Facebook Explore – a radical test that spells bad news for Cambodia’s NGOs, businesses and media
Mon, 30 October 2017
By Jaime Gill

Perhaps you haven’t noticed yet. If you’re a light Facebook user, or shun it altogether, you may not have realised that the stories you see have changed – but they have. A week ago, Facebook chose Cambodia as one of six small countries for a radical experiment, where posts by newspapers (including The Post), businesses, NGOs and more have been banished to a separate feed called “Explore”, unless those organisations pay to promote them. This is bad news for Cambodia.

You might be thinking, “no, it isn’t”. You didn’t join Facebook for news, you joined to connect with friends. Fair enough, but there are serious implications for Cambodia, its journalists and small NGOs doing essential work here.

Whether you personally come to Facebook to catch up on current events or not, millions of Cambodians do. Forty-eight percent now own smartphones, including in remote rural pockets, and many use it primarily for Facebook. It has become a window into the world: a survey last year found that 30 percent of Cambodians consider Facebook their most important news source, eclipsing even TV[F1].

By slicing news out of people’s feeds and sending it to a content graveyard where stories are buried, Facebook has cut off a source of information for millions of Cambodians. With a pivotal election rapidly approaching, it’s a worrying time for such an experiment...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/analysis-a ... -and-media

It's bad for marketing, anyone knows about the other countries ?

Kayve wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:04 am It's bad for marketing, anyone knows about the other countries ?

Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Bolivia, Guatemala and Cambodia

Seems like there's already a noticeable impact onto the traffic of information website.

Just asking questions and throwing out ideas...

What's the mean education-level of these countries?

Are their cultures prone to violence?

Are these countries easily influenced?

Too many ads? I didn't think so.

Maybe these countries don't mean much?

Maybe Facebook was stifling other media outlets revenues, so they are allowing other info sources to regain ad revenue in these "disadvantaged" markets?

The information is still there to read mate. The only problem is a person has to click one time to view explore and then scroll back through the day, hour. And they have to do the same again in the normal newsfeed. Time consuming.
Okay may be some people have not realized there is an explore feed but they soon will.

SmartAston Martin wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:16 am Just asking questions and throwing out ideas...

What's the mean education-level of these countries?

Are their cultures prone to violence?

Are these countries easily influenced?

Too many ads? I didn't think so.

Maybe these countries don't mean much?

Maybe Facebook was stifling other media outlets revenues, so they are allowing other info sources to regain ad revenue in these "disadvantaged" markets?

Maybe a demographic choice plus other factors. It would be interesting to know why they chose those countries. They have often chosen other countries to trial other changes.

it sucks and does not load

Didn't read it all, but ...

Less chuff, more FB friends and family. OK ...

Less political "grand standing" by small groups leveraging on FB in previously war-torn countries, namely: Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Bolivia, Serbia, Slovakia?

Put another way: Khmer Rouge, Tamil Tigers, long-running Guatemalan Civil War, the ELN with Che, and Yugoslav Wars for the last two.

Am I wrong in this list?

^Don't know, and I don't use facebook. But here plenty do. My internet provider told me the reason my wifi had got slower, was that they had new software to load in there systems to run facebook. He told me there where so many users in the area. It is a pain some days.

Can't find "explore" on my phone. What am I doing wrong?

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