Social Media And Chronic Illness: Keep Facebook Free For Non-Profits

I am writing this post because CreakyJoints has brought it to the attention of its page followers that Facebook has changed its algorithms, which in this case means that it changes the way pages are seen. 

Because of this change, at most only 1% of page followers will see any given post. 

For example, due to this change, of CreakyJoints nearly 70,000 page followers, at most 700 will be able to see any given post.

For large non-profits that have the budget to pay for Facebook ads, this change won’t really impact them. 

But for smaller non-profits who do not have a budget to pay for Facebook ads, and who rely on their page followers, this change means that their reach is going to be significantly smaller than it used to be (read from 70,000 to only 700). 

CreakyJoints isn’t the only site that will be impacted by this change.  Many of the chronic illness pages that I follow on Facebook will be negatively impacted because of this policy.

Facebook is great in many ways.  It connects people from around the country and world that would not know each other otherwise.  And this can be so critical when dealing with a chronic illness.

But Facebook has certainly struggled over the years with constantly changing privacy policies, and now policies that focus solely on the bottom line rather than on keeping Facebook free for those who need it to be. 

There are Facebook haters everywhere.  There are even “I Hate Facebook” groups on Facebook (which is a little contradictory, but oh well, they do exist). 

So whether or not you hated Facebook before, you might want to hate it now, because it severely limits the posts you will see from the pages that you like, and disregards the needs of non-profits, many of which you may be a supporter of. 

It’s time that we stand up to Facebook collectively, and demand that they change the algorithms so that they don’t disproportionately have a negative impact on non-profit organizations, and in this case, specifically, patient advocacy organizations.   

CreakyJoints has a petition on change.org that has collected over 16,500 signatures in the past two weeks.

25,000 signatures are needed in order for the organization to be able to sit down with Facebook and voice concern about this policy in person.    

For more information about this, or to sign the petition to encourage Facebook to change the algorithm so that it does not negatively impact non-profits, visit: https://www.change.org/petitions/keep-facebook-free-for-non-profits.