Source: Facebook
Facebook is rolling out a new feature that will allow users to provide feedback on their experience with advertisers on the site, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Advertisers who get large numbers of negative reviews will be contacted by Facebook and given the option of improving their performance or being banned from the site.
“There are some companies that are just bad actors and we have no tolerance for that,” Sarah Epps, a product marketing director at Facebook, told the Journal. “As soon as we can detect those companies, we enforce against them, but for companies that do want to improve, we want to give them that opportunity.”
Facebook’s decision follows a report last month by the Journal that found individuals were setting up online storefronts that added a markup to items sold by sellers on sites such as Alibaba’s AliExpress in China. In a number of cases, the products took a long time to arrive and, when they did, were found to be not as advertised. One hoodie, which was advertised for its softness and sold for $70, arrived three weeks after purchase smelling like gasoline and made of materials that were not the least bit soft.
Facebook has been under intense scrutiny in 2018 following reports that the social media giant allowed Cambridge Analytica to gain access to the records of 50 million users of the site. The data was used to build profiles of and target individuals with the goal of electing Donald Trump.
While the #DeleteFacebook movement that grew in response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal is no longer at the top of the daily headlines, the exodus of angry users and advertisers from Facebook has reinforced the need for Mark Zuckerberg and company to look after the best interests of the individuals who use the site.