EDITORIAL ABOUT FACEBOOK & SCAMMERS

For some time we have warned of the end of anti-scam groups on Facebook.

Why? Several reasons.

1. Posting scammers is a kind of cyberbullying – they may be criminals, but Facebook sees it that way, and that means it is against their Community Standards. Of course if you are a victim, they ignore those sames rules all the time.
2. Fake News – most of what we and other credible sources post are viewed by Facebook as questionable. In many cases Facebook is right, those posts are complete fakes and non-sense, but how is Facebook to know?
3. The outright hostility and insanity of some so-called anti-scam groups – we had to file criminal charges against two of them this week ourselves. They may think their extreme behavior is their right, but in North America and Europe such behavior is in itself a crime. All they do is make real organizations look bad, and harm victims in the process. We do not ever tolerate hate.

NOW FACEBOOK IS PLANNING A FURTHER CHANGE

You Will Only See “Paid” News Posts

Now, Facebook is thinking of letting you see only “paid” news posts. Non-paid posts from “Pages” (such as this post) will be shifted into a secondary feed called “Explore.” This could be anything from a local restaurant to an international news organization. You’ll still be able to see these items (if you bother to look for them) but you must navigate to this secondary feed to find them.

Facebook responds by saying they’re always looking for new ways to “connect people with the posts they find most meaningful” and that includes making it easier to see posts from family and friends. But Facebook also claims the goal is to declutter your feeds.

Some don’t buy it, saying Facebook is just trying to force content companies into advertising. Others say the move could be disastrous for publishers, especially smaller ones, who rely on the social network for their audience. For larger sites, the impact isn’t as great unless it’s a site that relies on social media.

Facebook has only one real goal – revenue & profit.

They need you to be held hostage so that they trap your eyes on just what makes them money. Anything else is not important.

Again, paid promotions aren’t being impacted. You will still see those appear as normal on the news feed as well as posts from those who have been followed or friended on the Facebook. This means that unless you like our page, you will never see them after this goes into effect.

Facebook is currently testing this – shortly after launching the dual feed test, user engagement dropped up to 80 percent on Pages.

Facebook says it is trying out the concept in six countries right now: Serbia, Slovakia, Bolivia, Guatemala, Cambodia and Sri Lanka – however we thing it is being test in other areas too.

For right now, they say they plan to listen to feedback to see if they should pursue this further. For now, they say, Facebook has no plans to roll this out globally – but that is what they say about many of their plans.

We expect this roll out to happen between Christmas and new year to boost ad revenue before the close of the year.

RSN is the only anti-scam organization that does actual advertising on Facebook, but it means that unless you LIKE the PAGE (not this post), those will be the only things you will see.

We also believe this will have a similar impact of searching within Facebook. In their testing, non-paid posts did not show in searches, and pages that did not advertise (did not have advertising accounts) did not show either.

So if you want to follow us, we suggest LIKING this page, also visiting our website and subscribing so you will receive notices of our posts, and newsletter.

We also suggest that you become a SCARS member – it is free – so you can stay informed about scammers that way as well.

At this point all we can say is thank you Facebook for continuing to hide the truth. But at least Facebook will make more money.

Beggars can’t be choosers as they say.