Help save The Night Cat!
Melbourne’s effervescent and universally-beloved live music venue, The Night Cat, has found itself backed up against the wall, with its Facebook page on the brink of being permanently deleted. Now, they need your help.
On Wednesday January 27, the venue had its Facebook page and associated admins and editors disabled for “breaching community standards”. Following this, The Night Cat requested a review, which in turn was denied as the venue’s respective Facebook accounts were deemed “not eligible for review and that the decision could not be reversed”.
What you need to know
- The Night Cat has had its Facebook page disabled for “breaching community standards”
- If nothing is done by Saturday February 27, the venue’s Facebook page will be permanently deleted
- After requesting reviews of the ban, the venue has been silenced. Now, they need public help
Keep up with the latest music news here.
The most perplexing thing about the situation is that The Night Cat have been given no indication as to what they’ve done wrong, and having been completely silenced by the inability to request a review, they now need the help of the public.
If nothing is remedied by Saturday February 27, the venue’s Facebook page will be permanently deleted forever, paralysing The Night Cat’s largest online audience – one that has been cultivated across the venue’s 20-year existence.
What also should be noted is that The Night Cat is only just starting to regain financial stability after a pandemic. The last thing it needs is for its Facebook page to be discontinued.
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So what can you do to help?
The Night Cat is asking its supporters and followers, and any Melbourne music lover for that matter, to do the following through their own Facebook page:
- Select “Account” (for desktop, it’s the top right dropdown button next to where your notifications are housed. On the app, it’s bottom right)
- Select “Help & Support”
- Select “Report a problem”
- Select “Something went wrong”
- Select “Pages” from the drop down menu
- Provide the reason for your reported problem under “Details”
If you’re a little unsure as to what to write, The Night Cat have provided the following suggested copy for you to put under the “Details” box:
“The Night Cat, or @thenightcat_fitzroy, is a music venue in Fitzroy. Their account was disabled on January 27, 2021. Also disabled, were the personal accounts of several admins, editors and affiliates of the venue that did nothing wrong. I am requesting a review of this decision as I believe the account was mistakenly disabled.”
The Night Cat’s Facebook account is not the first to have been victimised by this issue. After being initially disabled, the venue’s team became aware of another disabled page that could be linked to The Night Cat’s current situation.
Local artist Timothy Wolf teamed up with his band the Boogaloos to perform a show at The Night Cat on February 5. The Night Cat’s page hosted the Facebook event and the venue utilised their ad account to run campaigns to promote the show in the lead-up to February 5.
Now, boogaloo is a style of funk dance, but it is also the name of a far-right extremist militia based in the US, and in light of recent events in the United States, Facebook has faced increased pressure to control far-right presence on the platform.
Because of this, it has been speculated that The Night Cat’s page has been algorithmically flagged and disabled based on the word ‘boogaloo’. But without clarification from Facebook and no evidence of hacking, it is only speculation.
Help The Night Cat now before it’s too late! Find out more via this Instagram post.
