Facebook Disables Stream Publishing for Many Large Generic Pages
Facebook has begun cracking down on owners of generic Pages tonight, removing stream publishing privileges for many Pages with over 500,000 fans. Owners who log into their Page administration console will see the above notice that their publishing rights have been blocked “due to a violation of the Pages Terms of Use.”
In addition to not being able to publish to the stream, these Page owners are also unable to send updates to fans. In other words, all outbound communication channels have been cut off. However, Page owners are still able to moderate the discussion board, install applications, and manage page photos and other information.
This news should stifle the budding marketplace for generic Pages with lots of fans. Two weeks ago, OraBrush bought the Kisses page and its 1.1 million fans for an undisclosed sum, and others have been building Page networks as well. However, Facebook’s actions tonight have rendered many of those Pages more like glorified Groups than vehicles for pumping content into the Facebook stream.
We all knew it was coming. Facebook’s intention with Pages is that they be a product for brands, businesses, and public figures – not speculative marketing channels. Its terms of service prohibit “fake” and “unofficial” Pages, and many generic Pages fall in the “bumper sticker” category that Facebook Groups have served in for so long.
Facebook marketers looking for the right way to reach people inside Facebook should start thinking differently than ammassing a network of generic Pages. Pages are a place for official brands and their agents to engage Facebook users – and still offer significant opportunity for those acting in an official capacity.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:08 am
It was all spam from those pages.. Ever since page status updates reached homepage. And cross promotion of “Bikini” by “Beach”.
At the same time, facebook’s group app needs update badly. Or at least “discussion” app.
June 12th, 2009 at 5:53 am
They finally done something about a menace on generic pages and disabled status updates
many generic pages have been abusing the status update feature as i have mentioned several times good to see some cracking down but should be really be on those that had been reported as actually doing it as Facebook seems to taken the easier ‘block the lot’.
The generic page administrators which can control themselves have to blame the few page administrators that obviously can’t because some can’t control themselves.
June 12th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Does this generic Pages with under 500,000 fans are safe? Even a generic Page with 100,000 fans is a significant threat to a competitor who played by the rules and did not create a generic Page but only created a Page for its company/brand. Allowing any generic Pages is massively unfair to those businesses that complied with Facebook’s stated Page requirements.
June 12th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
This is a big complaint for me. They really must crack down on these generic pages hard if they want to preserve Pages for real brands and businesses.
These generic pages clutter the stream and people become immune to the message which hurts those who played by the rules…not to mention the sheer volume of fans a generic name can amass in a short period of time.
June 14th, 2009 at 2:58 am
Im all for this action. I have been pushing emails to facebook for weeks to address this issue as these generic pages have swamped the apps that give the legitimate apps visibility. I now hope they delete them so the legitimate profiles get the visability they have missed since the changes to the feed a few months back
June 17th, 2009 at 10:05 am
agreed
June 24th, 2009 at 9:26 am
[...] of brands and individual celebrities to go up relative to general interest pages. In fact, just as Facebook turned off publishing privileges for several top generic pages two weeks ago, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the trend continue in the weeks ahead. The [...]
June 25th, 2009 at 5:06 am
Im an owner of a generic 2 million+ page and i think this blows! I wasnt spamming people or anything like that, i was just trying to have a cool page where people can talk about their love of the certain product. Although i found a way to still send updates. Thanks for nothing facebook.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Hi,
How can we post updates or send fans news if we get this warning message? There’s probably a way to do it!! How can we communicate with our fans?
Please help someone.
Is there a special apps for this..
July 13th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
[...] is that they authentically represent businesses, brands, or celebrities, Facebook has recently been disabling updates for generically named Pages – effectively neutering their ability to reach their Facebook [...]
July 13th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
[...] is that they authentically represent businesses, brands, or celebrities, Facebook has recently been disabling updates for generically named Pages – effectively neutering their ability to reach their Facebook [...]
July 14th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Well that’s just very bad news for small business owners like myself who have a company name that is a generic phrase. I have a page that is a fan page of my website, and my website is a generic phrase. Is there any way that someone can help me prevent me from being stopped from publsihing to my customers through facebook?
I don’t seem to be able to change my facebook page title. How do I do that and why wasn’t I given more examples about this when I selected the page title!!!
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:57 am
facebook is fucked up. first they told us to get this usernames now they are taking off from us. what da f*ck?
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
I had a Facebook page that I was using for my soon to be released video game.
Can someone please help me get back control of my Page?
Thanks,
Carlo
http://www.CollegeLacrosse2010.com
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Facebook officially sucks!!! What’s wrong with having a little fun with Fan pages and what a great medium for expression. You think FB would be stoked to have the additional traffic. I guess they’re just changing from a fun start-up to another corporate sanitary media cog.
July 24th, 2009 at 5:42 am
My name is Carlo Sunseri. I’m a lacrosse coach and first time game devloper from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.
For the past 4 months, our developer has been building a lacrosse video game for the Microsoft’s Dream Build Play contest in August. I am using a Facebook Page to get the word out about the development of CL10. We have already amassed over 40,000 fans in 2 months. Today I receive a message from Facebook stating “Your publishing rights have been blocked due to a violation of the pages terms of use…”
I know they are trying to crack down on “fake” facebook pages, but my page is legit.
Facebook is really killing me on this. I have tried to contact them but it’s IMPOSSIBLE to get a hold of them. I have spent over $1000 in advertising on FB, I would think they could answer the phone.
Any help would be appreciated. Do you know anyone I could contact?
Thanks,
Carlo Sunseri
President Crosse Studios
http://www.CollegeLacrosse2010.com
July 27th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
The CONSUMERIST helped us get our Facebook Page back. Thank you!
College Lacrosse 2010 : The Video Game
http://www.collegelacrosse2010.com
August 2nd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Does anyone know when will vanish this notification ‘Your publishing rights have been blocked due to a violation of the Pages Terms of Use’, and are we going to get back our right to publish things on our fun pages? Thank you
August 5th, 2009 at 4:27 am
I also have a official facebook page of my website http://www.messengeradictos.com and now i couldn´t post any information to my fans.
How i can demostrate to facebook that it is an authentic and official page?
August 9th, 2009 at 10:21 am
My Facebook page was a Civil and Human rights page working with many mainstream groups such as Amnesty International. My group was not even close to the 500k mark but was very active. Fascistbook has violated their own TOU once again without notice to those making them their cash…
August 12th, 2009 at 6:40 am
[...] a chiudere la vostra distribuzione . Ad esempio, un paio di settimane fa, Facebook ha iniziato a disabilitare gli aggiornamenti di stato di alcune pagine fan [...]
August 14th, 2009 at 8:55 am
WOW! This is absolutely appalling. I have a Milwaukee Brewers page which has over 70,000 fans. And I have lost the rights to it. Is there any way we’ll be able to get these back? I have lost all faith in Facebook. I guess they dont’ care that some people earn a living with these pages.
September 21st, 2009 at 5:10 am
[...] usare un nome generico, come “Pizza” o “Mare”, perchè Facebook tende a disabilitare gli aggiornamenti delle pagine che non pubblicizzano marchi e personaggi [...]
October 9th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I’ve lost the ability to post news. Our page, facebook.com/visitwales, the official Visit Wales page for North America is really popular. So many people have commented on how much they enjoy receiving the updates. People chose to be part of the page and they’re free to leave at any time.
How can we get our page back?
October 31st, 2009 at 5:29 pm
[...] is that they authentically represent businesses, brands, or celebrities, Facebook has recently been disabling updates for generically named Pages – effectively neutering their ability to reach their Facebook [...]
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I have the same problem. i’ve spent $15,000 and 6 months getting my fan page; Costa Rica, over 50,000 fans. I followed the authenticate protocol exactly as per Facebook’s instructions; I put the Facebook fan box widget on my blog. That should have been ALL that I was required to do.
The Facebook authentication process made NO mention that I was required to change my fan page name. I went through the steps offered by facebook three times actually and each time it gave me the message that my submission was sent. Now my page is down and this is really hurting my business. What did i spend all this advertising money for?!?!
November 7th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
FB doesn’t even let us change our page’s name, but they ask us to do it. WTF!
November 11th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
pls help!!! how can we get our page back???
November 20th, 2009 at 12:03 am
I’m having the same problem here as well. It says that we reach a large number of fans so need to fill in the authentic representative form within 3 weeks. I did summit the form even less than one week. 10 days later they told me that my publishing rights to our company page was blocked! What!! I’m working for a big company and I’m an official authorised person to handle the facebook page. And now they are telling me this. Come on Facebook, do something with it. We send you lots of email and you did not reply us on anythihng.
December 15th, 2009 at 4:57 am
[...] An excellent test of the Government’s powers came to the fore when Facebook decided to ban all Pages that wern’t related to a product or service. Consequently, the administrators of the Drop Bear fan page, which was set up to warn visitors to [...]
January 31st, 2010 at 9:52 pm
i
January 31st, 2010 at 9:55 pm
iam admin on apage and now i can’t upload any videos or photos or even edit any thing
because of my publishing rights have been blocked due to a violation of the Pages Terms of Use.
now what can i do to solve this
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:04 am
I create a page for my own online shop. I use this page to inform my customer about my new products. And spent more than 500usd to advertising the page. But now what i get is Your publishing rights have been blocked due to
a violation of the Pages Terms of Use. This is hurting my business.
Can you help me how to get it back?
Really appreciated with this.
Thanks
Sain
February 26th, 2010 at 8:23 am
Did anyone actually resolve this?
March 1st, 2010 at 8:18 pm
So I don’t get it. I’m an admin of a small fan page (only 130+ fans) and our page has not been blocked. We’re right now using Facebook Ads to promote our page and it’s working VERY well. We’re considering increasing our budget on that ad but now I’m afraid that it might all be for not.
When are we going to get “the notice”? Are we going to get “the notice”? Does our page violate any of the Terms of Use? I’ve read them and I don’t see anything that would suggest that we are violating anything.
But FB doesn’t issue warnings and tell you the specific violation, they just shut you down, give you some vague reason and leave you with no way to fix the alleged violation.
April 5th, 2010 at 8:16 am
This is outrageous. Our page has been blocked too although we are 100% sure that we do NOT violate any rule or condition. We have spent a lot of money on page promotion and we are currently considering to press charges against Facebook Inc.
May 9th, 2010 at 12:19 am
Same happened to me! My publishing rights has been blocked due to a violation of the Pages Terms of Use. And im 101% sure that i do not violate any rules or condition too!
What can i do to solve this? Is there any way?
June 4th, 2010 at 2:53 am
You also have my FULL support on this!
Our page was blocked today similiar, and we have only been publishing good content to our fans.
VERY strange and a bad way of doing this Facebook.
I thought you should supposed to be flawless and a fair tool / social community…?
Not just a big money making machine. If this continues you will see your fall soon of your great empire…
June 14th, 2010 at 6:19 am
[...] give page a generic name like “Boston” or “Real Estate” – Facebook has recently been disabling updates for generically named Pages – effectively neutering their ability to reach their Facebook [...]
July 1st, 2010 at 2:17 am
hai all .. im one of owner page same like u all .. facebook already blocked the app.. i really dunno what i do … so now i already spend for advertise my page almost $2000 .. now they blocked it .. hopefully facebook can fix it asap..
July 16th, 2010 at 9:32 am
Hi all. My daughter’s fanpage was blocked and if i read correctly, this is to curb false identity and misleading people into believing something that is not there. Well, then why do they blocked my daughter’s official fanpage? How are we going to update her new updates much sought after by her fans? Now we are busy replying mail saying that my daughter is being snobbish by not updating her fb fanpage. I can understand the motive behind this but I seriously feel that notices should be serve prior to the block to avoid any disruption on the people with real identity. I sincerely hope that the admin can reinstate back the account and contact me via my email. Thank you
July 27th, 2010 at 5:12 am
Hello
My name is Mayank
I own a small silver jewelry brand in New Delhi India in the name of “Silverworld” and also a store and website.
I have a fan page in the same name which Facebook has blocked as soon as I reached 10,000 fans.
I did not receive any authentication mail.
I have not done any violation of Pages terms.
I also have the trademark rights to this name.
I spent a lot of money promoting my page and a lot of my existing customers use it to communicate with me.
I am in big trouble and am facing financial loses because of this.
can anyone please help.
Mayank
Page : http://www.facebook.com/pages/SILVERWORLD/186108718481
September 19th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Hello,
I agree with Mayank! I had a page for football news and updates which has about 11000 fans.
I did not get any warning email from facebook except one on top of the page itself to authenticated the page, which had been done by one of the moderators. And we had PAID for advertising as well.
This move of blocking generic pages is stupid as it does not connect with the security/privacy policy of facebook. i know that many people have regained the page control but i dont know what else to do after authenticating the page.
Any help would be appreciated.
October 15th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Hey My name is Lujain & I’m the Admin of “Ciel Phantomhive” Page I’ve been stopped frm writing N publishing on my page,& I actually have over 13,893 fans on my page.I’m pretty sure that I’m not violating any Rules :SSS
Please can somebody helps me to get my page back N my publishing rights ??
October 15th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
@Lujain: If you are not the owner or official representative of the Black Butler anime series from which Ciel Phantomhive originates, your Page may be converted to a community Page, or your Page may lose publishing capabilities.
October 16th, 2010 at 6:42 am
@Josh:well my friend is the owner of the page “F tht wht u mean”
And me & my friend R realllly trying so hard not 2 let them block the page =(((
wht shud I do?
October 16th, 2010 at 6:42 am
N thax 4 answering Josh
October 18th, 2010 at 9:24 am
@Lujain: You could try to make it clear that your Page does not directly represent the anime series, but is instead designed to allow fans to get updates about real world news that pertains to the character.
October 19th, 2010 at 8:53 am
@Josh:Mmm I’ll try my best 2 do tht N thax 4 the help ,I hope tht I can get my publishing rights again
October 21st, 2010 at 3:30 am
@Josh:I just did what U asked me to do,but it’s pointless :SSS
October 31st, 2010 at 5:15 pm
I have a 250,000 fans page wich I visited like 2 times in a whole year, so I didn’t post ANY SPAM
When I don’t like a spammy page, I dislike it.
November 5th, 2010 at 7:11 am
i want back my page plz help me
November 12th, 2010 at 4:01 am
me toooo I want myyy paaage BACK
November 20th, 2010 at 11:53 am
facebook is donating its database to israel’s mossad. webmasters; this is your duty!
November 29th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
I had no ideas that pages were meant only for companies and brands…
My page had 17653 fans till now, and all of them are really sad that we cannot send lovely thoughts, poems, and messages to them anymore.
In my case we used to publish on the wall twice or thrice a week so as not to invade our fans wall.
NOW AS A SOLUTION I SUGGEST:
We need to ask facebook to convert our Pages into Groups, so that we do not lose our fans and regain our publishing rights!
January 7th, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Im an owner of a generic 2 10’000* page We was publishing this material to give
everyone the opportunity to see things as they are so they can come
to their own conclusions rather than settling for biased versions of
world events as handed out by the mainstream media.
and i think this blows! I wasnt spamming people or anything like that, i was just trying to have a cool page where people can see whats going around this wired world. Although i Thanks for nothing facebook.
January 29th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
[...] Using too many generic keywords as your Facebook Page name can actually harm your Page’s virality rate inside Facebook. If the title seems too long and suspiciously “spammy”, fans are likely to hide your updates from the newsfeed and not share it with their friends – and if they do, friends are not very likely to “like” you. Picking completely generic page name like “Car” or “Australia” is not a good idea either, because Facebook has lately been disabling updates for generically named Pages. [...]
February 17th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Hi,
I’ve had the same issue with two of my generically named pages, one was at 234,000 fans and the other at 245,000 fans. I regained publishing rights for one but this was a while ago. I was wondering if anyone could actually post an email address for Facebook so we can direct our complaints regarding this situation to the right department/person.
Thanks.