Facebook: censoring your wall, not your porn

Woman with her breasts covered by a bandeau top that says censored

This photo was taken at the 2004 Adult Expo, and featured in Life Magazine!

Since the release of the new Facebook Fan Page updates the glamour of the cool changes are wearing off and some of the problems are starting to come to light.  The biggest problem is the wall, which is no longer showing all your posts.  Facebook has added an algorithm to the wall that prioritizes posts by popularity.  Beyond that, it chooses which ones to show and which ones to hide.  Interestingly enough, this has nothing to do with content.  Porn on your wall? Sure, it is a problem for Facebook but not for the algorithm.

Page owners and fans are noticing that not all posts are showing up on the wall. Unfortunately there is not much that can be done about it.

There are 2 setting for viewing posts on your wall:

1. Everyone

Posts by everyone means that posts by you and by your fans will be displayed on the wall.

2. Fan Page

Post by Fan Page means that only posts made by the Fan Page admins will appear on the wall.  If your settings allow comments, fans will still be able to comment on your posts, they just won’t be able to make their own posts on your wall.

I generally encourage pages to show posts by everyone. Allowing your fans to participate on your page gives you more chances for engagement.  I’m not changing this recommendation. Although the new algorithm is affecting the effectiveness of this setting, it is not negating its effectiveness entirely.

The other problem with the algorithm is that your most recent posts may not be showing up on the wall. This means that timely updates are not as successful.  When you make a post it will still show up in the newsfeed as usual, but its presence on the wall is up to the algorithm.  This is a big source of frustration for pages that specialize in time sensitive updates.

The good news for the adult industry is that the algorithm does not seem to discriminate based on content.  So if your posts are not appearing on your wall, it is not because of the content.  Essentially you can post as much adult content as you want and the algorithm won’t care. Of course if your content is rated higher than PG-13 you are at risk of violating Facebook’s terms of service and having your account deleted.

So Facebook still has its own forms censorship, but they are not related to the shift in its algorithm.