Facebook on May 31 deleted a series of accounts which had relations with a former Facebook account violating the company’s policies. It is estimated that the number of affected accounts was up to the thousands.

“Thousands of fanpages in Vietnam are hovering between life and death because of the unreasonable policy,” said Cao Xuan Hung, director of Decox, a design company.

Two individuals Minh Nhut and Hong Nhung have been accused by Facebook of using and selling the tool to create virtual interactions and fake nickname. For that reasons, Minh Nhut and Hong Nhung Facebook nicknames have been eliminated.

Those who made friends with Minh Nhut have also seen their accounts deleted.

Also according to Hung, all the fanpages for which the deleted nicknames were administrators have been blocked.

Som people confirmed that they had received warnings via SMS. However, they could not do anything because the accounts were blockeda short time after they received the warning.

“I made friends with the persons, but I did not know they were doing something illegal. After receiving warnings, I did not know what I should do, as requested by Facebook,” Quoc Thuan, a Facebook users told Zing.vn.

“Facebook has punished thousands of user accounts crudely by deleting the accounts and blocked all the fanpages, though they just accidentally are friends of Minh Nhut,” Hung said.

Many of the deleted accounts are very important to their owners’ life and jobs. The account owners are the administrators of a lot of fanpages of many companies.

On a forum where members share opinions on how to do business on Facebook, a member complained that 15 fanpages he managed ‘had died’, while another said he had lost a fanpage with 100,000 likes.

As for Decox, Hung said it was fortunate that the fanpages have 3-4 administrators. Though the major administration accounts have been eliminated, the fanpages are still ‘alive’.

However, the fanpages have been set in a mode which allows Decox administrators to see them, but clients cannot find the fanpages.

According to Hung, the company’s business relies on offline sales, sales via websites and advertisements on Google and Facebook. Of this, revenue from Facebook accounts for 40 percent.

“In the last six days, since the fanpages were blocked, the loss of revenue has been up to VND500 million,” he said.

“Facebook's behavior is unprofessional, which shows its weakness in risk management. I am a long-term advertising client of Facebook and I need to be respected and treated with gentleness, not the way they did,” Hung said. 

Ngoc An

Facebook account-elimination service popular in Vietnam

The illegal service came out soon after Facebook became popular in Vietnam and it is now the livelihood of a high number of people. The service is offered on the internet and Facebook.