Is Facebook trying to kill #datafree messaging?

Moya Messenger competition to WhatsApp a no-go for Facebook

A few days ago out of the blue my personal Facebook account of 11 years standing was disabled, for no apparent reason.

I used my FB account to manage business pages for our mobile tech startup biNu to promote our #datafree services and apps as well as for Moya Messenger, our app that provides #datafree text messaging and content services for no data cost to data poor consumers in emerging markets.

We have spent tens of thousands of dollars on FB ads over a period of some years.

All our business pages and ads accounts have been disabled as well.

My personal instagram account profile, LentellSoup, included a link to our www.datafree.co.za website which Facebook took objection to and would not allow me to like any Instagram post until I changed it.

When we first announced Moya Messenger in South Africa much of the news coverage focussed on Moya as an interesting new competitor to WhatsApp, for example this Quartz article:- A messaging app with data-free texts is targeting Whatsapp in South Africa, and this TV interview:- Maggs on Media | Data free chatting.

I’ve had no joy appealing my disabled account through Facebook’s standard but innocuous appeal procedure.

The only conclusion I can arrive at is Facebook have taken exception to the competitive threat of #datafree messaging to WhatsApp.

Seriously?

We are a small company funded by social impact minded investors exploring the innovation of toll free data as a commercially sustainable model to enable data poor consumers in emerging markets access useful online services. In one market in Africa currently.

Now we have the might of the 800 pound gorilla global market leader in messaging trying to squash us.

What a merry Christmas!