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Beware on Facebook! – Who really pockets as your heart strings are tugged?
13/05/2013
I’m going to ask all my friends, and their friends to consider carefully the effects of their naturally caring and giving characters when on Facebook. Here’s why…
Remember Facebook is not there for your benefit, it’s there to make money! The obvious money making tactics such as adverts, games etc, however annoying to some, pay for the convenience of you having a social network tool and make money for those that are associated with them.
There are other ways to make money on Facebook that are less obvious to the average user (you and me), and we are all guilty of contributing to this scheme without even knowing we are doing it. There is a mix of being a caring person, maybe inquisitive and sometimes being just purely careless. I have heard many a reply back that Facebook is confusing and how were you supposed to know clicking on the link showing ‘what the bad girl did in school’ wasn’t sensible- but this just doesn’t wash.
When ever you are asked to share a link or a photo that really has nothing to do with your personal life i.e 100,000 votes for Facebook or Microsoft or some other organization to donate to saving the life of the person in the photo, you are involuntarily contributing to someone’s financial gain, but not the benefit of the person in the photo.
How this works: Whenever a page, link or photo is shared it increases in value. It takes a few hundred thousand shares or likes to actually make it worth any money at all so the average post made by you or me will never make any money, not that we wanted it to in the first place.
Once the page/photo/link gets enough likes/shares it appears higher in peoples news feeds on Facebook so besides parting with your money for gold on games or adverts, a like/share can be classed as the secondary currency of Facebook. 100,000 likes are worth around $200 or £150
By creating a compelling reason for people to like or share a photo (a missing child, a sick child etc.) the link/photo starts racking up the likes/shares. A business or someone who really wants their own page/link/photo to appear higher up on the newsfeeds buys the rights to use that link/photo/page as their own and changes the content. So suddenly that sick child with whom you thought Facebook was going to donate millions for surgery to, suddenly becomes a photo of a pair of shoes or a holiday destination and has hundreds of thousands of likes/shares without any effort.
I’m not asking you not to care about these children. I am asking you to understand by liking/sharing these things on Facebook you are not contributing to the welfare of the poor and needy, more the greed of vultures who are using the poor and needy for their own benefits.
P.S. If you like/share this post do so because you want to help others, not me.
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