Mustafa Fteja of Staten Island, New York has filed suit against Facebook for $500,000 after his account was mysteriously suspended. According to The New York Post, Fteja lost access to the site in September and after months of trying to nail down why the social network dropped him, will sue.
The Montenegro native believes Facebook’s motivation for suspending his account was racially charged, based on his Muslim heritage. Whatever the social network’s reasons, they aren’t good enough, and neither is their customer service. “You call, they don’t answer the phone. You write, they don’t reply. I know one thing – I didn’t do anything. I didn’t violate anything,” Fteja claims.
He also wants his motivation for the lawsuit to be clear. “I’m not doing this for money. I’m doing his for justice. I believe there should be some, somewhere.”
According to Facebook’s Help Center, accounts are generally flagged and disabled for privacy violations, such as impersonation or using a fake name. The site also says that due to “technical and security reasons,” it’s unable to show users what content exactly was to blame.
Fteja says he uses the site to connect with his friends and family scattered across the globe, and that many of them thought he’d defriended them. While it’s unsettling that losing your Facebook can mean losing your relationships, it’s also downright horrifying to think that the place so many of us store our digital lives can so easily cut ties while storing your posts, photos, and notes on its servers. And apparently Facebook needs to fork over $500,000 for so callously ditching one of its users.
