Horror down under as tech giants erase young Australian surfers’ social media accounts

"Rot in hell, Mark Zuckerberg."

A nightmare scenario is unfolding for young mates and sheilas in the world 12th largest economy. Namely, surf hopefuls around the age of sixteen are getting their social media accounts scrubbed without any way to get them back. At issue is Australia identifying, rightly I think, the cancer that is Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok etc. and disallowing youngsters to participate, holding the tech giants responsible for any juvenile caught posting or reposting.

Meta et. al. have responded by dumping accounts by the hundreds and thousands. Tough luck for li’l Shazza and Robbo, even worse luck if either harbors professional surfing dreams. Lucy Darragh, who hails from Gerringong on the NSW South Coast, was one who had her account disappeared even though she is over sixteen. “These days, social media is important for athletes,” she shared with news.com. “It’s a big part of getting myself out there for more sponsor opportunities and posting results, which can help me financially, and get me into my next event – so it’s really important.”

She is worried that without a social media presence, the money will dry right up as brands expect posting etc. these days.

Rio Luther Barr is another over-sixteen who got caught up in social media-free purgatory. His mom, or mum, Pam Luther had been running the young man’s accounts and declared, “There was a lot of money in surfing in sort of the late 90s and the early 2000s, and then it’s sort of tanked. Surfing is really for the love. But at the same time, it’s an incredibly expensive sport, because the equipment’s expensive, the international travel and competitions are expensive, and so they rely on social media really to get sponsorships too. It’s important to the sponsors that they’re being seen and that you’re putting out stories and you’re putting out reels and posts.”

Both Lucy and Rio’s mom Pam have been met with nothing but nothing from Meta, Pam explaining, “So Meta verified is meant to give you privileges, like more protection … to be able to potentially access a real human at customer service. But of course, once your accounts are disabled, you can’t actually use that feature. I’ve literally just poured endless hours into trying to figure out how to contact a person. I’ve written so many emails to addresses that I get from ChatGPT, but honestly, I don’t think they’re landing anywhere. The other thing is it’s impossible to actually contact someone.”

No hope in sight.

New.com reached out to Meta, a spokesperson responding in PR babble reading, “We offer multiple pathways to resolve account issues across our platforms, including in-app appeals, our Help Centre, and Meta AI Support Assistant launched in Australia this year. We are continuously improving these experiences and are committed to engaging with government and industry on ways to improve dispute resolution for Australians. We also encourage people to enable two-factor authentication or passkeys and be vigilant about phishing attempts to protect their accounts from being compromised.”

Bull roar.

I know because, once, Filipe Toledo’s dad Ricardo came for my Instagram account even though I had never been critical of the little budgie smuggler on that platform. The account was erased and I had no avenue with which to retrieve it.

The world made a little sadder with one less surf-esque meme page.

Rot in hell, Mark Zuckerberg.