Are Facebook Ads Selling Deception?

Has the world's biggest social network launched an ad campaign that's designed to mislead its users?

The short answer: yes. This week Facebook followed through with its plans to allow advertisers to promote their products on users' news feeds. For better or worse, this was inevitable. Nothing is “free” forever, and while we have been paying for Facebook in the form of lost anonymity and a deluge of delusional promotions, the site is still technically free. So now the company is making us pay another fee in the form of news feed ads. Thanks Twitter for inspiring this move. No, really – thank you! (Note to Twitter: I am being 100% sarcastic.) Facebook has every right to bombard its site with as many advertisements as it likes. And we, in return, have every right to pack up and head to Google+. That isn't going to happen anytime soon, but if you push us hard enough, we might just be willing to endure Google's

nonsense, get in the circle, and re-boot our social networking presence. Has Facebook pushed us to that point? Not yet. But its latest development could be the start of something awful. According to

, the news feed ads are not labeled as being from a sponsor. You can uncover their true source by hovering over the story. But when the story first appears, users will not see the word “sponsored” anywhere. Instead, they will see a much more powerful word: “featured.” Everyone loves a feature. Features are big, exciting, and eye-catching. If something is featured, it

be special. That's why major news outlets don't heavily feature every story they produce – they only feature those that matter most. Thus, when a “featured” item appears on Facebook, users will be more likely to react. They will be more likely to investigate the ad and pay attention to its message. This may not translate into greater sales for the companies that choose to pay for these ads. (A word of advice to any company tempted to participate: don't!) The only purpose these ads will serve is to promote a product by hiding the fact that money was exchanged. In time, consumers will catch on to Facebook's games. This will usher in a dark era of social networking skepticism in which consumers are constantly investigating their news feeds to see if the featured items are

important. Not only will this kill off the value any company could obtain by advertising on Facebook, but it will also make it harder for corporations to advertise honestly in social media. Believe it or not, advertisements are a sensitive item for many consumers. I have spoken to at least a dozen people who use Netflix

streaming over Hulu Plus because Hulu plays commercials. Hulu's ad breaks are nowhere near the length of network TV ad breaks, which consumers have been putting up with for years. But once Netflix came around and omitted ads entirely (as it should – it is, after all, a paid service), anti-ad consumers were no longer willing to put up with commercial breaks. Before dot-com giants figured out how to advertise properly, they used pop-up ads. Pop-ups still exist but they are no longer a prevalent form of online advertising. Why? Because consumers hate them; sites that use pop-ups are therefore less attractive to consumers than sites that don't. I suspect that consumers will have a similar reaction to Facebook's latest scheme. While there is this crazy rumor going around that suggests that most people don't like change, they are more than willing to pack up and leave when a company isn't providing the service they desire. Currently, people only continue to use Facebook because it is the dominant player.

is on the site; as a result, new users continue to sign up with Facebook, knowing that if they go to a competitor they will be alone on a desert with fewer networking opportunities. However, Facebook's dominance won't go on forever. The company can't continue to disappoint users and crush their spirit by making changes or adding features that nobody wants. This new ad setup – oh, I'm sorry, I mean “featured story campaign” – is just another sign that Facebook is losing touch with its users. That's kind of ironic, no? Isn't social media supposed to be the place where corporations connect with their users? Isn't Facebook the place where companies like Ben & Jerry's – which recently paid for a news feed ad – are supposed to communicate with their customers in more of a real-world (read: ad-free! Deception-free!) setting? But if Facebook can't figure out how to properly use its own service to communicate with its users, how can we expect any other company to do so?