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Sunday, May 27, 2012

Facebook Blocks Blogspot.ca

Yesterday I discovered that Facebook will no longer allow me to share links to this blog. Naturally I'm disappointed, since much of my readership comes from folks who follow those daily links.

Perhaps I'm paranoid, but I wonder if Facebook has categorized blogspot as "spammy" because blogspot is owned by arch-rival Google. If that's the case, then this seems to be a case of money-motivated censorship.

Many will argue that because Facebook is a business they have the right to censor what they will, but this action certainly seems to fly in the face of their business model, which urges users to share as much detail of their private lives as possible. Besides, if I'm going to be used by Facebook as a source of marketing data, then I think I have the right to complain about Facebook's decisions.

Maybe this is just a glitch, one that Facebook will correct today or the next day. But even if they reverse course, those of us trying to build an audience and a personal brand on the web should remember that we are very much at the mercy of the large corporations that seek to control the web. Blogspot is a wonderful service, but it could disappear tomorrow at the whim of a CEO. All the more reason to save your work offline...


4 comments:

Paco Perez said...

Hi , I got the same problem in facebook and also with the McAfee guys!! ...

I discovered that we can use blogspot.com instead.

or in my case blogspot.mx it also works.

I hope we can fix this issue with facebook, we need to spread the word. Good luck!

Frank,

http://deliciasprehispanicas.blogspot.ca/2012/05/no-more-blogspotca-in-facebook.html

Earl J. Woods said...

Thanks Frank! I've only seen a couple of other mentions of this problem on the web so far - I appreciate your response. I'll give your solutions a try tomorrow.

Steve Baric said...

Yeah, Blogger defaults their TLD to your geographic location now, but so far it looks like you can just replace the .CA with .COM when copying and pasting into your Facebook page. What really pisses me off is that they've DELETED old .CA links as well. Talk about draconian arrogance! Thanks for the warning, Facebook.

Anonymous said...

Everything digital could disappear at the whim of a CEO. Good point, one we should always keep in mind.