‘Like-Gating’? Facebook Says Dislike

Facebook Changes to its ‘Platform Policy’ can Affect Your Page

Facebook has announced a change to its Policy Platform that may affect the majority of users.

The policy change advises that Facebook will no longer allow advertisers to incentivise people to use social plugins or to like a Facebook Page (Page). This includes offering rewards, or gating apps or app content based on whether or not a person has liked a Page. It is still acceptable to incentivise people to login to your app, check-in at a place, or enter a promotion on your app’s Page.  This change essentially means that consumers will no longer be required to ‘like’ a Page before they can access its content, such as a game, promotion, competition or sweepstakes. This practice is commonly known as ‘Like-Gating’ and is used to grow a Page’s audience for all future posts.

Facebook’s reason for the change to prevent ‘Like-Gating’ is to “ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from businesses, not because of artificial incentives”.

This policy change will come into effect on 5 November 2014. Therefore, if you have a Page or app that uses a ‘Like-Gate’, this function will cease to work after this date and should be removed.