Telling companies they are breaking FB rules

izzieuk

Hi
A few people, after this past week where we a lot of us have been hit with 'restrictions', have stated intent to let companies running Facebook competitions know when they are breaking the rules asking for 'likes' for entries.
I tried this today, trying to be helpful and spread knowledge that this is breaking FB rules and guidelines and only harming the interests of both people entering FB competitions and the companies themselves.
I saw a comp for a Kindle and sent a private message, perfectly polite, letting them know. They sent me a patronising message back linking me to the guidelines and saying they haven't broken any rules as you don't have to 'like' as an entry.
This was a tad insulting to my intelligence considering they say you have to like as part of gaining your entry both on the FB post publicising it, the form where you enter, and the terms and conditions below the form.
Has anyone else encountered this? I was trying to help both us and the company as I said but I really don't think I have the energy if it's just going to be like bashing my head against a brick wall over and over again.

IDeamOfFairies

The sooner FB revert back to only allowing companies to run competitions via APPS the better - this will bring an end to the "like page, share, tag" that some companies insist on (even though none of them are allowed)

It would also be better if you could report companies flouting these rules.

izzieuk

I've been looking around Facebook and I can only find reference to not letting people like and share a post to enter. Nothing that says you can't ask someone to like your page to enter. The only place I can find reference to this is if a Facebook app is involved.
But it seems like regardless everyone is saying that you can't ask people to like a page for an entry *at all*. Can someone please tell me where this belief originated?
If you can in fact like a page to enter then we are all surely being penalised by Facebook for nothing.

IDeamOfFairies

There is something in the T&C's that state you can not offer an incentive in exchange for a page like


They also keep updating these T&C's
https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php

Date of Last Revision: January 16, 2015
3. Promotions may be administered on Pages or within apps on Facebook. Personal Timelines and friend connections must not be used to administer promotions (example: “share on your Timeline to enter” or “share on your friend's Timeline to get additional entries”, and "tag your friends in this post to enter" are not permitted).

izzieuk

Yes, they linked me to that page, and said since they're asking only for their page to be liked and because it doesn't explicitly disallow that in those terms then they're not breaking the rules. Which has made me a little unsure of myself. Everyone had convinced me it was not allowed.

LizB62

Are they not allowed to ask for Likes now too? I knew they couldn't ask for Shares (not that it stopped them....)

I've got a standard paragraph that I just paste into the comments.

80% of the time the company ignores it

10% of the time they lie and say that they're not forcing people to share (even though that's how it's worded).

And the other 10% of the time, they thank me for pointing it out and change the T's and C's of their competition

mjm3346

Some will say a share or like would be nice so you don't have to do it but that does not stop them just choosing from people who have done and the same goes for apps which are no longer allowed to require a like to enter.

IDeamOfFairies

Found it...

https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2014/08/07/Graph-API-v2.1/

Changes to Platform Policy

In addition to the launch of API v2.1, today, we are announcing two changes to our Platform Policies. Developers should update their apps to comply with these policy changes by November 5, 2014 (90 days from today).

Games which include mandatory or optional in-app charges must now disclose this in their app's description, either on Facebook or other platforms it supports. This is to give people a clear indication that your game may charge people during gameplay.
You must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page. This includes offering rewards, or gating apps or app content based on whether or not a person has liked a Page. It remains acceptable to incentivize people to login to your app, checkin at a place or enter a promotion on your app's Page. To ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives. We believe this update will benefit people and advertisers alike.

mjm3346

There was a thread a while ago after another rule change about like and share

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4498807

izzieuk

IDeamOfFairies wrote: »

Found it...

https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2014/08/07/Graph-API-v2.1/

Changes to Platform Policy

In addition to the launch of API v2.1, today, we are announcing two changes to our Platform Policies. Developers should update their apps to comply with these policy changes by November 5, 2014 (90 days from today).

Games which include mandatory or optional in-app charges must now disclose this in their app's description, either on Facebook or other platforms it supports. This is to give people a clear indication that your game may charge people during gameplay.
You must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page. This includes offering rewards, or gating apps or app content based on whether or not a person has liked a Page. It remains acceptable to incentivize people to login to your app, checkin at a place or enter a promotion on your app's Page. To ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives. We believe this update will benefit people and advertisers alike.

Well that's the page I always referred to, but I think they're saying that since they're not conducting the competition via an app on their page, simply on their page timeline, that it does not break the rules. I'm so confused. Facebook seems to get angry about this but yet does not provide clear consistent guidelines.

IDeamOfFairies

I would have said that was referring to any page likes and that the developers of the apps should also implement this into their apps.