Rasa School of Dance owner Lisa Wilkinson used the social media platform as the main means of promoting her business and had a community of followers that took her years to build up — some of her recent videos were getting up to 60,000 views.
On July 30 she was notified by email Meta that her account had been suspended because Meta found it did not follow its community standards.
She asked for a review, but the account was permanently disabled on August 1 with the same reason given.
About 10 years of memories archived as posts on the platform were lost along with the account, Ms Wilkinson said.
"I feel violated.
"It’s just proven that at any moment this can just be taken away from you."
She was now planning to promote her business through her website more than on social media, but it was not ideal as young people who were interested in joining her school to learn hip-hop mostly communicated using social media.
As a business owner, social media was extremely important.
"It’s basically everything."
Ms Wilkinson, who is in Phoenix, Arizona, at the moment with a Rasa dance crew, Allies, who are competing at the World Hip-Hop Dance Championship, said she had been gaining traction with views on her posts before the account was deleted.
Other Facebook and Instagram users in New Zealand have also reported their accounts being banned arbitrarily in recent weeks, and technology commentator Paul Spain told TVNZ the uptick in wrongful suspensions was worrying.
"It’s really worrying because social media accounts become effectively a lifeline for some people’s businesses, for individuals."
Overseas, others have complained of similar bans or suspensions they believe were unjustified in recent months, many blaming Meta’s artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
Meta — which owns Instagram and Facebook — did not respond to the Otago Daily Times’ questions by deadline.
In June, Meta admitted wrongly suspending Facebook groups but denied wider problems and said it was fixing the issue.
It has told other media companies, including TVNZ, the company uses "a combination of people and technology to find and remove accounts that [break its] rules".
There had not been a significant increase in incorrect enforcement by the company, a Meta spokesman said.
