George Takei Airs News Feed Frustrations, Facebook Responds

Actor George Takei aired his Facebook frustrations on Wednesday about how updates to the social network’s news feed were preventing fans from seeing his posts. It didn’t take long for a Facebook employee, who is also a big fan of Takei, to explain why it’s virtually impossible for members to see everything that happens on Facebook via the news feed.

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Takei, who is best known for his former role on Star Trek and his highly active social media presence, turned to his Facebook page after learning brand page owners can now pay to get their posts in front of more eyes.

FB used to allow fans to elect to see ALL posts by selecting ‘All Updates’ from the right hand corner of a post,” Takei wrote to his fans. “For community pages such as this, though, FB recently decided that only certain fans will see certain posts, and it plans to ask me to pay for more fan views.”

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Takei continued: “I understand that FB has to make money, especially now that it is public, but in my view this development turns the notion of ‘fans’ on its head. So I encourage all friends and fans to visit my page regularly to make sure they share in all the fun.”

He was referencing Facebook’s new “Promoted Posts” feature, which allows brand pages and businesses to increase the amount of people that see the post. Promoted posts cost a small fee.

SEE ALSO: Facebook Promoted Posts: A Step-By-Step Guide

A Facebook employee and Takei fan contacted him directly to clarify the issue. Takei posted the staffer’s response to his fan page.

“I work at FB and even work on the product you describe, and I wanted to drop a note to say that we’ve changed NOTHING about the way page posts are delivered to fans,” the Facebook staffer wrote.

“There is just no way to see all of the stuff happening on FB in your feed,” he added. “Fortunately, FB does a pretty good job ranking content based on the people and pages I interact with the most. So naturally, George Takei and Taco Bell are usually at the top of my feed :).”

The Facebook employee also included a link to a Facebook webinar that explains how Promoted Posts work. How do you feel about Promoted Posts? Share your thoughts in the comments.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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