Clients and Freelancers: What are your thoughts on this: what would you do?

Hi everyone, I’m looking for advice from anyone who’s dealt with internal politics or management silos in remote teams.

Background:
I’m a freelance customer support agent for an e-commerce store and was the very first CS hire. The owner contacted me directly on Upwork, and we worked well together for a long time with consistently strong performance metrics.

As the business grew, the owner hired a manager to run the CS team. After that, things changed.

What changed:
I’m Southeast Asian. The manager and the entire team she hired are from another country. Over time, it felt like a silo effect—new hires were almost exclusively from her country, and communication became limited.

Performance issue:
Despite good QA scores overall, I received a 0/15 on “Resolution” for one ticket. The issue was resolved, just with a delay. That single score dropped my average to 87% (goal is 90%).

I replied professionally: acknowledged the mistake, asked if partial credit was possible, and requested coaching to improve. I got no response.

Red flags:

• The manager told me the owner approved ending my contract.
• That message was later deleted.
• I was unfriended on Discord and lost access to SOPs.
• The owner personally reached out, asking if I’d like to work with him again during high-ticket periods before the contract ended: this contradicts what I was told.
• I was replaced by hires from the manager’s country, but all of them quit within a month.

This makes me think the owner may have been told a different story (that I quit or wasn’t interested).

My dilemma:
I still have access to a channel controlled by the owner(communication channel of the business). We recently exchanged holiday greetings, which felt cordial.

I’d appreciate advice on:

1. Is it appropriate to reach out directly to the owner about future openings not under this manager?
2. Is it worth mentioning that my coaching request was ignored and messages were deleted, or does that sound defensive?
3. Does this look like a manager protecting an “in-group”?
4. How do I explain being effectively ghosted—if at all—without creating drama?
5. Or is it smarter to let this go?

I do have screenshots but I’m cautious about using them.

Has anyone dealt with a manager blocking information from reaching an owner? How did you handle it?