Since the beginning, Facebook has always had a desire for “real connections”, encouraging users to create a profile using their real name, and connect with people they already know.
The introduction of Facebook Pages in November 2007 added a whole new level to this “real connections” model and has become a great way for businesses, bands and celebrities to connect and interact with their fans. Unfortunately, it has also become a cesspool for spam, ridiculous Pages and unrelated advertising.
A quick skim through the biggest Facebook Pages shows a high number of generic Pages (such as “Pizza”, “The Beach” and “Massages”). A lot of these Pages – while against Facebook’s Terms of Use – are harmless, but there are also many that have been using (and abusing) their large fan bases to advertise tenuously related websites or products.
In May it was reported the creator of the “Kisses” Page auctioned off and sold the Page (and it’s one million+ fans) for an undisclosed sum. The winning bidder, OraBrush, has now turned it into an advertisement for stopping bad breath, the emphasis on kissing now just a memory.
Two weeks later, Facebook decided to tackle these generic Pages head-on by taking away their ability to update their statuses. Whilst it was great to see Facebook finally take some action, it was too little too late, and they’ve failed to follow through since with unscrupulous Page owners still breaking the Terms of Use.
The minor offenders simply encourage their fans to join their other Facebook Pages, but the worse offenders have completely changed their Pages from everything to do with the original topic, with only the name remaining.
We don’t expect Facebook to police every page created, but some of these Pages have fan bases in the millions. Facebook needs to spend some time cleaning out these Pages that are now exploiting the fan bases they’ve built up with unrelated advertising.
To be clear, the purpose of Pages is for advertisers to connect with Facebook users, but these Pages build up fan bases under misleading pretenses of “fun” topics before converting their content and spamming their users.
Although just a small sample of the problem, these Pages have over 3.3 millions fans between them.
Besides their flagrant abuse of the service and disregard for Facebook’s Terms of Use, it’s surprising that these Pages are still around for another reason: by allowing these Pages to operate, Facebook is taking money away from its own advertising sales. Why pay Facebook for ads, when you can create a generic Page like “cuddles” or “sleeping” that’s viral enough to advertise itself?
In our next article we will be explaining how we at FBHive think Facebook could drastically (and easily) overhaul the system for all, but while you wait, tell us: what you think Facebook should do with Pages like those above, and what could be done to improve the system for the future?
Facebook should block updates for all unauthorised pages that has more than 100,000 fans. Facebook makes policies but doesnt enforce it properly..
Comment by block updates — August 1, 2009 @ 4:05 pm
At what point does a user not realize that he/she can remove themselves from the offending page or block it?
If people don’t do this, or except censorship from FB directly, it’s ridiculous and indicative of people who expect others to look out for them because they don’t use the tools to protect themselves.
I do realize there are children under 16 on the site (14 is the technical limit, right?, but many are in middle school and junior high as well) – who probably fall for this crap hook line and sinker. I suppose for the welfare of the youngest users (and those adults who still have the common sense of a junior high student) it would be prudent to address abuses with groups and fan pages.
I am not an advertiser nor do I run groups or fan pages, but of course they are about advertising, people! Some less obviously so. I’ll admit, I was not aware that those fan of sleeping and fan of hugging or whatever pages were also viral, but all it would take is one stupid ad, update or notification to appear on my FB before I deleted/removed/blocked the offending page.
Comment by amy — August 1, 2009 @ 9:35 pm
The Problem with FBHIVE
Not enough buzz :D
Comment by Wisnu — August 16, 2009 @ 2:46 am
people can remove themselves. Facebook can’t police everything. I would rather they focus on more important things.
Comment by jeffroe — August 28, 2009 @ 4:03 pm
I just looked at the FB page for kisses. If it is “spammy”, why is it still growing and why are literally thousands of users clicking “like” on their posts? Seems like a clever way to tie their business into a large page.
Comment by jeffroe — August 28, 2009 @ 4:21 pm
jeffroe: That’s 0.0015% of people clicking ‘like’…
Hardly proves these people want news about mouthwash!
Comment byTom 'Johnsee' Johns — August 29, 2009 @ 1:15 am
I should start making generic pages like this to sell for ad revenue! Great way to make money on crappy developers messing around with things that were already fine (ie ‘new facebook’ which is ungodly slow)
Comment by Xero — November 20, 2009 @ 4:30 pm