A major chaos occurred when The New York Times and The Guardian revealed that Cambridge Analytica misused the data of some 50 million Facebook users.
Yes! 50 MILLION FACEBOOK USERS!
Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg encountered mounting pressure regarding privacy issues and safety. In Washington DC, Zuckerberg faced the Senate and House Committees which resulted in the introduction of new terms for the use of customer data, tracking and measurement. Other significant changes in Facebook Insights on how marketers are allowed to access and leverage the data was approved as per General Data Protection Regulation standards and will apply globally as from May 25, 2018.
Facebook’s initial response to make social network data better was to introduce more precautions and safety measures, hence it announced-“We will restrict developers’ data access even further to prevent other kinds of abuse. For example, we’ll require developers to not only get approval but also sign a contract in order to ask anyone for access to their posts or other private data.”
Facebook has become an important tool for business success and cannot be ignored. Here’s a summary of the key changes and shifts to the terms that should be kept in mind.
1. Require domain verification
If you are wondering why you can no longer edit organic or unpublished page posts, the answer is here. Since November 2017, Facebook has made Domain Verification a must within Facebook Business Manager. The domain ownership functionality improves and controls the integrity of Facebook’s contents and manages the existing workflows more efficiently. This prevents misinformation through falsely modified link previews and passes on real information to users.
2. Facebook container extension
Have you noticed recently how Mozilla isolating your identity into a separate container from Facebook?
Since March 27, Mozilla introduced Facebook Container Extensions for its Firefox web browser. This has enabled Facebook to prevent a third-party from tracking your activity on other websites and mixing information about your activity on websites outside of Facebook.
3. Decreasing the role of external publishing tools
With the changed terms, Facebook has disabled several functions relating to third-party tools. For example, you cannot tag any Facebook ‘s pages in a post created via external publishing tools. However, you can tag the same pages via Facebook’s publishing tools.
If you have created Facebook Events, these are not permitted to be monitored and analysed or the activities are reported via third-party tools. You now need to visit Facebook’s Event page to track and report.
4. Shutting down partner categories
On 28th March 2018, Facebook announced that partner categories will be removed: the product that allows third-party data providers to provide advertisers with targeting information through Facebook directly. However, advertisers can create custom audiences from the data that they have the rights and permission to use.
5. Restrict data access for apps
Facebook is pausing app reviewing on Facebook. All third-party apps will need approval from Facebook directly and admin to be able to access the member’s list or events. Also, it needs to approve app request information like check-ins, posts, events, photos. Apps also require Facebook’s approval to access Pages API which allows them to read posts or comment from any pages.
Facebook’s GDPR adjustments are the first step towards fixing its data privacy problems. With Facebook starting its new data privacy settings, it is important to adapt to these changes and develop your Facebook business pages accordingly.
Have any questions about these changes and updates?
Book Prabin Gautam as a mentor to guide you through the process of these updates and manage your Facebook Business Pages.
