Facebook axes 16,000 groups for trading fake reviews after UK intervenes
reuters.com
reuters.com
They did stop letting you know about it
Word of mouth reviews from your trusted tribe leaders, go-to people you come to learn to trust (vs. random internet stranger), slows down processes but inherently has quality-trust built into the process.
I am a fan of a lot of what Tesla and Elon has done, not a fan of others parts of the whole, however what I think I value the most so far is that Tesla doesn't advertise: the attention they've gained has arguably been deserved and not bought.
This is a very powerful and important mechanism that society hasn't understood yet, and needs a Facebook->The Social Dilemma moment to bring to light of the cascading consequences of the Ad industrial complex - of people being able to cheaply buy attention they haven't earned nor deserve (for products and services). En mass this industrial complex is funnelling money into feeding this low quality, bad actor tactic system - and away from honest, high-quality, deserving individuals, organizations/companies, and systems.
With the correct policy we can quickly knock out likely 4 or even 5 birds with a single stone; more likely it's 10 policies fix/shift 3x the systems that need fixing from their foundation. UBI, a share/dividend from just some of the productivity of the society paid back to the largest cog in the wheel of capitalism, will be one such policy - that then applied with say 9 other policies and/or systemic changes - will then each compound with the others giving a 100x improvement.
If your friend complains about something they saw you do then you stop doing that in front of your friend.
If you're getting money to do something why would you stop just because a friend complains?
This is ultimately an ethical question. Not everyone has the same ethics.
The way it works is that a seller provides some kind of incentive (gift card, paypal money, etc) to write a 5 star or even 1 star review (for competitors). Facebook has hosted these groups and they have exploded in numbers in the last year.
If I got an Oculus I would immediately stop using facebook for fear of a random account problem preventing my expensive hardware from working.
People might think that this might be another system that might get gamed. If someone tries hard enough, they can play the long game, and game the system. The point is user karma and user history should be enough to make it harder to game the system. Once there is enough traffic, there will strong moderation and minimum posting/commenting requirements
Also another response to bribing the influencers of the system: Bribe could work but as long as the product is not crap, I think there is no perfect model. The influencers will still have to worry about keeping a reputation and if they put their name on a crappy product they will lose their reputation. People will start pointing this out. Karma might make them stand out and face more criticism for being in the limelight. You also make a good point. Maybe it should be shouldibuythisbrand?
In addition, I’ve noticed people here commonly tell stories about how X’s ads never work work. I find it ridiculous. All of those digital ads definitely work for many companies, even if they don’t work at all for others. Ads is a competitive market. If your ads don’t work, it doesn’t say much about the platform, and may say more about your ads/product.
(Disclaimer: FB employee, but I don’t deal with ads)
If someone is tweaking the keywords and other things on their own the ads will very quickly stop working.
FB is one of the worst ad network I've had the displeasure to use.
First in terms of analytics and reporting. Adwords plays the "AWS billing card", they're transparent without being so, and the overabondance of unrelated metrics makes it sometime difficult to figure out where you are wasting cash. Still, it appears to be working hand in hand with me, they would like me to overpay what I need, but they also want it to make me money so I come back for more. They're my own personnal crack dealer. Facebook on the other hand really feel like a casino experience. It's basically telling you "it's working ! you should be pleased with the result !" and in general doesn't feel like a pleasant relationship to me. Doesn't surprise me in the least that they were caught many times faking numbers because that's the general vibe it gives off.
Second in terms of results. Talking to other people in the field it appears to perform decently for retargeting, or to grab a mass volume traffic/eyeballs. And they make lots of billions so clearly there is value to get there. But for high value qualified leads, FB is basically the same as Adwords "display network", which is already known as the crappy terrible part of adwords you should probably not use. Doesn't really surprise me, on Google/Amazon/Bing you're appearing in front of someone who typed "amazon I need a water pump" or "google I need a pdf editor", you're answering the user's question. Whereas on FB just like display network you just appear on content or for users that are vaguely related, you're bothering the user more than anything.
Like everything Ads it depends on your product and your market and how much time you can spend on it, but for me it's a massive dud.
Again, everything written here is my own experience and preference, I might be using it wrong, YMMV, lots of people make lots of money of it and all that.
Know your product ! Figure out if you want traffic or subscription (are you willing to take a signup loss for long term gain ?) or leads and how qualified.
When you use adwords, they keep offering you to talk to a google representative every couple of month, to review your account and make suggestions. I found those a massive waste of my time when I had a campaign going well, but when I had trouble launching something new they were often a very decent (and free !) help. Make sure to use that and ask any questions you may have then.
Like I said they want to extract as much $ from you as they can, but they clearly know they need you to make money from it too. It's a love / hate relationship, but it works for me.
Best of luck on your venture
Long ago I made a Facebook page for something trivial I no longer care about. Facebook regularly reminds me that I should buy some ads to make the page more visible. Facebook also regularly tells me that someone was viewing my page... and by coincidence, it always happens when I am online. That is, I only open Facebook once per day, at different time on different days, and after five minutes of using it I get a message "someone just viewed your page".
From my perspective, this is quite stupid. If you ask for money and all I have is your word that you actually did something for me... it is bad strategy to introduce yourself as a liar. But I assume they did some A/B testing and most customers are gullible.
Another reason I would never buy Facebook ads is that it keeps showing me the same two ads every day, for years. So I would assume they would do exactly the same with my ads... like, I would pay for "10000 impressions" and all I would get is 10 unlucky people who get shown the ad 1000 times each.
But, at least in the case of Facebook, advertising/offering those services isn't allowed[1], but discussing them is; this is a bit of a fine line, but one that is likely trying to strike a balance between letting people share safety and route information while not allowing potentially exploitative traffickers to solicit victims.
[1] https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/human_exploitati...
That's a disgusting way to frame the plight of minors that have no consent in the journey they are coerced into taking.
And, no, I'm not talking about people offering advice and posting safe routes. I'm talking about coyotes for cartels promising safe escort for thousands of dollars. Which is a lie. They will let these people die if necessary. Then they'll hold them hostage if they do make it, by threatening to kill their families back home if payment is not received.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/human-smugglers...
https://www.justice.gov/humantrafficking/what-is-human-traff...
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/human-smugglers...
Sounds like they just banned the groups, not the accounts in them like the original title said.
> (Corrects headline, paragraph 1 to say Facebook “removes”, not “suspends”, 16,000 “groups”, not “accounts”)
> (Reuters) - Social media company Facebook Inc removed 16,000 groups for selling or buying fake reviews of products and services on its platforms, after the Britain’s competition watchdog intervened for the second time, the regulator said.