Facebook’s Other Critics: Its Viral Stars
For
the past two years, Ryan Hamilton has been getting Facebook-famous. Mr.
Hamilton, 28, manages a network of Facebook pages and makes viral
videos for his “Hammy T.V.”
channel — mostly lowbrow fare with titles like “Shocking Pit Bull
Social Experiment” and “World’s Hottest Pepper on Girlfriend’s Thong” —
that have earned him a level of popularity typically associated with
Kardashians and BuzzFeed food clips.
But to hear Mr. Hamilton tell it, Facebook has failed him.
“It’s a complete mess,” he said. “No one trusts Facebook.”
Unlike
the lawmakers who will grill Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief
executive, in congressional testimony this week, Facebook influencers
generally aren’t bothered by data privacy issues or Russian propaganda
campaigns. Their concerns are closer to home.
They
say that the company’s recent decision to emphasize stories shared by
friends and family as well as trusted news outlets — part of the
company’s response to an epidemic of sensationalized clickbait and false
news, and an attempt to foster what Mr. Zuckerberg has called
“meaningful social interaction” — has hidden them from view. They argue
that Facebook owes much of its growth to the kinds of entertainment they
offer, and that users will spend less time on the social network if it’s not shown to them.
“Facebook
has got to start treating influencers with more respect,” said Roozy
Lee, a social media promoter who manages a network of celebrity and
influencer Facebook pages with more than 200 million combined followers.
“These people need to make a living.”
Chief
among influencers’ complaints: Even though Facebook has made it easy
for them to reach enormous audiences, it has been slow to deliver tools
that would let them share in the advertising revenue their posts
generate. Facebook has also cracked down on certain types of
link-sharing deals that many influencers have used to earn money on the
side.
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