Dad’s ‘ridiculous’ problem with Facebook

A dad who had his life completely upturned in an instant is facing “hell” as he battles the social media giant.

An Australian dad who suffered a delibitating stroke which ruined his career is facing another battle against multi-billion dollar social media firm Meta.

Bill Hartshorne was forced to quit his job as a prison guard two years ago after the rare stroke, which he had a one in 200,000 chance of surviving without brain damage.

Looking for another way to support his young family, he turned his hobby into a way of generating income.

He had started a Facebook page 14 years ago dedicated to fishing tournaments, which soon started generating an income from keen anglers wanting to watch the competitions live streamed.

But the popular page has now been suddenly shut down - and he is at a loss as to what to do.

Bill Hartshorne was told he had a one in 200,000 chance of leaving hospital without brain damage after suffering a stroke. Picture: Alison Wynd

The 46-year-old was out fishing two years ago when he suddenly experienced a “massive thunderclap headache”.

On the drive home, he got pins and needles in his arm and his wife had to help him inside where he started to slur and become incoherent.

His wife then made a frantic call for an ambulance but was told it would be an hour wait in their hometown of Geelong.

“I started vomiting and that put a lot of pressure on my head and made the bleed get worse,” he told news.com.au.

“My wife took me to hospital and I had a CT scan and then all hell broke lose. They rushed me to St Vincent’s Hosptial in Melbourne and my wife was nine months pregnant with our second boy at the time.

“They basically told her it would take four to six hours to determine if I would survive and if I did make it there was 90 per cent chance I would have permanent brain damage. It was a significant bleed.”

Mr Hartshorne had suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage, where a blood vessel in his brain had burst.

“People don’t survive those, most don’t even get to the hospital, they just die on the spot,” he added.

“I spent three weeks in hospital recovering and when I left hospital they said there was a one in 200,000 chance that I didn’t have brain damage.”

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Bill with his oldest son as a newborn. Picture: Supplied

While he was incredibly lucky to have survived the stroke without brain damage, he did experience permanent fatigue and joint pain in his arms and legs as a result - meaning he had to quit his job.

So he turned to his side hustle – where he had been running fishing tournaments in Victoria since 2005 – which had developed into a bit of a “cult following”, he said.

“This was the only income I had to help support my family which is my wife and two children under five,” he noted.

A huge part of the business was a Facebook page called Vic Bream Classics where he said keen anglers in particular would watch the live stream of tournaments on the social media platform, which are run every six weeks.

“It was a big year for social media. We have only got 6200 followers but our reach from people watching live streams is nearly at two million people,” he said.

He said he was notified by Facebook that his business page had been unpublished for breaching community standards around impersonation. Picture: Supplied

Bill uses the business page to help support his fishing tournaments. Picture: Alison Wynd

But Mr Hartshorne has been devastated to discover that his Facebook page has been suspended and unpublished after he was accused of breaching community guidelines around impersonation, which he said was “ridiculous”.

He said he had set up the Facebook page around 14 years ago.

The only reason he can think this has happened is he shares around 40 sponsors posts on the page at intervals and believes a “new bot system” thinks he’s a spammer as a result.

But the dad-of-two said his request for a review of the Facebook decision was pretty much rejected immediately. He said the social media giant should fund proper business support.

“The worst part is you can’t contact anyone just like that. I can’t contact any anglers or the sponsors relying on live streams – there is a 20,000 reach on the competition of people watching online and it’s just bulls**t,” he said.

“It’s just ridiculous. I know it’s hard to monitor three billion users but I’m sure Facebook is making enough money that they could set up a call centre or help desk in every country of the world.

“They should fund that as they are providing a product that has no after market services and I’m over it as it’s affecting people’s livelihoods. Don’t let people put up business profiles if they are not going to provide them with a service.”

This request to review the decision was rejected pretty much immediately. Picture: Supplied

Bill is calling for Facebook to install call centre support in every country. Picture: Supplied

Mr Hartshorne added he had only been able to find an appeals process for content that had been removed or support that requires a reference number, which he has no idea how to obtain.

He said those who have been verified by Meta also receive extra support but he has been waiting years to obtain his blue tick for the page.

“This is wrong that they can impact a person’s business with no way to contact them to discuss the issue,” he said.

News.com.au approached Meta, the owner of Facebook, for comment but it did not respond.

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Originally published as Dad’s ‘ridiculous’ problem with Facebook