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 observed for the first time by NBC News, and calls on netizens to give negative feedback to Facebook to protest the company's censorship of Palestinian accounts and posts on the social networking platform.
It seems that the activists' efforts have paid off, since at the moment, Facebook has a rating of 2,3 / 5,0 stars in App Store, and 2,4 / 5,0 stars at 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 for Arabic and Hebrew, and are closely monitoring the situation to ensure that we remove harmful content, while we deal with any errors enforcement as quickly 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 he published a notice claiming that surveillance keeps its services free, as Apple's privacy updates with iOS 14.5 indirectly cut much of its revenue. Thousands of users turned to Twitter and Reddit to say they were ungrateful for Facebook's "bullying" 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.
