Commack bike shop's Instagram deactivated following messages about store hours
Since 10% of his business comes from online sales, Puglisi says his business is now losing money.
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John Puglisi, owner of The Bike Cave in Commack, says it was an innocent business conversation.
He received a question on his Instagram page about his store hours, so he responded.
However, that person was a minor.
"That creates a red flag to Meta that it appears that you're looking to meet up with this kid, when you're really just telling him your store hours," said Puglisi.
Meta flagged his response saying it did not follow its community standards on child sexual exploitation.
It then shut down his Instagram page.
"It's insulting. It's totally outrageous," Puglisi said.
Since 10% of his business comes from online sales, Puglisi says his business is now losing money.
"Immediately, you saw a drop in the internet sales," he said.
He's now suing Meta, and he's not the only one.
He says there is a class action lawsuit against the tech giant over this issue.
"It is certainly within the realm of possibility that Meta has made some sort of error here," said Lance Ulanoff, editor-at-large of TechRadar.
Ulanoff says AI, which helps human employees with community management, is not perfect and is always improving.
"It's hard for them to sort of see into their own system sometimes to see these errors happening in real time. A case like this might raise it to a level where they go oh we actually have to look at this," he said.
For other small business owners who rely on Instagram, the owner of The Bike Cave has some advice for when you get a direct message.
"Never answer your direct messaging on Instagram. Direct that customer to your email. That would've solved this whole problem we wouldn't have had any issue whatsoever," Puglisi said.
News 12 reached to Meta for a comment on The Bike Cave's Instagram being disabled and has not heard back.
