Hummingbird Receives a Censure from Facebook. Holy-Crap!
Hummingbird Receives a Censure from Facebook. Holy-Crap!
Yes, I’m afraid this is true. It would be laughable if it weren’t so maddening and offensive. I mean REALLY. Here is the story. We’d love to hear what you think about it. Please consider in context of the recent hearings during which Mark Zuckerberg promoted tenets of free speech, the company’s inability and unwillingness to marshal and monitor: false statements, geographic/demographic targeting for malicious purposes, bogus political ads and the like.
Hummingbird has been accused and censured for clickbait. What is clickbait you might ask? I asked the same thing, but figured it wasn’t a good thing and that it might be akin to bait and switch. Here is the notice and the punishment doled out.
Answer to was this helpful? NO! It was anything but helpful.
As best I can figure it, the FB team censured two posts that were noted as possibly indicating that salacious content was contained within, which sadly (or happily!) there was not. Thus “clickbait.” The content didn’t include what was anticipated (by FB). Both posts cited were recipes, and I guess the “sizzlers” posted, which I thought were succinct and right on point, were perceived as titillating? I am linking to the posts here. The FB comment that we posted for the slow roast spice rub was this: “No smoker? No problem.” Well I can see possibly taken out of context, it could be “spicy” especially when combined with a rub! Really Facebook? Really? And the second one was for Nanny’s Special Stuffing. In my Facebook description I did use the words “mouth watering” and perhaps in combination with stuffing that constitutes some kind of act that I blush to even think about, but really Facebook, really?
Facebook’s Explanation of Clickbait.
And just keeping this in context, per Zuckerberg there is no time, nor ability, nor willingness for FB to monitor false statements that actually COULD be deleterious to our country? REALLY FACEBOOK, REALLY???
The punishment Hummingbird has received is a reduced distribution of these two posts/recipes, so if in fact you missed them, I highly suggest you check them out. Note that Nanny’s Special Thanksgiving Stuffing has been a top performing recipe two years in a row. I was wondering why it didn’t get as many hits through FB as when it was previously posted! The statement in the notification also leads me to believe that the distribution of all of Hummingbird’s FB posts will be somehow restricted. I will be looking for evidence of that. The words arbitrary and stupid come to mind. Especially as there appears to be no way to refute or change this determination.
We removed the posts from the HB Facebook timeline, but of course they are still on the website. All said, it is humorous that goody-two-shoes Hummingbird, a safe place for contributors to post and readers to read is the subject of censure. We are so very careful with our content and include in our mission NOT to offend, exclude, vilify, or be mean to anyone! I’m sure I will get over it. But it kind of hurts our collective feelings in a ridiculous way. I thought Sheryl Sandberg et.al would be looking out for the little guys.
Hmmm. For me this makes the whole group over there highly unlikeable. I can’t help but think that perhaps the super genius algorithms are somewhat askew, and maybe this is just an out of control experiment, with enormous implications that are likely much farther reaching than Hummingbird. Humor and good-natured kidding aside, this has hurt our little community.
