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Facebook CCPA compliance in California

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LDU Under CCPA California Facebook ads

Credit: Terms Feed


If you're running Facebook ads in California you need to know new policies that are going to affect if your ads are running or not.

The California Consumer Privacy Act

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) began on January 1, 2020, and as a result, many online platforms are making changes to how data is collected from residents of California.

July 1, 2020 was the deadline for businesses to become compliant with the new policy changes before the California Attorney General started enforcing this new law.

Regardless of where your business is located, if you run ads in California, you are affected.

Here are the cliff notes version of the CCPA:

  • Any business who collects a consumer data & personal information is required to disclose the categories and purposes of the personal info collected. Also a business can't collect added categories of personal information outside of what was disclosed.
  • The customers / consumers / the public can opt-out of their data being sold to third parties.
  • Consumers have the right to request companies to delete any personal info about the consumer that the company collected (with some exceptions).

Note: This applies to all businesses with revenue over $25 million, those that have information from over 50,000 users, and/or businesses who earn more than half their revenue from selling this user data.

How CCPA Affects Facebook Advertisers 

Remember the Cambridge Analytica scandal? In 2019 Facebook settled with the FTC for $5 billion due to data privacy breaches.

Additionally Facebook released a document showing data of 6 million Californians may have been shared, costing Facebook something like $17 billion minimum in fines.

CCPA is like the GDPR update made in Europe in 2018 with one big difference: unlike GDPR where users can “opt-in” to have their data collected, CCPA gives users the option to  “opt-out” of having their data collected (and sold) and places that responsibility on companies and advertisers to decide.

How does Facebook’s Limited Data Use tool ensure CCPA compliance?

Facebook LDU enables advertisers on the platform to specify which users’ data should be subject to CCPA data management regulations. The company has outlined the specific ways user data will be limited in their list of state-specific terms, which includes language indicating advertisers are solely liable for compliance with CCPA. 

The feature requires a simple modification to the existing Facebook PageView pixel so that Facebook can automatically detect whether or not a user is in California. Specifically, developers will need to include a string within the Facebook pixel for ‘dataProcessingOptions’ that will allow your business to specify its degree of CCPA compliance. 

The string will allow for an advertiser to control if it is identifying a user in California or if would prefer for Facebook to handle the auto-identification. Of course, the ambiguity here comes from the fact that CCPA is an “opt-out” focused law, rather than “opt-in” like GDPR. So when should you enable LDU? At all times? Only when a user identifies they don’t want to be tracked? That has been left up to the individual advertisers to decide—and to assume the associated risk. 

Limited Data Use Feature

Starting July 1st Facebook rolled out the Limited Data Use (LDU) policy. This limits the way Facebook user data is stored and processed for all California residents.


Well, now the LDU is now auto-enabled for every Facebook business account and all personal information shared through the following Facebook features:



Facebook’s Limited Data Use feature protects Facebook advertisers from violating consumer privacy laws outlined in CCPA. Advertisers have until October 20, 2020 to update the Facebook Pixel to be compliant with CCPA. Action is required to extend the transition period. If no action is taken, the LDU will end on August 1, 2020.

LDU Facebook Events in Ads Manager

The LDU is applied to every Facebook event by default. Data collection for these events is limited to California residents and won't be captured and used in products that used all of customer data in the past.

This is the pop up warning in Ads Manager you may see:



If your company doesn’t meet the CCPA requirements or you don’t run Facebook ads to California residents, you can choose to enable full data use to make sure that all Facebook events (flagged or unflagged) will collect the full amount of data collected.

Before taking any action – first determine if your business is even affected by CCPA. If not, you may just disable the LDU setting in Facebook so that your company can continue to collect data from the California residents you run ads to.

Search Engine Land, made this helpful graphic to breakdown the ins and outs:

LDU Under CCPA California Facebook ads

What Actions Should Brands Take?

The first question you need to answer is, “Does CCPA apply to my company?” Determine if your company is required to be compliant with CCPA guidelines. Note, the personal data of 50,000 “consumers, households, or devices” can be considered highly ambiguous, so you’ll want to think about all of the ways you currently store user data. 

Exempt

If your business is not required to be compliant with CCPA, then you will not be subject to the functions enforced by Limited Data Use. Once you have confirmed that this is the case, you can Enable Full Use of Customer Data within Facebook. (By toggling on “Enable Full Use of Consumer Data”, you will be manually overriding the automatic feature put in place by Facebook)

Limited Data Use Image
If you are exempt, or compliant, you can disable Limited Data Use prior to July 31st by “Enabling” this setting within the Facebook UI.

Non-Exempt

If your business is required to comply with CCPA requirements, then we recommend taking the following actions:

  1. Legal Review: Speak with your legal team about your organization’s broader approach to CCPA compliance. This will include things like your Privacy Policy, or “Do Not Sell My Information” form requirements. 
  2. Technical Compliance: In order to give users in California the ability to opt-out of sharing/selling their personal data, we recommend implementing a web compliance tool. Web compliance tools allow you to give users options regarding tracking and data processing. There are many solutions available, but we recommend the following three options: 
    1. CookieBot: https://www.cookiebot.com/en/
    2. OneTrust: https://www.onetrust.com/ 
    3. Clym: https://www.clym.io/ 
  3. Limited Data Use Flag: Review which actions a user may take that would change the way you may share their data with Facebook. Specifically, are they opting-out of tracking? If so, you will either need to block tracking completely, or you will need to apply a “Limited Data Use” flag to the pixel. 
    1. CCPA is an opt-out law: This means that by default a user is opted into sharing their data, so the default state should not be to have an LDU flag unless your legal team believes otherwise
    2. Blocking all tracking: If you allow a user to block all tracking, this should work in the same way as applying a Limited Data Use flag in your pixel. 
    3. It’s not just the pixel: All of the ways you pass data back to Facebook need to be accounted for (which a good web compliance tool will be able to handle for you) – the technical specs for other forms of data passback can be reviewed here.
  4. Enable Full Use of Customer Data within Facebook: Once you are compliant with CCPA guidelines and have decided if & when you want to update your pixel to include the LDU flag, you can Enable Full Use of Customer Data within Facebook. 

Ensure Facebook Pixel is LDU Complaint

For businesses who have a Facebook Pixel deployed via Google Tag Manager and have a dedicated Analytics/Development team member, you'll have to change the Facebook pixel's PageView event. (Hardcoded Facebook pixels can be updated the same way by a web developer.)

Changes to other Facebook pixel events in addition to the pageview event code may be needed but that depends on the amount of risk you want to take.

These modifications to the ‘dataProcessingOptions’ will allow Facebook to determine whether or not the user is a California resident and the degree of CCPA compliance your business has opted for.

Facebook wrote up some documentation on how their pixel should be updated to detail the dataProcessingOptions method before you call fbq(‘init’).

To disabled the Limited Data Use Mode use:

fbq(‘dataProcessingOptions’, []);

fbq(‘init’, ‘{pixel_id}’);

fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);

To enable LDU mode using geolocation, use:

fbq(‘dataProcessingOptions’, [‘LDU’], 0, 0);

To enable LDU for users and specify user geography:

fbq(‘dataProcessingOptions’, [‘LDU’], 1, 1000);

How Facebook Advertisers Feel The Impact of LDU

Retargeting campaigns will probably be the most affected by the LDU.

With LDU automatically enabled across all accounts on July 1, Californians are no longer included in pixel-based retargeting campaigns. If you already have retargeting campaigns set up that run in California these may be affected.

For example, if you're running ads to an audience on the west coast, and 75% of that audience is in California the LDU will take away your ability to see the other 25% of your audience and you can't use their data for retargeting ad campaigns.

Looking forward, there also may be a blow back onto conversion attribution window settings for Facebook users in California as well, and the issue of how this same info will be tabulated in Google Analytics.

Maybe Dean Kamen can invent a solution that protects user privacy but also doesn't stifle businesses who need ads run on Facebook to keep their doors open?

What do you think of the new LDU policy? If you need a Facebook ad policy expert, feel free to schedule a call here.

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant.

Get solid answers directly from the source instead guessing, googling, and playing roulette. Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled.

My clients have included the social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker, and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? Talk today. 

Scheduling a call is a big step in learning more about Facebook ad landing page policy.

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now!

If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

 

 

 

Facebook Reveals New Video Tips

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Have you jumped on board with one of the highest converting mediums for marketing yet? Video is king right now especially during the holiday season. [Read our last blog on HP moving to Texas here]

Video is number one for increasing engagement on social media platforms which also boosts brand awareness to help you end the year strong with increased profits.

Struggling with how to do this? We got you covered - Facebook just released 3 tips to help you improve your video marketing.

1. "Add a 3-5 second trailer to hold interest"

Facebook recommends adding a short preview of your video at the start of video clips. While this has been used frequently on YouTube it hasn't seen as much use on Facebook videos as a whole.

Essentially you'll want to paste a key snippet from your video and include in the beginning of the clip which helps to entice viewers to stick around and see what's next.

It's a short and sweet way to boost your engagement as well as increase the view time which helps you segregate retargeting campaigns per video view time.

Another deet Facebook mentioned is using the Creator Studio analytics to find out when you're losing viewers. Once you identify this, you can swap out blocks of content and add more exciting elements where you see folks dropping off.

2. "Frame the story - with a 4:5 aspect ratio"

Because everyone is on their smartphones, Facebook recommends we should create videos that are vertical not horizontal.

Facebook says:

"We live in a world were most people watch videos on mobile just inches from their face and often in vertical orientation rather than turning their phone to landscape. Try framing your visual story and build for vertical format. Editing your videos using a 4:5 aspect ratio may work best for your videos on Facebook."

Back at Facebook's research HQ they discovered some videos have seen a noticeable improvement in performance when switching from 19:9 orientation to 4:5.

3. "Engage your community - commenting on posts"

Facebook leaves us with one last video tip: increase engagement by responding to comments on video posts.

It's such a simple thing to do but you'd be surprised how many businesses never reply to comments on their videos. When you reply, customers feel included, and it builds brand loyalty as well.

If you can't find the time to do so, hire a social media manager to post on your social media pages and reply to the comments.

Facebook clarifies this further:

"Joining the conversation in the comments section of your own posts can delight your audience and maximize your reach. Longer comments, like sharing your own perspective on the discussion or answering questions, can spark even more engagement with your content."

Facebook also says you can reply to Facebook and Instagram video comments through the Inbox tab in Creator Studio, which some find easier to manage their activity from.

Also, Facebook has shared 5 pretty general tips for video creation:

Facebook video tips


Clearly these are pretty basic tips, you want to get your content creation strategy well defined too. Make sure to switch up the type of content to keep it interesting.

You can read Facebook's full set of video tips here.

What is a challenge you face with posting videos on Facebook?

Comment below!

Facebook disapprove your ad and won't tell you why?Need done-for-you FB ads? Schedule a time to talk to someone who worked at Facebook here.

 

                                              .  .  .

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The Blueprint for Social Media Marketing

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Benefits of social media marketing


Social media contains a wealth of chances for companies to show off their product or service to the world.

If you've read our Instagram Reels update you'll appreciate this guide for social media marketing.

Social media platforms not only provide the opportunity for friends and family to stay in touch and make connections, they also provide impactful ways for advertisers to start conversations with soon-to-be customers.

With the advent of widespread social media use across all age groups, consumers now have an expectation of interacting with brands. This opens up the door for countless possibilities for marketers to generate ways of increasing demand as well as broadening the horizon for potential reach.

Benefits of social media include:

Stimulate engagement with their target audience to build the know-like-and-trust factor.

Increase raving fans and brand loyalty. More engaging content generates more loyalty, which in turn creates more sales and extends the CTV of customers. Creating content with new updates, entertaining posts, informational videos all helps boost engagement.

Leverage the power of cross-posting: social media integrates well with multiple channels for a more diverse content distribution strategy.

Maintain the company message - when you have a situation, where there may be bad press for your business, advertisers can create their own new broadcast distributing updates and press releases to tell their side of the story.

When you have a large enough audience, with consistent branding, content and value this can counteract misleading headlines or misinformation with a broadcast through social media and/or email.

Generate new customers. Using value-driven offers, advertisers can inform and convert subscribers to a social media page into new customers.

Social Media Marketing Ad Campaigns:

Lead Generating Campaign

Lead gen is all about finding entirely new customers who previously may not have interacted with your product or service.

Lead gen campaigns are in essence content marketing with an offer attached where you give consumers a chance to press pause and discover more about your company.

Often the end goal isn't necessarily always financial conversions - but community-driven outreach. When new prospects join your community, this helps them take one more step towards not just becoming a customer but a lifelong fan. 

Social Media Ad Campaign Tips:

Do Market-Research to identify prospective customers.

Develop a list of keywords that appeals to this target audience.

Search pages and create a list of prospective customers prospects and take note of their social media behavior to find out how best to approach them.

Stay current & relevant.

Exchange the hard sell with content marketing related to your offer.

Create content like blog posts or videos, that is relevant to your audience with a lead-in to your offer or joining your community.

Boost engagement with open ended questions that start conversations.

Invest time in showing interest in your potential customers. Take note of their posts and respond in kind with content that their demographic enjoys.

This develops your brand as a valuable friend rather than a greasy used car salesman.

Authenticity generates more revenue than hard pitches.

Don't use fluff - actually provide content that is valuable. One way to do this is break off a small portion of a larger offer, such as a course, or an e-book and create lead magnets from it.

What are Retargeting Ads?

Retargeting - The Real Gold

A surprising amount of businesses don't make use of the Facebook pixel - which is a piece of java script that captures Facebook user data when they go to your website or landing page.

Retargeting now includes creating custom audiences from people who have interacted with your Facebook Page as well as website.

When you identify consumers who show interest in your product or service on social media and almost complete a check out but leave after adding an item to the cart - send them retargeting ads. These convert at a much higher rate because it's a warmed up audience.

Making Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

It's vital to create your social media marketing strategy ahead of time before just trying to convert users.

This includes determining what kind of content will work, whether it’s video, graphics, images, or text. Make sure you establish the tone, style, and where you may repeat content cross posting on multiple channels.

Choosing a Social Media Platform

The platform you pick should match the demographics of your audience. If you're targeting a younger Gen-Z crowd, you may want to go with Snapchat. Millennials? Use Facebook.

Platforms you can pick for your social media strategy include:

*Facebook
*Facebook Groups
*Instagram
*YouTube
*Twitter
*Snapchat
*Pinterest
*Linkedin

What's a win for you when designing and/or executing a social media marketing strategy? Comment below!

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead of guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled. My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? My calendar is here.

Tony Robbins

I get 100s of emails a week from businesses and advertisers asking for help when their facebook ad account keeps getting disabled, so my calendar gets booked fast. But if you want to get to the front, you can pre-pay for a consulting session here: Book a call

facebook ad account keeps getting disabled

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now! If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith and Trevor W Goodchild

AI Facial Recognition – Has It Gone Too Far?

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Right now the future of marketing is in AI - artificial intelligence - which employs systems with the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without programming (read last blog about Woke Capitalism here).

But when is this a violation of user privacy? How much is too much for demographic targeting?

AI-driven algorithms build a mathematical model based on sample data, known as "training data", in order to make predictions or decisions.

The way it’s used today can get pretty intimate about your personal details - especially with facial recognition software.

Machine learning correctly determines a lot about you — for example it can tell if you’ve recently got married, predict your sexual orientation, purchased a new home, whether you’re pregnant and even whether you’re about to quit your job.

Marketers can determine race based on the type of Facebook pages you like. Combine that with facial recognition software - and some scenarios feel like Will Smith in Enemy of the State.

Credit: BBC.com


The Chinese government track minorities such as the Uyghurs using facial recognition.

As Tech Crunch Reports:

“The database processed various facial details, such as if a person’s eyes or mouth are open, if they’re wearing sunglasses, or a mask — common during periods of heavy smog — and if a person is smiling or even has a beard.”

“The database also contained a subject’s approximate age as well as an “attractive” score, according to the database fields.”

“The Chinese government has detained more than a million Uyghurs in internment camps in the past year, according to a United Nations  human rights committee. It’s part of a massive crackdown by Beijing on the ethnic minority group. Just this week, details emerged of an app used by police to track Uyghur Muslims.”

The world's largest association of computing professionals,The Association for Computing Machinery, is calling for an "immediate suspension" of the private and governmental use of facial recognition technologies for "technical and ethical reasons."

NBC News reports:

"The technology too often produces results demonstrating clear bias based on ethnic, racial, gender, and other human characteristics recognizable by computer systems," the group's U.S. Technology Policy Committee said in a statement.

"Such bias and its effects are scientifically and socially unacceptable."

"The association acknowledged that facial recognition technology can be "benign or beneficial," but it said its use has "often compromised fundamental human and legal rights of individuals to privacy, employment, justice and personal liberty."

At the end of 2019, researchers for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency of the Commerce Department, discovered facial recognition algorithms falsely identified African American and Asian faces 10 to 100 times more often than Caucasian faces — a glitch proven with the wrongful arrest of Robert Williams.

It isn’t just the abuse of power from ruling classes that may cause many to raise an eyebrow - it’s also the potential of data leaks to jeopardize vulnerable groups of people targeted by racist or religious persecutors.

Security lapse exposed a Chinese smart city surveillance system


On the flip side, activists have used facial recognition, powered by AI to identify police officers who hide their badge numbers in cases of police brutality.

“For a while now, everyone was aware the big guys could use this to identify and oppress the little guys, but we’re now approaching the technological threshold where the little guys can do it to the big guys,” Andrew Maximov, a developer working on a similar project, told the NYT.

“It’s not just the loss of anonymity. It’s the threat of infamy.”

Credit: www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/


How AI-Driven Facial Recognition Works

Facial recognition is built from proprietary algorithms and has 3 main phases:

Detection, Attribution and Recognition.

Detection locates a face inside a picture.

Attribution maps points on a face using the distance between the eyes, the shape of the jaw line, the space between the nose and mouth. Then it converts this into a string of numbers called a “faceprint”

Recognition is where your identity is associated with the figure in the photo.

AI machines are fed thousands of photos to train the machine to recognize faces, the more diverse the collection of photos are the better the algorithm gets at identifying people in the photo.

A Brief Timeline of Facial Recognition

Facial recognition’s first giant shift to the public limelight was in 2001 with much controversy. In 2001, US law enforcement used facial recognition on crowds at Super Bowl XXXV. Critics accurately described it as a violation of Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

Originally started by Woodrow Wilson Bledsoe who developed a system of data point measurements to classify photos of faces in the 1960s unnamed organizations funded his research that was never publicly published. There is evidence indicating the police were interested from the beginning in facial recognition.

2001 also saw the first widespread police use of the technology with a database operated by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, now one of the largest local databases in the country.

Fast forward to 2008, when Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act went into effect, becoming the first law of its kind in the US to regulate the illegal collection and storage of your biometric information, including photos of faces.

Enter the 2010s which jumpstarted the more modern era of facial recognition. The introduction of neural networks made facial recognition a standard feature.

Three years later in 2011, facial recognition confirmed the identity of Osama bin Laden.

In 2014, Facebook publicly revealed its DeepFace photo-tagging software, the same year Edward Snowden released documents showing the depth that the US government was collecting images to build a database of your personal information.

One year later in 2015, Baltimore police used facial recognition to identify people who protested Freddie Gray being killed by the police, breaking his spine while in a police van.

Target revealed a teen was pregnant to her father through sending her coupons for baby items and that was one of the bigger headlines about machine learning in advertising as well.

As of 2020, Microsoft will ban police use of its controversial facial-recognition systems while Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai suggests a temporary ban, as recently suggested by the EU, might be a good step in the right direction.

The Sophistry of Compliance

Facial recognition—the software that maps, analyzes, and then identifies the identity of a face in a photo or video—is one of the most powerful surveillance tools ever made.

It's so part of everyday life as many use facial recognition just as a way to unlock their smartphones or organize their pictures, it's easy to just accept. But how big corporations and governments use it is going have a much bigger effect on our lives.

If it's your phone or computer that you own, you can opt out of or turn off facial recognition, but the prevalence of cameras everywhere makes this tech more and more difficult to avoid in the public space.

Serious concerns about this prevalence are magnified by increased evidence of racial profiling and protester identification.

This has motivated Fortune 500 companies, like Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft, to put a moratorium on selling their software to law enforcement.

Yet, these will end as moratoriums are only for a designated amount of time. Each year, certain types of tech get cheaper and cheaper - the same is happening with facial recognition tech getting both cheaper and more effective.

This brings up hard questions that we all need to answer on how to regulate facial recognition, and the moral compromises many are blasé about making now but have and will jeopardize individual privacy rights.

What do you think? Has the AI machine learning gone too far with facial recognition? Do you want to be tracked at work on whether or not you’re day dreaming or staring at a screen?

If you’d like to opt out for Facebook using facial recognition on you, here’s their page for that:

An Update About Face Recognition on Facebook


Comment below with your thoughts on machine learning and facial recognition: what is acceptable and what is going too far?

Read more about how facial recognition software works here

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead of guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled. My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? My calendar is here.

Tony Robbins

I get 100s of emails a week from businesses and advertisers asking for help when their facebook ad account keeps getting disabled, so my calendar gets booked fast. But if you want to get to the front, you can pre-pay for a consulting session here: Book a call

facebook ad account keeps getting disabled

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now! If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith and Trevor W Goodchild

The New Facebook Design: How to Switch Back to Classic

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Facebook just rolled out the mandatory new Facebook design for their platform and many people hate it.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced during the 2019 annual F8 Developer’s conference (@ 26:52) that Facebook is getting a massive redesign “to make Facebook easier to navigate.”


(F8 Cliffnotes here)

The new Facebook design “FB5” has a lot of white space everywhere and is intended to have a greater emphasis on Groups and Events. This means the Facebook News Feed will be less front-and-center.

You can have white space without having wasted space and everything scrunched up in the center.

But…it is supposed to reduce clutter?


The new design while saying that it’s made to reduce clutter, in fact actually makes everything look 10X more cluttered due to exaggerated ratios of white space between icons, News Feed, Messenger and more.

It's one thing to make a website more secure, but it's quite another to add increased time for scrolling for the same amount of info due to how far apart everything is space and of course additional lag time.

Can Google Duplex order me a new Facebook?

Credit Ad Week


Mark Zuckerberg’s intention is to restore the public’s trust in Facebook by ensuring that Facebook users have greater protection of their privacy but at what cost? If Facebook isn't fun & easy to use aesthetically, Mark is taking the big L.

Steve Jobs had a near genius level gift for aesthetic design, which is why Apple is one of the most popular companies for mobile phones and computers.

The popularity of iPhones and MacBooks isn’t just about their content, it’s in the sleek design that makes them easy to use as well as simply looking nice sitting on your bedside nightstand or coffee table.

MacBooks are notoriously harder to break into for viruses than Windows computers which adds to their appeal.

But, back to aesthetics - on this reddit post many users who are software engineers and gamers who use large computer monitors at home report on the challenges the new design presents:


The reality is, despite fans of the new Facebook design saying that it's geared towards younger people who are on their smartphones more, there are plenty of young people who are gamers.

From 8 year olds to 20 somethings, gaming - especially during Covid shut downs and stay-at-home orders - is a huge industry with millions of people actively gaming every day.

Gamers use large monitors for their daily internet tasks, as everyone else who is working from home right now may also use from 19 inch monitors on the small side to 62 inches on the larger side.

So what is the motivation for angering millions of people here and making a new Facebook design that is a copycat of Twitter?

Zuck has 6 components he wants Facebook to follow with the new design and going forward into the future for Facebook post 2020:

1. Private interactions - simple intimate spaces where you have clear control over who you’re communicating with.

2. End-to-end encryption - to exclude even Facebook from seeing your conversations

3. Reduced permanence - that your data won’t be stored forever with Facebook internally and won’t use your stories and messages later to come back and hurt you.

4. Safety - Facebook is going to attempt to build safety in for the shift of the new Facebook design.

5. Interoperability - the ability to seamlessly transition from using one Facebook owned asset like Instagram to another like WhatsApp.

6. Secure data storage - that Facebook won’t store your sensitive data in countries where dictators can just command Facebook to reveal your info.

From my time working at Facebook I can share that keeping these promises is going to be 100 times harder than it sounds.

Especially the reduced permanence.

There are so many rabbit holes with saved and cached data, and old files that I seriously doubt Facebook can honor that promise.

New access rules are coded into the new Facebook design to automatically flag perceived security threats as you use Facebook.

This brings into question, how many times will you be accidentally - or permanently - locked out of your Facebook Profile because of a glitch in the automations?

Many Facebook users know what I'm talking about, having to present their driver's license to a panel of strangers just to access their Facebook profile. Or marketers who get locked out of their ad account because of false flags.

Also Facebook’s new Lightspeed project for making Facebook Messenger faster - all of this sounds nice in theory but it appears like Facebook didn’t survey their users to find out what people actually like.

Welcome to the new FB5:



There’s a way to code privacy into a new design without losing the features of the existing design that people everywhere know, like and love.

Comments from an article by The Verge echo this sentiment:


The Search Engine Journal (SEJ)reported on this as well:


It appears the Facebook engineers are copying Twitter’s design - but again, if Facebook users wanted a mobile website design they would open their phones. It isn’t enjoyable to use a mobile website on your desktop. 
Critique on this reddit thread includes: “There are UI/UX rules and patterns for every platform. These "redesigns" are blatantly slapping mobile UX on desktop and decimating efficiency, which is what desktop is about.”

And “also it hardly shows any posts from pages. I shouldn't have to click on each individual page I follow to see their posts. That's a complete waste of time.”

The comments many made while humorous also pointed out design flaws:

“Is that why literally everyone hates these new bubbly huge shit designs ? They found out what? that straight corners are too oppressive? That decently sized buttons and texts are blindophobic? Enjoy your non oppressive bubbles and kid design…”

Literally everyone I know hates this design. Everyone. Why didn't Facebook do beta tests first and survey the people actually using the platform?

Determining if this design literally drives people off the platform to Facebook's competitors should have been numero uno on the to-do list before forcing everyone to roll out to a new design.

The problem is simple: giant icons make it harder to digest content on the Newsfeed. It's a big picture book instead of People Magazine with pictures and text. Facebook isn't Instagram. There are separate demographics for each platform even if Facebook owns both.

While I’m sure, given a year or so, we will all adapt and get used to the new design and maybe even reverse our opinions (I won’t though), there are important draw backs to note in the new design that even getting used to using won’t compensate for the loss of business revenue when folks leave Facebook due to decreased ease-of-use.

This is what I wrote Facebook when they still offered the option to switch back to the original design and asked me why I wanted to switch:

“The current design was working great - I could look and skim and click on what interests me."

"When you add extra scrolling to see the same info this increases obstacles to getting to the end result - content I like and enjoy that builds connections and keeps me on the platform.”

“I don't have the patience and neither does anyone else, to have to scroll for a longer period of time just to see 5 posts and determine if they interest me."

"It's like running an ad to a landing page and asking people to fill out a 50 question survey just to get a free ebook.”

“Not going to happen. The average attention span of someone is short, you have about 3 seconds to grab their attention at the start of an ad. It takes A LOT more than 3 seconds to see the same amount of posts - you are reducing the content consumable on Facebook for Facebook users by doing this.”

Needless to say, Facebook never replied and continued the roll out - which if spaced over 6 months maybe would have been more digestible instead of spaced over 2 months.

My critique is when you introduce more barriers between what people want (eg. content, connections, viewing their friends and liked Pages info) you reduce conversion rates for ads run on Facebook and people staying on Facebook.

So many people dislike the new design that there is even a Chrome plug in to trick Facebook into thinking you’re using an older browser and force it to revert to the original design.

Chrome Plug in for Regular Facebook Design called “Old Layout:”

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-layout-for-facebook/abmkkackbbimmdbfjdilpnfaegaeagge

Also Revert Site offers a plug in to get you back your original Facebook here too:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/revert-site/cdnkbhnblhjdjifeibckehifjocllaja

Also this plug in:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/switch-to-classic-design/oancckmjgaoejmbedngcoiakblhacbog

Lifehacker’s article goes into a few details about it that I mention above too.

Old Facebook design For Mozilla Firefox users:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/old-layout-for-facebook/

Lastly there’s a User Agent Switch plug in that’s supposed to work pretty well too:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/user-agent-switcher/kchfmpdcejfkipopnolndinkeoipnoia/related

This might end up being just a temporary fix. Facebook changes their settings often and there could be a change coming that will the plugins from working.

It’s possible that Facebook features could be missing. The plugins can alter how the page is displayed, but they can’t restore features that Facebook might have disabled on their end.

I’m using the Old Layout Chrome plug in and so far everything looks fine.

Please review the permissions required for the plugins. I’m not BFFs with the plugin authors, so I can’t personally vouch for the security of the underlying code.

What do you think of the new Facebook design, FB5? Comment below!

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7 Facebook Cover Photo Tips 2020

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Image Source: https://www.cheapwebdesign.co.uk/


1. Make Sure to Follow Facebook's Rules for Facebook Pages

Make sure you have Facebook guidelines bookmarked and review them before creating your Facebook cover. Breaking these rules can result in your whole Page being taken down - which would be a bit silly when you explain to your clients that you aren't able to advertise for them because of your Facebook cover photo. So know them and follow em!

2. Facebook Cover Photo Size: 820 Pixels Wide By 312 Pixels Tall On Desktop

So you spent an hour designing the perfect Facebook Cover Photo and then you go to upload it but your killer CTA line is cut off. Shucks! All of that could have been prevented by just getting the right dimensions.

If you upload an image smaller than 820 Pixels Wide By 312 Pixels, Facebook will stretch it to fit the right size which can distort your image and we don't want that.

If you want to avoid the hassle of resizing your cover photos you can just use one of these handy templates, and it's ready-set-go:

Canva FB Cover Photo Template

pre-sized template for Facebook cover 

Poster My Wall FB Cover Template

To be honest, sometimes you just have to mess with it until the picture fits, if you aren't using the templates. For example, my ecommerce store cover photo fits perfectly but isn't the Facebook standard dimensions for cover photos, it's 2232 × 822:


3. Keep Your Cover Photo Visually Striking Not Busy

If you've ever seen a photo with a lot of things going on in it, you know that it's like a visual representation of a head ache. No one wants all that going on!

Keep that text concise, and images simple with clean lines and primary color contrasts. Use 1, maximum 2 info graphics. Here are few Facebook Cover Photos that really work:


Here you can see Uber has identified their target audience - consumers who need a driver, pointed out how they can book a driver with a smartphone image of their app, and created a visually striking contrast between the black and white colors.

The map grid in the background is almost a subtle unconscious influence to get you thinking about where you want to go using their ride share service.



Social Media Examiner is using their Facebook Cover photo to advertise their upcoming YouTube marketing summit. You have their summit's name just to the right, with brand colors present and kayakers symbolizing the teacher-student relationship - very well done!

Last but not least, luxury brand Louis Vuitton has an elegant yet simple design of motion going from left to right as most people read, from an airplane that may symbolize a private jet from the upper echelons of the financial earners:



4. Keep Your Audience In Mind

You want to instantly strike a chord with your target audience, and while it's fun to get creative, don't get carried away. Keep your intentions in line with your brand colors and cover photo.

Social media accounts are extensions of your business - this is your digital store front. So you want a call to action, and a message to speak to your target audience.

5. Make Sure Your Cover Photo is Mobile-Friendly

Look at any metrics for ads and you'll see more and more people are viewing Facebook ads on their smart phones than on a laptop or desktop computer.

If your cover photo is beautifully designed, but looks janky on mobile, you've just lost a sale. So do the work and make sure your cover photo is optimized for mobile too.

Your cover photo displays at 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall on desktop, it displays only the center 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall on smartphones. Take a look at this Facebook help document for more information.

6. Use A Pinned Post As a CTA That Matches Your Cover Photo

This a nice little hack: pin a post that matches your cover photo's brand colors and message:


This helps the flow of a Facebook user, which your scroll stopping Facebook cover photo attracted, to follow through and view your offer immediately beneath the cover photo after arriving at your page.

To pin a Facebook post: Simply publish the post to Facebook, then click the three dots on the top right corner of the post and choose "Pin to Top."

facebook-pin-to-top.png
7. Facebook Cover Videos

You also have the option of putting in a video for your Facebook cover photo too.

Post a Facebook cover video by saving a video file at 820 pixels wide by 426 pixels tall to your desktop. Open your Facebook Business page, click "Change Cover" at the top-left of your cover photo, and select "Upload Photo/Video." This allows you to format and publish the desktop file to your Facebook page.

Facebook accepts cover videos between 20 and 90 seconds long, and a minimum of 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall. The maximum (and recommended) size is 820 by 462 pixels with a video resolution of 1080p.

Here are some of my favorite Facebook cover videos:

Nokia

Facebook cover video by Nokia


REI

Facebook cover video by REI

WIRED Magazine

Facebook cover video by WIRED Magazine


HubSpot

Facebook cover video by HubSpot Academy

I hope you enjoyed today's blog, (last blog was on Oracle partnering with TikTok)

Post your Facebook Business Page Cover Photo below!

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Congress Challenges Big Tech Monopolies

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Credit: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Evan Vucci, Jeff Chiu, Jens Meyer


Wednesday, July 29th, the 4 companies that make up Big Tech, Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook faced off with Congress on allegations that their business's monopolistic practices stifle competition unfairly, breaking antitrust laws.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Apple’s Tim Cook testified (remotely) on the anti-competitive behavior of their companies.

The House Judiciary Committee began this investigation over a year ago and collected over 1.3 million documents about these business practices.

This marks the 1st time that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, whose net worth is 181 BILLION dollars, has ever faced Congress.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL PRINCE/FORBES COLLECTION


Big Tech CEOs appeared virtually before Congress for 5 hours facing relentless criticism of their business practices. Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos' opening statement was:

“Just like the world needs small companies, it also needs large ones,”

The Committee Chairman Rep. David Cicilline likened the CEOs to kings and said Congress wasn’t going to bow down to them.

Graeme Jennings | Credit: AP


‘Your ability to dictate terms, call the shots, upend entire sectors, inspire FEAR resemble the powers of a private government. Our founders would not bow before a king, nor should we bow before the emperors of the online economy.”

Then the lawmakers cited details on the executives emails and internal documents they’d acquired, and pressuring Big Tech CEOs to explain how they got their market dollars.

Amazon’s antitrust investigation was considered less in depth as questions asked of Google and Facebook but there were some pointed questions asked.

These included how Amazon treats and handles 3rd party sellers on its website to whether or not the company properly regulates knock offs and counterfeit products.

Credit: Bloomberg


Rep. Hank Johnson asked:

“Why isn’t Amazon responsible for keeping all counterfeit products off of its platform?”

Jeff Bezos replied:

“We do a lot to prevent counterfeiting. We have uh, a team of more than a thousand people that does this.”

Lawmakers cited a Wall Street Journal report from April this year that stated Amazon.com Inc. employees have used data about independent sellers on Amazon to develop competing products, at odds with their own stated policies.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal asked:

“Does Amazon ever access and use 3rd party seller data when making business decisions? And a yes or no will suffice sir.”

Amazon CEO Bezos replied:

“I can’t answer that question ‘yes’ or ‘no’ what I can tell you is we have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private label business but I can’t guarantee you that that policy hasn’t been violated.”

Which essentially means, yes, Amazon has data mined independent sellers’ data to compete against them but, will assign blame later to a scape goat. Maybe a few contract employees will get fired.

When your company gets big, it's good to remember why we do this, so humanity doesn't get lost just crunching numbers.

What do consumers in America actually feel about Big Tech’s dominance of the market?

72% of U.S. adults believe big tech companies have too much “power and influence” in politics, per a Pew Research survey conducted in June, while an Accountable Tech/GQR Research poll in July found 85% of respondents believe they have too much power in general. [Source: Forbes]

Google was playing for higher stakes because of how advanced the anti trust investigation is against them. The other 3 companies aren’t facing as serious of a monopoly charge as Google is facing.

It’s highly likely there will be a new law suit filed against Google in the coming months.

Congress asked questions relevant to their ongoing investigation against Google. One of which was how often does Google tailor search results to keep people on Google instead objective data, and info other websites provide?

Committee chairman Rep. David Cicilline asked:

“Did Google ever use its surveillance over web traffic to identify competitive threats?”

Google CEO Sundar Pichai responded:

“Congressman, just like other businesses, we try to understand trends from uh you know data we can see.We use it to improve products for our users,”

Almost the entire rest of Google’s time at the hearing was defending itself against charges that its search results don’t favor republicans.

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook didn’t get as many questions.

Most of the questions Apple got related to the App Store, and whether when a consumer is searching for apps if the search results favor apps Apple engineers over competitor apps.

Rep. Hank Johnson asked:

“Does Apple not treat all app developers equally?”

Cook replied,

“Sir we treat every developer the same. We have open uhhhh and transparent rules. It’s a rigorous process. Because we care so deeply about privacy, security and quality, we do look at every app before it goes on…”

Cook said that Apple acts fairly, pointing to the diversity of apps on the app store, as well as the benefits to consumers in having a wide selection instead of just Apple-made apps.

Facebook’s CEO Zuckerberg got many questions on misinformation and perceived political bias on the many social media companies they own.

Zuck replied:

“We do not want to become the arbiters of truth. I think that would be a bad position for us to be in.”

Speaking to the charges of monopolizing social media sectors, there were questions about social media companies Facebook has bought such as Instagram.

Ant-trust investigations into this exposed internal Facebook emails Mark Zuckerberg sent around the time of these acquisitions.



Rep. Joe Neguse said:

“Facebook also tried to buy other competitive startups…in fact you did tell one of Facebook’s senior engineers in 2012 that you can quote:

‘Likely just buy any competitive startup but it will be a while before we can buy Google.’

Do you recall writing that email?”


Facebook CEO Zuckerberg replied:

“Uh Congressman, I don’t specifically but it sounds like a joke.”


Zuckerberg pointed out that his acquisition of Instagram was approved at the time by regulators.

A key takeaway is that Congress did their research this time to actually understand more of how these Big Tech companies work and had better questions.

Top down view shows that these companies will continue to be under the microscope from both sides of the aisle.

The House antitrust subcommittee is going to release a report in the aftermath of this hearing with recommendations on changes to antitrust laws - in regards to Big Tech’s monopoly.

Federal Trade Commission investigations in the states are going to use some of the information revealed in this hearing to further their cases.

What's concerning is that if Google is filtering results from your Google searches to reveal less than the truth - this manipulates your perception of reality.

If Google search results only cater to their advertisers and things that support their platform - this is literally creating life choices for billions of people who view the same data as objective.

It wouldn't be an issue if there was a real space for other search engines to compete, but Bing is dead, Duck Duck Go is used by only a small minority and Yahoo search is a joke.

With Google being used by everybody...this is where being a monopoly causes issues:


How do you think antitrust laws should change in regards to Big Tech?

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Trevor W. Goodchild

Does Facebook Only Promote Sad Reacts? No – It Goes Deeper

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The content that you see on social media, or Facebook at least, is not as random as you may think it is. The Facebook algorithm is how Facebook decides which posts users see, and in what order, every time they check their newsfeeds.

Credit: Hootsuite.com


In the early days, when the Facebook algorithm was born, in 2009, posts were sorted based on popularity.
But, after more time passed, Facebook decided to just do what ever they could to keep Facebook users on the platform. The reasoning is that the more time Facebook users are on Facebook, the more they can be advertised to.

Right now there is a lot of negativity on Facebook. There are positive posts too but many news articles state that negative talking points are organically being supported more than positive by the Facebook algorithm.

While Facebook is free to use, Mark Zuckerberg pays the bills through advertisers paying him ad money to run advertisements on the platform.

The more time people spent on Facebook, the more money goes to the shareholders of Facebook.

Facebook's Shareholders

Mark Zuckerberg, with a net worth of $54.7 Billion dollars according to Forbes, holds over 400 million shares of Facebook, comprising a market value of around $82.2 billion.

The Vanguard Group Inc., an investment management company, holds approximately 184.0 million shares of Facebook with a combined market value of about $37.7 billion.

BlackRock an asset and investment management firm, holds about 158.2 million shares of Facebook with a combined market value of $32.3 billion.

FMR LLC, a financial services company holds approximately 123.6 million shares of Facebook with a combined market value of $26.1 billion.

T. Rowe Price is an investment management company offering portfolio management, equities, fixed income, asset allocation, and holds about 107.8 million shares of Facebook totaling a combined market value of $22.1 billion. Source: Investopedia

Facebook Algorithm Changed to Prioritize Friends & Fam

 

Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2018 that going forward, one of the biggest changes with Facebook was that the algorithm would be modified to prioritize friends and family posts instead of just advertisers' posts.

However, that's not what happened. Instead of seeing more communities of friends and families created, studies revealed that over 50% of increased engagement was paired with increased divisiveness, outrage and angry reactions.

At the same time, the way the Facebook algorithm prioritized content ended up supporting fringe posts on fake news from scam artists and spammers who knew how to work the engagement algorithm.

If It Bleeds It Reads

Journalism, in the news media has always had a slant for things that are negative. Despite the fact that there are also more positive topics that are newsworthy -- these are often ignored to prioritize the shock and awe and graphic violence stories.

So much so, there is even a catch-phrase that journalists use: “If it bleeds it reads.”

In a sense, Facebook has just allowed itself to become prey to the same ideology with one big predator creating the most amount of unhappy feelings in millions of people’s lives as they scroll the newsfeed: Fox News.

“Angry” is the top reaction when it comes to political content, though not other types of content. Fox News hired social media managers who knew how to bleed the hearts of millions through divisive negative stories on Facebook:

Credit: newswhip.com


It's clear Faux News knows exactly what they are doing, and do it well. Creating content that is negative and hateful will get more reactions, with a consistent narrative, posting schedule and relentless factory of discontented posts.

That's not the entire story though. There are plenty of other stories and posts that have gotten a high number of reactions that are positive. Posts about babies, pets, and baking cookies also have gotten incredible amounts of reach.

Over 2 MILLION engagements were drawn to the So Yummy Facebook Page's post on 12 cookie decorating hacks:

Credit: newswhip.com


So while many decry Facebook as having the intention of hurting people's feelings and spreading discontent, this isn't reality. Reality isn't one single narrative. When you subscribe to only one way of thinking you miss out on what's happening in the periphery.

The reality is, Facebook is a tool, and if bad characters spend more time on learning how to use this tool and get more adept at distributing content with higher engagement - they will dominate the Facebook Newsfeed.

Credit: Anthony Quintano



What's curious is how many people seem to miss out on the fact that reactions such as the laugh react and love react, if prioritized in high numbers also drive just as much engagement on Facebook.

The narrative that keeps getting repeated is that Facebook is only supporting negative content, when studies by NewsWhip for instance, show this simply isn't true.

NYU professor Scott Galloway, who is known for his outspoken views on Facebook - and someone whose perspective I value - has also missed this essential fact as well in a recent interview with Fast Company:

"What these companies [eg Facebook] have done is created a business model where the most incendiary, upsetting, controversial, and oftentimes false and damaging things get more oxygen than they deserve because we are a tribal species and when people say things that are upsetting we tend to engage. Engagement equals enrichment. The more rage equals the more clicks equals the more Nissan ads. So these algorithms have figured out that if you promote the flawed junk science of anti-vaxxers, it increases shareholder value. There is a population of people out there that believe vaccinations are bad, and they should be heard. But they should not dominate health news so that you start getting these stories from your friends on Facebook. It starts adding legitimacy, and then there’s a trend around anti-vaccination, and more two- and three-year-old boys and girls have their limbs amputated because of an outbreak of measles which we thought we had conquered 30 or 40 years ago."

While there is definitely a lot of truth to what Galloway speaks of, as far as accountability, fact-checking, anti-trust laws not being enforced on big tech companies like Facebook & Google - he misses the point that there is more than one narrative here.

Positive stories get distribution and crazy amounts of reactions too - just share a photo or video of a puppy and see how many reactions and likes it gets. But - as stated before, when companies who want to use negativity to drive reactions put their posting in overdrive, it will definitely also create massive social media engagement.

One headline I've read recently said,

"Facebook Prioritizes What Makes You ‘Sad’ Or ‘Angry’ Over What You ‘Like’" 


and yet this is false - as reactions aside from the likes, also include the wow, laugh, love and new Care react - not just sad or angry.

Later on in the article the author says:

"...all reactions are weighted the same, which means the News Feed prioritizes things you “love” equally to things that make you “angry” or “sad.”"

But the headline stated only the negative emotions.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯


This is an example of cherry-picking info to frame a story to support a bias. A pre-existing narrative being told instead of examining the data and seeing the full picture. How you use a tool determines the emotional outcome.

What's even more disturbing is how willing the public is to accept a pre-framed narrative without investigating it, reactions become almost robotic. (Read Great Leaders Don't Create Robots for more tips on leadership).

Ironically, a lot of the trite dialogue on social media, could have been written by a computer algorithm as it's one person trading talking points they didn't think up, or research themselves with another who is doing the same thing.

People don't study anything that doesn't already confirm their existing bias, and look for things on Facebook to support this rather than research their own beliefs.

It would be great to see folks get informed beyond the 3 primary outdated emotionally charged talking points on posts shared without even googling origins of the info and fact checking with multiple sources.

Forgive me, perhaps I am biased about people who are biased, as I worked at a college instructing students on how to cross reference primary and secondary sources. Authenticating data sources is important before becoming emotionally invested in what you think is the absolute truth. But back to Facebook.

It seems like there is a lot of opportunity right now to prey upon people's fears on social media, but there are just as many opportunities to encourage hope, trust and faith that things will get better.

I've seen posts celebrating the bravery of health care workers get amazing distribution, positive reactions and countless likes.

Don't fall victim to a one-story narrative, examine all sides, cross reference sources to make sure you aren't being fed a one dimensional version of a 5 dimensional reality.

I encourage individual Facebook users, as well as companies and entrepreneurs, to use the tools we have wisely. To do our best to create networks that support authenticity, mutual respect and a narrative that promotes sustainable social networks.

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