The shift in direction came when Zuckerberg and company had to start telling the real data behind Facebook’s massive user base. They let their investors know that about 54 million user accounts were potentially fake. This was pretty big blow to them and also to their advertising partners as it means money spent to push out advertising is falling on imaginary consumers. According to Facebook the issue is with services that create fake accounts in order to boost website pages presence. Facebook also has stated that many of the fake user accounts are more malicious in nature and represent people trying to spam legitimate users’ news feeds.
According to a new page that has popped up on Facebook (and is also very hard to find without a direct link) Facebook is changing how they do things. The page starts off with some sympathetic and nauseating PR text: “A Like that doesn't come from someone truly interested in connecting with a Page benefits no one. Real identity, for both users and brands on Facebook, is important to not only Facebook’s mission of helping the world share, but also the need for people and customers to authentically connect to the Pages they care about.”
After this it quickly gets down to business and states that Facebook will start removing bogus likes in an effort to clean things up on the site. All for the users (pronounce that Investors and Advertisers). Facebook also tries to claim that they have never allowed companies to sell likes, or traffic. This is an odd thing to claim when that is exactly what their Pay-to-promote option does. If you have a Facebook page for your business (or even just to have one for your own personal reasons) you might start to see some of your likes dropping off. Facebook says that the drop should be less than 1% on most pages.
In reality this is still a good thing for Facebook users even if the real motivations behind it are to bolster investor confidence. We just wish that Facebook would not try to spin it so much. Considering their history of ignoring user wishes, requests, privacy laws and everything else to try and make this about the users makes them look bad. The final lines in the note ring very hollow with everything that is going on at Facebook: “Facebook was built on the principle of real identity and we want this same authenticity to extend to Pages. We undoubtedly expect that this will be a positive change for anyone using Facebook, and we look forward to helping even more people share and connect with the friends and brands they care about.”
If this was true at all we would not have options to pay to promote posts ads in the news feeds and ads that appear to be “likes” from people in our “friends” lists. Let the likes actually speak for themselves instead of artificially limiting them unless a page pays to get more exposure.
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