It’s been a rocky year in Facebook and publisher relations, if you’re failing it’s probably your fault

Speaking at a panel at South by Southwest, Facebook’s head of news products, Alex Hardiman, had some strong words for critics who say the company’s recent News Feed algorithm change is hurting publishers.

In response to a question about digital publisher Little Things, whose CEO blamed Facebook’s News Feed algorithm after the company shut down, Hardiman said “there’s a reason certain publishers don’t do well on Facebook.”

“I don’t think that that’s true. I think that when we look at publishers who are not doing well, most likely, it’s because they are abusing the system in some way. Their content might be sensationalist, it could be misleading, it could be triggering ad farm warnings. There’s a reason for certain publishers that they don’t do well on Facebook.”

In other words: it’s not us, it’s your bad content.

This came after Hardiman also acknowledged that Facebook’s previous News Feed algorithm reinforced much of the behavior it’s now trying to combat,…

“I think we need each other. We need them for the traffic; they need us for the content,” he told the Wall Street Journal at the time. However, Facebook has recently become pretty brutal when it comes to publisher complaints.

“If you are a publisher who feels like Facebook is not good for your business, you shouldn’t be on Facebook,” company executive Campbell Brown said in February during an onstage grilling at Recode’s Code Media conference.

Read the complete story here

About the author

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Sign Up for Our Newsletter

Get notified of our weekly selection of news

You May Also Like

True-DTAC Merger Faces Delay

The plan originally called for a voluntary tender bid to be made within a year in order to proceed with the US$8.6 billion merger, but this need was not reached, according to Telenor of Norway.

What shifting supply chains for semiconductors mean for Emerging markets in South-East Asia

The manufacturing of semiconductors is dominated by three countries – China, South Korea and Taiwan – which accounted for 87% of the global market in 2021.

Thailand’s Report of Cybercrime Crackdown in 2022

166 suspects from eight foreign call center gangs were arrested, while 58,463 bank accounts and 118,530 phone lines were discovered to be used for illegal operations and were frozen by authorities