LOS ANGELES: In a shocking move, Facebook's new spam stipulations have thrown hundreds of animal rights advocates pages on the social-networking site into the spam category. The results have left many advocates angry, demanding an explanation from Facebook executives. The initial wave of spamming has come in recent weeks with sanctions being placed on fan pages and personal pages advocating for animal rights. According to the new spam policies, Facebook is referring to these pages as “spam and irrelevant content.” For Julia Tunman, an Oxnard, California resident, the move has angered her. She said she has called Facebook at least four days to get information as to why pages she followed were not being allowed to post. “They keep telling me to call back and that they are ‘looking into the matter',” she told Bikyamasr.com. “It is ridiculous. There are pages up that promote the killing of animals and those have not been categorized as spam.” Hundreds of Pages were served notice via an automated popup from Facebook Administration entitled “Postings to Pages Temporarily Disabled” which reads: “We've noticed that your account has been posting spam and irrelevant content on Facebook Pages. Because of this, your ability to post on Page walls has been suspended for 15 days. “If you continue to post spam after this block has been lifted, your account could be permanently disabled.” Those who received the message said they had to agree to a statement that they were aware of Facebook's spam categorization and that “posting spam is prohibited and against Facebook Community Standards” before being able to continue. Still, it has left many animal advocates, such as Tunman, who use the social-networking website as a way to connect with animal rights advocates and keep up to pace on the happenings globally in animal rights, angry and upset. They have called on Facebook to ensure this sort of action does not happen again. Helen Matson, the owner of the Get Happy With Gus animal advocacy Facebook Page explained that “I was absolutely and totally shocked, as right off the bat a few of [the Pages affected] were Pages that rarely share and are not as active as many others.” Matson continued, in comments published by Examiner.com, that “We had problems about 5 weeks ago with people being blocked from leaving comments, but had never seen anything like a 15 day suspension so I was totally caught by surprise.” Facebook has not responded to a Bikyamasr.com request for information pertaining to the spamming of these pages. BM
