Facebook may be at the top of the Social Networking category in the Apple App Store, but that does not necessarily mean that people are happy with it. They just download the application.
Activists supporting Palestine are conducting a coordinated campaign to reduce the ranking of Facebook mobile applications in Apple and Google Stores.
The campaign, which was first spotted by NBC News, calls on netizens to give Facebook negative reviews to protest the company's censorship of Palestinian accounts and posts on the social network platform.
It seems that the activists' efforts have paid off, as Facebook currently has a rating of 2,3/5,0 stars on the App Store , and 2,4/5,0 stars on Google Play.
Many of the reviews accuse Facebook of censoring Palestinian posts and including hashtags such as #FreePalestine and #GazaUnderAttack.
The Facebook team reportedly takes this issue very seriously - internally they have labeled it as "SEV1" or "seriousness 1", which describes a very serious high-priority issue on the site.
The only problem type that has a higher priority than this is "SEV0", which is used when the site is offline.
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone told NBC News that the platform's policies were "designed to give everyone a voice" and that Facebook implements them equally regardless of the user's personal beliefs. He continued:
We have a dedicated team, which includes speakers of Arabic and Hebrew, and closely monitors the situation to ensure that we remove harmful content while dealing with enforcement errors as soon as possible.
Facebook apparently contacted Apple to remove the negative reviews in the App Store, but its request was rejected.
Unfortunately, it is now very easy to find a reason to be disappointed with Facebook. For example, despite its efforts to stop the spread of misinformation about COVID-19, the platform continues to misinform.
And there are no serious misinformation issues from Facebook, it seems that you still have reason to be misled.
In early May, Facebook posted a notice claiming that tracking was keeping its services free after Apple's privacy updates with iOS 14.5 indirectly cut off a large portion of its revenue. Thousands of users took to Twitter and Reddit to report that they were not grateful for Facebook's "scare" tactics.
Facebook can be an example of the phrase "every publicity is good publicity". It is a platform that many seem to hate, however, everyone continues to use it.
George is still wondering what he is doing here….
