Facebook
now has a new feature: Promote and
Share. This feature allows all Facebook
members to promote posts made by their friends.
Of course, to do this, there will be a fee. You can now choose to “Promote and Share” any
post made by any friend, for a $7 fee.
The posts promoted do take into consideration privacy settings, but
there is no way to opt out of this. The
feature is causing some privacy concerns because the friends whose posts you’re
sharing have no say in the matter.
According
to Facebook, this feature has been added because they felt there was a
need. It is said to be beneficial to all
Facebook members by allowing them to make others aware of special events in a
friend’s life. This includes such things
as landing a new job, welcoming a new member into the family, graduations or
good deeds.
A
statement issued by Facebook said, “This feature respects the privacy of the
original poster – i.e. it will promote to everyone who originally saw it. You can only promote posts to the people that
your friend originally shared with. If
you have mutual friends, they’ll see that you shared it and promoted it.”
Some
may not see the need to spend $7 to promote a post since the only people who
can see the promoted and shared information are the ones who were originally
allowed to see it. What would be the
advantage of such a feature? The
“advantage” would be that it would bring the post higher up on the news feeds,
so if a mutual friend missed the original post, he or she would most likely see
the promoted and shared post.
