Facebook Destroys Competition: Blocking the Largest Job Groups in Germany with a Combined Total of Over 950,000 Subscribers Internet

On October 16, Facebook blocked the group “Jobs in Germany,” which had amassed 380,000 members. The group’s founder, Iryna Horokhovska, received no clear explanation from Facebook’s support team, other than one response: “Your group does not contain fraudulent job posts, but algorithms sometimes make mistakes.”

On November 5, Facebook removed Iryna’s second-largest group, “Jobs in Germany 2024,” with 290,000 members. This action followed a second warning regarding a job post the platform deemed “fraudulent,” despite there being no rule violations in the post.

Two more groups are currently at risk of being blocked. The first, “Jobs in Germany for Ukrainians,” with 181,000 members, was flagged without apparent reason and received a red warning that limits its visibility. Any further violation could lead to its removal. The fourth group, “Jobs in Germany 2024,” with 96,000 members, also received a warning.

After the deletion of the first two groups, users quickly migrated to the remaining groups, sharply increasing their activity. In response, Facebook began imposing strict limitations on these communities as well. It appears that Facebook is targeting large, independent job groups to reduce competition in the field of targeted advertising, restricting communities that help people find jobs without having to pay for ads on the platform.

Iryna believes that the platform’s algorithms are biased against large, active groups. This is not the first time that Ukrainian job communities have been blocked, and all of this is happening amid growing group membership. It is becoming increasingly difficult to view Facebook as a reliable space for building communities and conducting business, as users effectively own nothing on the platform and can lose access to their community at any time, despite following all the rules.