Facebook has started suspending advertising accounts that they say ran ads about social issues, elections, or politics without authorization. We found this out recently after Facebook falsely accused us of running unauthorized ads even though Facebook themselves approved every ad that we ever ran. We now must verify our identity to run any ads at all.
Whenever anyone wants to run an advertisement about anything on Facebook that ad must be authorized by Facebook before it can run. There is no such thing as an unauthorized ad on Facebook. Every ad is pre-screened by Facebook themselves. Sometimes they disapprove ads and send the advertiser a notice saying that because the ad is about social issues, elections, or politics that they cannot run the ad because their identity is not confirmed. Sometime Facebook does authorize the advertisement even though your identity has not been confirmed and the ad is about social issues, elections, or politics.
When your account is not verified approval can be hit or miss, but before now nothing Facebook ever said suggested that you should not submit any ad you want to run regardless of what category it is in. The worst thing that would happen was that your ad would not be approved and you would be asked to verify your identity to run that ad. That changed overnight when Facebook decided to blame advertisers for ads that Facebook now regrets approving. Then they are passing the blame on to the advertiser as if to suggest that the advertiser committed some sort of fraud by submitting the ads for approval in the first place. Facebook never made it clear that submitting an ad for approval could be a violation of their TOS if Facebook screws up and authorizes the ad. Facebook has nobody except for themselves to blame for advertisements that they prescreen and approve. It is not the advertiser's fault if Facebook makes a mistake and it certainly does not constitute running unauthorized advertisements due to the simple fact that Facebook authorized the ads.
The identity verification process has become unreasonable due to the Coronavirus pandemic. After our founder submitted his ID, Facebook responded by saying "The third-party service providers that help us with identity confirmation can't find a match with your information in any of their databases. As an alternative, you can download a form and take it to a notary to notarize." He is now required to take a form to a notary, get it notarized, and send the form to Facebook. This requires that he risk his life by exposing himself to a notary that could be infected with a deadly virus. He hopes that he can find an online notary service that works.
Conclusion
Facebook has no right to falsely accuse their advertisers of running unauthorized ads when there is no such thing as an unauthorized ad on Facebook. They need to take responsibility for their own actions by not approving ads that violate their policies. It should not be unsafe for someone that is not sure if their ad violates the policy or not to submit their ad for approval hoping that it does comply with the policies. Shame on Facebook.