Facebook Shoots Itself on the Foot with Latest Ad Ban
It was only back in April that I wrote a piece on how Facebook’s autocratic approach to its user base was creating a real need for it to learn to be more responsive to the needs of its members and. It appears, that in response Facebook has taken out a large calibre weapon and put a hole through its foot.
The blogosphere is currently heating up with comments of how Facebook banned the Google+ ad of Michael Lee Johnson, a developer, who has a number of Facebook ad campaigns on the social network. The ad advertised the fact that Michael Lee is now also on Google+ and invited those who have a Google+ profile to add him there.
A couple of important points to note here. First at no point in the ad’s wording is Michael Lee exhorting anyone to leave Facebook and join Google+, though seeing how the former handled this, it may now not be a bad idea. Second, if we accept that clause 6a in Facebook’s Advertising Guidelines which states that "We may refuse ads at any time for any reason, including our determination that they promote competing products or services or negatively affect our business or relationship with our users.", applies here surely the right thing to do is to simply ban this ad.
In a petty show of abuse of power and childish spite Facebook not only banned the ad but also banned all of the other email campaigns ran by Michael Lee which, up to that point in time, had been approved and had been running for some time and were, presumably, in keeping with Facebook’s Advertising Guidelines.
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