Tribute acts protest Facebook and Instagram policies on impersonators

completemusicupdate.com:

Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Dolly Parton and Adele were among a group of artists who protested outside Meta’s London offices yesterday.

Not the actual artists, obviously, but a group of tribute acts. I probably should have made that clearer.They were protesting against Facebook and Instagram policies that ban people from impersonating others on the two social media platforms, which have seemingly been having a negative impact on tribute acts of late.The protestors – which also included Freddie Mercury, George Michael and Shania Twain impersonators – all say that they have had their accounts deleted by Facebook and Instagram, which in turn negatively impacted their ability to earn an income from their acts.While the protestors argue that Meta’s social media platforms are outright “banning” tribute acts, the company insists that is not, in fact, the case.Instead, some tribute acts have been falling foul of policies and systems that are designed to stop people from maliciously impersonating celebrities and other public figures on the Facebook and Instagram platforms.

The implementation of those systems has led to the accounts of some tribute acts being blocked by mistake, Meta admits.Dolly Parton impersonator Kelly O’Brien told the BBC: “We started a campaign three months ago.

We had a little bit of interest from Meta, promising that they would take care of all of our accounts. Some of us got our accounts back, but yet again we’ve been banned.