Something weird happened today.
As part of our daily workflow to monitor and discover great content today, we suddenly found out that Goody Feed, a lifestyle site in Singapore, is no longer accessible on Facebook.
When we visit the Facebook page, which recently saw a huge spike in following thanks to Goody Feed’s implementation of a “social like gate”, there are no longer any Facebook posts by Goody Feed. Here’s a look at their Facebook page:
The only posts which are available are the Goody Books Facebook postings, as well as other image posts. All links directing traffic to the Goody Feed website is now not available on the Facebook page, which has over 310,000 fans at the time of the writing.
We also tried to share a Goody Feed link on our personal post, here’s the warning message that we received, indicating that Facebook has blocked their content:
Here’s what we think may have happened:
- Postings of too much content that the readers may found irrelevant. Goody Feed has grown in popularity over the past 12 months because of its viral content. While some of them may be entertaining, most of the content are produced with minimal effort. Facebook could also deem the content to be unsuitable for the community, a message that we came across when trying to debug the Goody Feed link:
2. The second reason, perhaps the main reason why we think Goody Feed is in trouble with Facebook, is because Goody Feed may have infringed Facebook’s posting standards.
According to Facebook’s Developer’s Platform Policy, you cannot use social plugins for your content. Facebook states clearly:
- “Don’t participate in any “like” or “share” exchange programs.”
- “Don’t obscure or cover elements of social plugins.”
What we have noticed a few weeks back was that, Goody Feed enabled a social locker, which only allows reader to read and access the full content – if and only if they “liked” Goody Feed’s Facebook Page.
Here’s how a social locker plugin looks like:
While Goody Feed may have seen a spike in their Facebook likes, clearly Facebook wasn’t too happy with it.
A quick check on Goody Feed now shows that Goody Feed has since switched off the plugin.
Moral of the story? Focus on great quality content and do not use social lockers. It is also scary to note that publishers and all of us are all the mercy of Facebook – if Facebook decided that you are not playing by their rules, you are out without warning.
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