7 ms·

He claims that both Twitter and Facebook are severely throttling traffic to his site. Why? On who's request?

by lbj 6y ago

Synaesthesia 6y ago
It's possible they just decided to do it out of their own accord.
- DSingularity 6y ago
  Just like how Facebook regularly take down Palestinian posts which mention resistance — no way it’s at the behest of the Israeli occupation, right? I mean these are unverified claims and conspiracies. The traffic, however regular, must have just fizzled away. The posts must have spontaneously disappeared.
pjc50 6y ago
Kind of an unverifiable claim, surely? Mind you, I've heard claims that if you're getting too much "organic" reach on Facebook they'll de-prioritise you in order to make sure you buy adverts, in the context of completely apolitical small business promotion.
- spiderfarmer 6y ago
  That's absolutely true. Whenever one of the daily posts on my Facebook page does well, I have to stop posting for a couple of days because the next posts are throttled to the point where they are invisible. Most people will have to go to my page specifically in order to see the post, because it will not show in their timeline organically. After a couple of days of not posting I will get a normal amount of views again.
- noworriesnate 6y ago
  In the article he mentions that his own family isn't even getting notifications about his posts. So he verified it. I don't know how you and I would go about verifying it, but I believe him FWIW. > My own family have not been getting their notifications of my posts on either platform.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    I don't mean how he would verify it, I mean how we might verify it.
    - DarthGhandi 6y ago
      I certainly hope anyone with that insight would contact him directly first rather than post it on hn for fake internet points so that the hundreds of Facebook and Twitter employees here don't see it instead to intervene first for their own benefit.
- varispeed 6y ago
  I had a quite successful blog and great organic traffic from Facebook. My blog was doing great monetising adverts, so I had some cash to reinvest. I bought some adverts on Facebook in hope to bring more awareness to my little blog and get more traffic. The moment I stopped buying ads my organic traffic was a small fraction of what it used to be. People were sharing the content organically, but it didn't have the same reach. I decided to never give Facebook more money after this and removed anything related to Facebook from my blog. That being said this has severely damaged its growth and I closed it a year or so later. I saw that blogs similar to mine grew quite big and I know they heavily spend on advertising. Part of me is thinking maybe I made a huge mistake and I should share my revenue with Facebook by means of buying ads, but I would always had this voice inside my head that I would be doing something unethical. I would understand if Facebook displayed information, for example: "Your post will not be shared to your friends, because linked website owner does not buy advertising". That would be fair, but they make people believe they genuinely can share things with friends, but instead it all goes in vain, in the name of greed.
  - lbj 6y ago
    Definitely understand the conflict. Im not sure which direction is best, all I know is that the internet feels a lot smaller now than it did 10 years ago.
- harry8 6y ago
  So they're either censoring for political motive or censoring to levy a tax. Kind of throws the facebook defence against the idea that they should have to pay actual news outlets into a pretty stark relief. Facebook are just a horrific company that should be heavily regualted with a very heavy hand. We can loosen it some later when we're comfortable. Facebook are unelected - I tend toward libertarian but their power clearly must be curbed.
voxic11 6y ago
On the US government's request obviously. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23225080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23225080 https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/08/facebook-will-remove-posts-that-name-the-ukraine-whistleblower.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/08/facebook-will-remove-posts-t...

He claims that both Twitter and Facebook are severely throttling traffic to his site. Why? On who's request?

by lbj 6y ago

He claims that both Twitter and Facebook are severely throttling traffic to his site. Why? On who's request?

Synaesthesia 6y ago

It's possible they just decided to do it out of their own accord.

DSingularity 6y ago
Just like how Facebook regularly take down Palestinian posts which mention resistance — no way it’s at the behest of the Israeli occupation, right? I mean these are unverified claims and conspiracies. The traffic, however regular, must have just fizzled away. The posts must have spontaneously disappeared.

pjc50 6y ago

Kind of an unverifiable claim, surely? Mind you, I've heard claims that if you're getting too much "organic" reach on Facebook they'll de-prioritise you in order to make sure you buy adverts, in the context of completely apolitical small business promotion.

spiderfarmer 6y ago
That's absolutely true. Whenever one of the daily posts on my Facebook page does well, I have to stop posting for a couple of days because the next posts are throttled to the point where they are invisible. Most people will have to go to my page specifically in order to see the post, because it will not show in their timeline organically. After a couple of days of not posting I will get a normal amount of views again.
noworriesnate 6y ago
In the article he mentions that his own family isn't even getting notifications about his posts. So he verified it. I don't know how you and I would go about verifying it, but I believe him FWIW. > My own family have not been getting their notifications of my posts on either platform.
- pjc50 6y ago
  I don't mean how he would verify it, I mean how we might verify it.
  - DarthGhandi 6y ago
    I certainly hope anyone with that insight would contact him directly first rather than post it on hn for fake internet points so that the hundreds of Facebook and Twitter employees here don't see it instead to intervene first for their own benefit.
varispeed 6y ago
I had a quite successful blog and great organic traffic from Facebook. My blog was doing great monetising adverts, so I had some cash to reinvest. I bought some adverts on Facebook in hope to bring more awareness to my little blog and get more traffic. The moment I stopped buying ads my organic traffic was a small fraction of what it used to be. People were sharing the content organically, but it didn't have the same reach. I decided to never give Facebook more money after this and removed anything related to Facebook from my blog. That being said this has severely damaged its growth and I closed it a year or so later. I saw that blogs similar to mine grew quite big and I know they heavily spend on advertising. Part of me is thinking maybe I made a huge mistake and I should share my revenue with Facebook by means of buying ads, but I would always had this voice inside my head that I would be doing something unethical. I would understand if Facebook displayed information, for example: "Your post will not be shared to your friends, because linked website owner does not buy advertising". That would be fair, but they make people believe they genuinely can share things with friends, but instead it all goes in vain, in the name of greed.
- lbj 6y ago
  Definitely understand the conflict. Im not sure which direction is best, all I know is that the internet feels a lot smaller now than it did 10 years ago.
harry8 6y ago
So they're either censoring for political motive or censoring to levy a tax. Kind of throws the facebook defence against the idea that they should have to pay actual news outlets into a pretty stark relief. Facebook are just a horrific company that should be heavily regualted with a very heavy hand. We can loosen it some later when we're comfortable. Facebook are unelected - I tend toward libertarian but their power clearly must be curbed.

voxic11 6y ago

On the US government's request obviously. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23225080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23225080 https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/08/facebook-will-remove-posts-that-name-the-ukraine-whistleblower.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/08/facebook-will-remove-posts-t...