circle
and compared his condition to "a dog chasing its tail." When he
couldn't reach an agreement with Facebook, he had no choice but to file a
lawsuit.

Crawford, a lawyer, then
filed a case against Facebook in August 2022, alleging that the social media
giant disregarded and refused him access to his own Facebook account due to a
violation of child sexual exploitation, which he claims never occurred.

color:black">"I had, I'm not sure how to quantify it, pictures, videos,
posts that come up as memories that I like to look at from time to time."
"You know, all that stuff that I wasn't about to let a bunch of bullies
take away from me for no reason," Crawford explained.

Surprisingly, even after
filing a case, Facebook's legal staff did not respond. However, after the court
ordered Facebook's parent company, Meta, to pay Crawford $50,000 in damages due
to his ignorance, the internet corporation came out to him to settle the
matter.

"I
felt a little bit vindicated, and they activated my account again,"
Crawford said. He also disclosed that the purpose for going to court against
such a large digital firm was not monetary recompense, but rather holding
Facebook accountable for its activities, which include a lack of transparency
and an unwillingness to respond to consumers.