In the advertising business, sometimes we have to deal with the stupidity of media companies that will reject our advertisements unless we make changes. So what Facebook is doing isn’t new, they say they don’t want people advertising gun safes, bb guns, real guns, paintball guns? What they’re really saying is “don’t use the word gun in your advertising.”
If that’s the case, why does Facebook offer free pro-gun stock photographers?
For an anti-gun company, they have really great stuff. Check out this beautiful ad I created (but aren’t running):
The fact is, Facebook can’t even monitor us properly because there’s more than one million advertisers using the site.
Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/07/01/facebooks-advertising-is-starting-to-spiral-out-of-control/
And how many people work at Facebook? 3,539
Source: http://www.quora.com/How-many-people-work-at-Facebook
That means human beings are not approving the ads UNLESS the automated system detects a controversial word, like guns, firearm, weapon, paintgun, etc.
I’m not kidding:
Hyatt wanted the safe and vault sale ad to run for a month, beginning November 11.
According to the Washington Examiner, Facebook reponded to Hyatt’s request with the following email:
Your ad was rejected because it violates the Ad Guidelines. Ads may not promote firearms, ammunition, or weapons (ex: paintball guns, BB guns, knives, etc.)...This decision is final. Please consider this the end of our correspondence about your ad.
But Hyatt didn’t consider it the end of correspondence. Instead, they tried a second time and explained that gun safes and vaults are not firearms, paintball guns, or BB guns. Rather, they are ways to keep lawfully owned firearms from being found by children, thereby “[avoiding] the tragedy of an accidental shooting.”
Facebook still rejected the ad.
Source: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/11/18/Facebook-Broadens-Gun-Ad-Ban-To-Include-Gun-Safety-and-Storage-Devices
So here are my suggestions to Hyatt Guns
1. Consider creating a Facebook page just for advertising, call it “Hyatt Freedom” or “2nd Amendment Hyatt,” a name that won’t trigger the censors
2. Sell your gun safes with different words, “Freedom Safes” perhaps, or “protect your valuables.” You might even be able to use gun pictures in your ads. In fact, Facebook’s stock photography section has gun pictures!
3. Say “gun” or “weapon in another language, such as Arma in Spanish, or Waffe in German. Don’t worry, gun owners will learn.
4. Create a landing page for your product and make sure the link doesn’t have one of the prohibited words in it
The truth is Facebook is stuck with us whether they like it or not. Zuckerberg is an idiot, but there are thousands of pro-gun pages and millions of gun owners on Facebook. The NRA itself advertises on Facebook, will they ban the NRA if they try to push the battle ax in their Christmas catalog? I don’t think so. Are they getting rid of the gun groups on Facebook? Where private sellers meet and trade? They are not. In fact, they would have to spy on thousands of groups, and invade the private messages between members to see what to do with us.
I’m not leaving Facebook, all my friends are there, my page is there, even gun dealers like Smith & Wesson have a page there (with 1 million likes), so it’s not like I can replace the way I replaced Comcast (with Amazon Prime). We’re just gonna have to change Facebook from within. Maybe the big advertisers like Cabela’s need to cancel their advertising until Facebook changes their hoplophobic ad policy.
Don’t think that because Zuckerberg is a billionaire he enjoys losing money, nobody likes losing money no matter how much they have.
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