Blogging Website Criticizing Facebook Goes Live Despite IT Giants Threats

Blogging Website Criticizing Facebook Goes Live Despite IT Giants Threats

FacebookZoo, a blog for small and midsize publishers and other digital businesses who have been harmed by Facebook's censorship and algorithm changes went live despite legal threats from the tech giant.

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th August, 2018) FacebookZoo, a blog for small and midsize publishers and other digital businesses who have been harmed by Facebook's censorship and algorithm changes went live despite legal threats from the tech giant.

The site was launched on The Maven platform on Tuesday.

"Welcome to the Facebook Zoo. Its easy to joke about Facebook, but at the end of the day, livelihoods are at stake along with freedom and democracy. We read about these algorithm changes like theyre some theoretical thing being decided beyond anyones control but thats not the case. There is a company led by people and algorithms programmed by people that have real life consequences. The decisions and their impacts are far from faceless," the blog's creators said in Tuesday's opening message.

FacebookZoo describes itself as a website for "once-thriving businesses have been demonetized and seen their audiences demolished" due to Facebook's policies.

The New York Post newspaper reported that in May, the IT giants legal team sent a letter to The Maven, suggesting that the name FacebookZoo confused the audience as to if the website had been linked to Facebook.

Jim Heckman, the CEO of The Maven, which had trademarked the FacebookZoo name earlier this year, has insisted that there was no confusion because FacebookZoo was obviously an anti-Facebook website.

The blog stresses that "Faceboo[k]Zoo is not authorized, endorsed or sponsored in any way shape or form by Facebook."

Facebook has recently faced backlash from publishers and brands whose content had been banned due to the IT giant's censorship policies.

Moreover, the social network has recently changed its news feed algorithm by downplaying content from digital businesses and highlighting posts by a user's family and friends. The company explained the move by its willingness to return back to its roots, however, publishers affected by the move said they had lost thousands of Dollars since their audience has been slashed by the new algorithms.