Facebook’s “Community Standards” Are the Death of Community

On September 9th, 2025, my Facebook group Business For Sale By Owner was suspended for violating “community standards.”

This was not some small side project. It was one of the fastest growing business groups on Facebook, with 190,200 members at the time of suspension. It was growing by over 2,500 members a week. Members posted and commented more than 10,000 times each month.

And then it was gone.

No vote by the community. No serious explanation. Just one click from Meta’s “community standards” branch, and years of work disappeared overnight.

For a moment, the group was restored and I got a few notices that Facebook admitted to making a mistake. But then less than 2 hours later it was gone again, citing “multiple violations” and yet they only list one.

And they even suspended my personal account, with over a decade of photos and videos of my children: https://www.facebook.com/Rev.Ryan.Thompson

The Post That Triggered It

Here is what happened.

On August 31st, a member posted something that looked like a scam. It had the flavor of a get rich quick pitch. My first reaction was to delete it.

But then the author of that post contacted me. He explained that it was not a scam, and that he wanted to sponsor the post. So I looked again.

It turned out he was right. The post was about arbitrage sports betting. That is when you take advantage of odds differences between sportsbooks to guarantee a profit. It is obscure and clever, but it is not a scam.

I even wrote an article explaining it: Arbitrage Sports Betting: The Loophole in the House’s Game.

Not long after, Facebook struck down the entire group.

A Pattern of Silencing

This is not the first time I have had a group suspended.

• My Dublin Buy/Sell/Trade group, with over 10,000 members, was deleted with no explanation.
• My Athy Town “Athy Community Information” group, with over 6,500 members, was also deleted with no warning or reason given.

This time, at least, I was given a reason. That does not make it better, but it is different.

For years, I coped with this nonsense by creating ten new groups for every one that got killed. It was my way of fighting back. But looking back, that feels like digital Stockholm syndrome.

Think about it. I am not paid to manage these groups. I spend hundreds, sometimes thousands, of hours curating content and moderating discussions. Meanwhile, Facebook makes piles of money from my labor.

It is exploitation dressed up as “community.”

The Big Lie of “Community Standards”

Let’s cut through the language. These are not “community standards.”

A community sets its own rules. A community is accountable to its members. A community is made of equals.

Facebook’s rules are not written by communities. They are written by lawyers, executives, and politicians who pressure the company behind closed doors. They are enforced by algorithms and low paid contractors. And if you think this is paranoia, remember when Mark Zuckerberg admitted publicly that Facebook censored content at the direction of the Biden Administration? Here is the clip.

So when a group of nearly 200,000 people disappears, it is not because “the community” decided it was harmful. It is because the company, acting under political pressure, flipped a switch.

That is not community. That is a cartel.

And sometimes, it is not even intentional censorship. On June 24th, 2025, thousands of groups were suspended by a “glitch.” Entire communities were erased in hours. TechTimes covered it here.

One bug in their system, and years of human connection vanish.

Building Outside the Walled Garden

After this last suspension, I made a decision. I am done rebuilding inside Facebook’s walls.

If they want to treat creators and moderators like disposable labor, fine. But I will not keep feeding the machine.

Instead, I am moving everything to my own platforms, where I set the rules and own the content.

• TheGreenStarLine.com will replace the Facebook group Business For Sale By Owner
• SLU2.com will replace the Facebook group
• TPNetworks.net will replace Thompson Professional Networks
• SpunWebTechnology.com will replace the Facebook page
• Disruptarian.com will replace the Facebook page

I have around 500 other groups and pages that I will consolidate into my own web properties. It is a massive project, but it is worth it.

Because this is about more than strategy. It is about freedom.

The Case for Decentralization

If your online presence matters to you, you cannot trust it to one company.

Think about it like land. Would you build your dream home on rented property if the landlord could bulldoze it at any time? That is what we are doing on Facebook.

Years ago, I warned about this when Twitter (before Elon Musk) was shadow banning conservatives and Trump supporters. My advice was simple. Spread your content.

Use services like Hootsuite or the SLU2.com tools I built to post across platforms. Build your own websites with WordPress. Publish on Medium. Back everything up with the Wayback Machine.

Even if Meta, Google, or YouTube come for you, your work survives somewhere else.

Yes, even the Wayback Machine has had problems recently. It has been offline more than online when I have tried to use it. But the principle remains. Do not put all your eggs in Big Tech’s basket.

Big Tech and the Memory Hole

This is not just about Facebook.

Last year, YouTube deleted my travel channel. Those videos were memories of my children and me traveling the world together. Gone. No explanation. No appeal.

If not for the Internet Archive, those moments would have been lost forever.

This is the real danger of centralization. One faceless corporation holds the keys to your memories, your work, and your community. With one click, they can erase it.

It is like putting duct tape over a smoke alarm. The fire is still burning, you just cannot hear the warning.

Who Really Benefits

Let’s not forget, Facebook makes money off this arrangement.

You do the labor. You moderate, manage, and grow the group. They sell ads against that activity. Then, when it suits them, they pull the plug.

It is like hiring the fire department to mow your lawn. Expensive, slow, and you will probably lose your house in the process.

The “community standards” branch of Meta is not about safety. It is about liability protection, political compliance, and corporate control.

What We Can Do

We cannot rely on politicians to fix this. New regulations will not solve it. Electing different faces in Washington will not solve it.

The only fix is decentralization.

• Build your own websites.
• Host your own content.
• Back up everything.
• Use Big Tech as a distribution channel, not as your foundation.

If you do not own the platform, you are just a tenant. And Meta is a landlord that does not care how long you have lived there or how much you have invested.

Final Thoughts

The suspension of Business For Sale By Owner hurt. It represented years of work and a thriving community of nearly 200,000 people. But in a way, it also clarified things.

Facebook’s “community standards” are not about community at all. They are about control.

So the question is, do you want to keep building your life’s work on someone else’s property? Or do you want to build something you truly own?

For me, the answer is clear. I am done being a tenant in Zuckerberg’s digital empire. It is time to build my own land.

Sources

• Arbitrage Sports Betting: The Loophole in the House’s Game
• Zuckerberg admitting to censorship
• Zuckerberg on ending fact checkers
• Facebook Groups suspended June 24, 2025
• Facebook Help: Appealing Group Suspension