Methacton High School
The same exact thing happened to Methven, New Zealand last month.
Methacton School District, Methacton High School, Methacton Football, Methacton Community Theater – even just the word “Methacton” – have been hit by a Facebook blackout, due to the confusion over the drug “meth” appearing in their proper names.
It was discovered by this news organization on Thursday that any search for “Methacton High School,” “Methacton School District” and the like will pop up in the drop-down selection in the search bar. However, upon clicking the name and hoping to visit the Facebook page, you are instead met with a message: “If you see the sale of drugs, please report it.”
The message continued: “We remove content that doesn’t follow our Community Standards. If you or someone you know struggle with substance misuse, free confidential treatment and information is available.”
Meta’s bots, it seems, have put up a level of restrictions to keep its users safe from methamphetamine and other illicit drugs that the recognition of the word “meth” alone has blacklisted the aforementioned organizations on Facebook.
Methacton School District, et. al., appear to be the lowest priority to the media conglomerate, which still allows searches for “Method Man,” “The Crystal Method” and “Methodist church.” While a search for the blatant “Cocaineton” was flagged like the search for “Methacton,” a search for “Coketown” yielded a list of sites, pages, groups and mentions for “Cookstown” instead.
Methacton, however, is not on an island when it comes to this seemingly new tech issue.
The same exact thing happened to Methven, New Zealand last month.
A Reddit search discovered a post three months ago from a Redditor who owned a bakery named “Molly,” and found her site blacklisted by Facebook. A commenter on the thread said they were banned for three days for commenting about the movie “Kill Bill,” due to violating Facebook’s community standards and promoting violence.
In the same thread, a Redditor posted that they were having the same issue with their church – a Methodist church.
“I think the ‘Meth’ is setting off a warning message to everyone who searches for us,” wrote the Redditor.
In another Reddit post, a business claimed their followers and users could no longer find its Facebook page because “a new drug appeared that had the same letter combination as our page.”
“I have been chatting with support for over 2 months and things are getting more and more crazy. Now they are suggesting that we change our name,” wrote the Redditor.
Yet a third person who experienced the same issue offered their experience: Reaching Facebook Customer Care is extremely difficult, if not impossible.
North Penn Now has contacted Meta for comment on this matter via email and will update this article with their response.
Furthermore, there is no phone support for Facebook/Meta.
“Most emails go unanswered. The only way to reach them is by temporarily paying for a 'Meta Verified' subscription, unfortunately,” wrote the poster.
Bugs can be reported to Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1669772506455012?id=858953797905263
Methacton School District was contacted for comment and the story will be updated with its response.
