Facebook/Meta deactivated our app without any prior notice

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Hello, just a heads up that Facebook/Meta deactivated our FB app on a Saturday morning at 2am, and then would not respond to an appeal until the next business day - though we're still waiting a week later to no response.

We received the note about the increased compliance review requirements (screencast with a laundry list of requirements) Jan 18 and were provided 2 weeks to comply. With the help of our mobile app vendor, we were able to respond well within that 2 week window. We had some back-and-forth as the first video didn't fit their file size requirements, and then they asked for additional information to be included in the screencast. Our last appeal/response to them was Feb 8. They had already provided us an extension until Apr 22 to meet this requirement, but then out of nowhere with absolutely no prior notice, they deactivated our app on a Saturday morning at 2am with no way for us to get back online and fundraising until at least the following business day - 2 days later - which they didn't even respond to in the timeframe they indicated. We are still waiting one week later from our third appeal for a “next business day” response.

We have internal stakeholders reaching our FB/Meta, and we have vendors like Blackbaud and our mobile app vendor reaching out on our behalf as well - to no avail.

The impact seems to be restricting creating any TeamRaiser-integrated FB Fundraisers. Existing integrated FB Fundraisers appear to be continuing to process as normal, luckily - but no new Fundraisers can be created for our upcoming fundraising events.

To everyone on here:

  • Be vigilant - remain on the lookout for the compliance requirements of a long and tedious screencast, and start early. Also be aware they can (though they shouldn't) deactivate on weekends.
  • If you are/have experienced a similar delay (I've heard it's happened to at least several other major nonprofits), please notify your contact or Support at Blackbaud. If this is a common issue with FB/Meta apps, Blackbaud has the means to show the overall impact - but only if they are aware of the extent of this issue.
  • Even if you are granted an extension on your compliance review, know that they may still deactivate your app early. We had an extension to Apr 22, and they deactivated it on March 11.
  • Watch your email - they send emails to the one identified in your app, and not all communications will show up in the Developer Apps Alerts dashboard. This was not the issue in our case as all emails have been responded to quickly, but it is something to consider.

If you have gone through this issue before, and have any tips on ways to expedite the appeals, please let us know. Thank you!

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Comments

  • @Eric Oyler Hi Eric, we are dealing with the exact same issue. Were you able to get this resolved?

  • @Deana Martin
    I'm sorry to hear that. And no, we still have had no response since our last appeal March 14 - almost two weeks ago. Internal staff and vendors are all working their contacts to try to get this expedited, or at least reactivated until they can review, but no one seems to be able to put any pressure on the AppDev team. I'm guessing they are way behind due to layoffs, but their “response in the next business day” is a little misleading. We're considering how we can up the pressure further to get this resolved.

  • @Eric Oyler Ugh, I was hoping you had progress. If we get anywhere I will let you know!

  • Quick update… The morning of 3/29, we received an update that Meta reactivated our app. They explained that their automated system for the compliance audit has mistakenly deactivated our app, and they apologized for the inconvenience.

  • @Eric Oyler Another update… After apologizing for their mistake, Meta deactivated our app again on 4/3. They gave the same information as before, so we immediately appealed and expressed as much - that they had told us it was their mistake and we don't know what other information they need from us. Today - 4/6 - it appears they have reactivated our Meta app again, but we have yet to receive a communication explaining this second deactivation.

  • @Eric Oyler

    Our organization was dropped from the list of approved NPOs early this morning.

    I didn't receive any notice about an impending deactivation. (Not sure if someone else in my org did.)

    Can you please provide a contact at Meta that we can work with to address this?

  • @Misha Popov

    Same here - out of nowhere today, our integrated Facebook Fundraisers show this message:

    5e7e87de90407042c3db9664ba309668-huge-im
  • @Tanna Lewis check your fundraisers that are not tied to TeamRaiser events, too. It looks like Meta has removed all of us from list of approved NPOs.

  • @Misha Popov

    Note that Blackbaud Support says this is a known issue - you can keep an eye on the status here:

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