A Note to Our Readers • REVIEW Facebook Account Disabled Due to Cyber Attack

It is with grave and serious concern to report that on Friday, April 10, 2026, in the wee hours of the morning while I was fast asleep, The REVIEW became the victim of a cyberattack when my personal Facebook account was compromised by an unauthorized third party at 2:14 AM.   

When I awoke in the morning and started checking incoming e-mails, immediately I noticed one stating my Facebook account had been restricted for publishing inappropriate material, and that I had 48-hours to appeal the decision before my personal account would be disabled.

While in control of the account, the attacker apparently had uploaded inappropriate material violating Meta’s Community Standards policy, and their automated systems detected this content and suspended the account at 2:14 AM..

At 2:17 AM, just three minutes later, Meta issued a second notification stating that a “review” had already been completed and the account was permanently disabled with no further appeal available.

The attacker, operating from foreign IP addresses traced to Vietnam and known VPN/proxy services, gained access to my account through session token theft (cookie hijacking), bypassing my two-factor authentication, which had been enabled since August 2019. 

No human review occurred and this suspension was all A.I. generated. The suspension, review, and permanent disable were completed in three minutes by automated systems. 

Since this suspension, as the account holder I have been given no opportunity to present evidence that the account was compromised 

Forensic Evidence of Account Compromise

While unable to log-into my account to report this attack, the only option given was to download an official Facebook data export, which contained the information used to base their decision to suspend the account.   

Generated by Meta’s own systems on April 10, a Forensic Analysis of this information provided conclusive evidence that the account was under the control of an unauthorized third party at the time the offending material was uploaded.

This evidence includes:

• Foreign login sessions from Quảng Ninh Province, Vietnam and Seattle, Washington in the minutes before the account was disabled, while sleeping securely in my bed here  in Saginaw, Michigan.

• Session token reuse showing the Vietnam and Seattle sessions using the same cookie identifier, confirming cloned session tokens replayed through multiple proxy locations

• Unauthorized birthday changes made three times on April 10 from foreign IPs and automated clients (C++/THttpClient user agent), a documented technique used by attackers to block account recovery

• Multiple security checkpoint triggers (“Checkpoint: Login-Approvals Enforcement”) from the attacker’s IP addresses, confirming Meta’s own systems detected the suspicious activity

• Consistent legitimate access pattern showing my normal access exclusively from Saginaw, Michigan via iPhone 14 and secure Mac devices on IPv6 addresses entirely distinct from the attacker’s sessions.

Since this attack, I have filed a report with the Saginaw Police Department documenting this unauthorized access to my account as a victim of federal crimes including unauthorized access to a computer system (18 U.S.C. § 1030)  and the attacker’s upload of inappropriate material.  A complaint has also been filed with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, along with the Attorney General’s office under their Consumer Protection Division.

It is deeply disturbing that the permanent disabling of my account, based on a 3-minute automated review with no human oversight and no meaningful appeal, punishes the victim for the crime committed against him.

Although I have been unable to contact a human employee at Facebook, this morning I was able to submit evidence from the Forensic Audit along with a request for account restoration to Meta, which hopefully will be resolved and expedited within 7 business days.

Community Impact Upon a Local News Outlet and Cultural Institution 

The consequences of this enforcement action extend far beyond my individual personal account. As the founder, editor, and publisher of Review Magazine, one of the longest-running independent community publications in Michigan, this  disabling of my account has simultaneously taken down multiple Facebook pages that serve as ancillary communication channels for this publication, which is a local community information hub.

Review Magazine has been published continuously since April 1979. For 47 years, it has served the Saginaw, Michigan area as a free community publication covering local culture, arts, news, and events.

Our Review Magazine Facebook page has 4,100 followers who rely on it for local news, event coverage, and community information. That audience has been cut off without warning or explanation.

Additionally, with the 40th Annual Review Music Awards show scheduled for May 3, 2026, celebrating four decades of recognizing local musicians and music, this attack and the difficulty with utilizing Facebook to interact with nominees and followers on our  Review Music Awards Facebook page (1,100 followers)  to announce nominees, promote the event, coordinate with performing musicians, and drive attendance has also posed distinct challenges.

Until our account is restored, we have  lost the ability to promote, update, or communicate about the event using our Facebook platform during this most critical promotional window of the year.

The impact is not theoretical. While our online edition and print editions remain unaffected, a cybercriminal’s attack on one account has truncated our ability to interact with the broader Great Lakes Bay area music community that has participated in this tradition for 40 years and is now threatening to undermine a community cultural institution.

Meta’s Oversight Board’s mission is rooted in protecting freedom of expression and ensuring that Meta’s enforcement actions are consistent with human rights principles. When an automated system permanently silences a journalist, a 47-year-old news publication, and a 40-year-old community cultural event based on the actions of a hacker, with no human review and no avenue for appeal, that is a direct and measurable harm to freedom of expression.

The people affected are not simply me as an individual. They are the readers, musicians, artists, and community members who rely on our Facebook pages for information and connection.

It represents a systemic failure in automated enforcement. Meta’s automated systems cannot distinguish between content uploaded by an account holder and content uploaded by an attacker who has hijacked the account.

This failure affects an unknown number of users whose accounts are compromised and then permanently disabled based on attacker behavior. 

Indeed, for over two years now, numerous class action lawsuits have been filed against Meta for these very reasons.  The “review” process was illusory. A 3-minute turnaround between suspension and permanent disable with no further appeal available is not a meaningful review process. It represents a due process failure that I am hoping Meta will address within the next few days.

The Meta Board is apparently already examining account disabling practices. In January 2026, the Board announced its first case reviewing Meta’s approach to permanently disabling accounts, calling it “an urgent concern for Meta’s users.”

This case falls squarely within that area of inquiry and provides a clear example of how automated enforcement can produce unjust outcomes when context is ignored.

It also raises human rights concerns about proportionality.

Permanently disabling a victim’s account because of an attacker’s actions, with no avenue for appeal, is disproportionate by any standard. It punishes the victim for the crime committed against them, including the right to freedom of expression and the principle of proportionality in restrictions on that right.

Hopefully, this situation will be resolved within an expeditious manner, insofar as it all happened on Friday at the start of the weekend. 

Until it is resolved, I want to encourage our readers to continue to check our online edition here at www.review-mag.com daily for new stories, features, and updates; and please share our stories and features on your own social media platforms to keep our most cherished freedoms of expression flowing, as opposed to becoming the remnant of a distant memory from the past.