A FRANKSTON business was blocked from advertising on Facebook for nearly half a year after its founder changed his surname when he married his husband.
Nick McCabe-Schultz changed his last name on social media to incorporate his husband’s. He says that Facebook’s parent company Meta blocked features on his business page shortly afterwards, and didn’t reinstate them for five months. “Meta banned both my business and my clients from advertising on Facebook and Instagram because I changed my last name after marrying my husband. As a same-sex couple we are faced with enough discrimination and I was advised by Meta’s support team that I was banned because I am a male who changed his last name from Nick McCabe to Nick McCabe-Schultz and it sent a red flag into their system,” McCabe-Schultz said.
“Despite providing identification documents to prove my name is true and authentic. An approval process that is supposed to take 48 hours to be reversed has been going on since June.”
McCabe-Schultz said that the situation had “greatly impacted” his small business and left him “exhausted and humiliated”. He released a video online explaining his situation, which has been viewed more than 30,000 times. Meta has now finally reinstated the features on his business page.
Meta was contacted for comment.
McCabe-Schultz has made a complaint about the ban to the Human Rights Commission.
McCabe-Schultz’s business The Commute is a small digital marketing business which helps its clients with advertising. The business started in March 2020 and has donated $16,000 to charities since its inception. For more information visit thecommute.co