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After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

jordan-shared.medium.com

151–160 of 322 posts

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#151

Let's be fair here. Shared.com is in the business of producing and distributing crap content. That's a subjective term, but it's like the supreme court ruling on pornography, you'll know it when you see it. These guys most likely "skirt the line" to just operate as a mediocre and crappy content distribution network, that at scale, makes a lot of money because there is a certain subset of the population that will eat…

>Your Page has been unpublished

They even give them a reason. How is:

>they kicked me and my pages off without warning or explanation

truthful?

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#152
post #148
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the down arrow was supposed to be used to indicate that a post is of low quality or that it doesn't conform to guidelines, not to express disagreement; and that disagreement was meant to be expressed by posting arguments

It seems more common these days to use it on HN to express disagreement. That wasn't the case years ago. I suspect it has to do with the reddit / youtube generation becoming adults. Polite disagreement seems to be on the way out.

That theory makes sense, though it's unfortunate, IMHO. Personally, I'd prefer for comments to rank higher based on quality (irrespective of which way they lean) than hivemind inclinations. Seek well-roundedness and all that.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. When the issue of Apple's anti-competitive behaviour comes up on HN, it is always rebuffed by saying Apple does not have a monopoly—its US share of smartphone market is merely 40%. This is demonstration that you don't need a 100% market share to act anti-competitively. Facebook and Google each have less than 30% market share in ad spend in the US.

Sadly, only 40% when your opposition is fragmented and frankly a crap interface. There are many things I like about Android, but most of them are philosophical. I find navigating it atrocious and I have spent quite a bit time reverse engineering some applications. Again, this is the competitor to apple? How much does each market capture. I suspect apple is doing much better here.

I think in USA, it's 60/40 in favor of Apple. Globally, 70/30 in favor of Android https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#154

Looking at shared.com content - If I was forced to guess what might justify this apart from an FB screw up, is that while no single post breaks FB rules. The quantity that they are posting now breaks a new FB policy and that shared.com is seen as producing huge quantities of low quality, click bait content that FB see as 'polluting` their platform, leeching away users/ad viewers. That is just a guess.

I'm with others who point out that FB is already a dumpster fire of junk, so jettisoning low-quality clickbait isn't on their agenda. What I do think is on FB's agenda is producing and profiting off of low-quality clickbait directly. Thus, someone at FB could have decided the OP's business is competing with them. Even if you don't agree that FB is all about low-quality clickbait right now, it shouldn't shock anyone t…

Who pays money to show ads on shared.com? At first glance it looks like generic adsense, probably opted in to any available ad exchanges.

So presumably facebook is miffed that it pays better to take eyeballs away from their feed and point them at google ads.

It does make one wonder why FB doesn't stick adsense on the feed or increase the price of their ads; clearly there's plenty of room for arbitrage.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#155
post #30

> Facebook has systematically shut down our 2 small businesses during a pandemic and economic crisis without explanation. If you've spent $57MM on Facebook ads, are you still considered a "small business"? Perhaps I'm out of touch. I think the warning about building your business on someone else's land still applies but I'm not sure how you get around that when so much of the world's attention is controlled by a few…

The US Government, specifically the SBA, defines a small business as any business with fewer than 1,500 employees and less than $38.5 million in average annual receipts. I was surprised by this definition too.

Hunh, I would have thought it would be "or". I'm surprised as well!

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#156
post #30

> Facebook has systematically shut down our 2 small businesses during a pandemic and economic crisis without explanation. If you've spent $57MM on Facebook ads, are you still considered a "small business"? Perhaps I'm out of touch. I think the warning about building your business on someone else's land still applies but I'm not sure how you get around that when so much of the world's attention is controlled by a few…

I don't think that is $57MM in one year. I think that is over the lifetime of the business.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#157

Let's be fair here. Shared.com is in the business of producing and distributing crap content. That's a subjective term, but it's like the supreme court ruling on pornography, you'll know it when you see it. These guys most likely "skirt the line" to just operate as a mediocre and crappy content distribution network, that at scale, makes a lot of money because there is a certain subset of the population that will eat…

And who are Facebook to decide what is crap? Since they claim to be somewhat of a public utility surely everyone within the bounds of the law should be able to post what they want.

Facebook are, of course, not a publisher, yet they are now the editor?

Sounds to me they are whatever they want to be, depending on the audience.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#158

Let's be fair here. Shared.com is in the business of producing and distributing crap content. That's a subjective term, but it's like the supreme court ruling on pornography, you'll know it when you see it. These guys most likely "skirt the line" to just operate as a mediocre and crappy content distribution network, that at scale, makes a lot of money because there is a certain subset of the population that will eat…

You answer gives me vibes of the recent spat of apologetic answers to the news of Apple banning the "Amphetamine" app in that you defend a behemoth banning something or someone on vague grounds - a discussion on this type of Stockholm syndrome can be found here [1]. My response on to how to handle the shenanigans of these corporate megaliths - by shunning them [2] - was voted down so I have to assume that this is not…

> Is the general opinion here really that we are to simply give in to the whims of these companies?

Ans: I can't pay for the $2M house I bought in Noe Valley on a normal salary.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey now, my friends dogs and kids are very interesting! Or were when they used to go outside...

If they could, they would eliminate dog/kid photos entirely because they don't make money off that stuff. They just show you enough of your friends dogs and kids to keep you around to view the profit generating crap.

It works because many FB users (probably the vast majority) don't fact-check anything. I've lost count of the number of times I did and found it to be untrue.
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