Activism Affects Apps: Groups Seek to Lower Social Media Stars

Facebook may be sitting at the top of the Social Networking category on Apple’s App Store, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that people are content with it—just that they’re downloading it.

Facebook’s Mobile App Rating Takes a Nosedive

Pro-Palestinian activists are running a coordinated campaign to lower Facebook’s mobile app rating on the Apple and Google app stores.

The campaign, which was first noticed by NBC News , calls on netizens to give Facebook a one-star review in protest of the company’s alleged censorship of Palestinian accounts and posts on its social media platform.

It would appear that the activists’ efforts are working, too. At the time of writing, Facebook is rated 2.3/5.0 stars on the App Store , and 2.4/5.0 stars on Google Play .

Many of the newest reviews accuse Facebook of censoring Palestinian voices, and include hashtags like #FreePalestine and #GazaUnderAttack.

The team behind Facebook is reportedly taking this issue very seriously—they’ve marked it as “SEV1” or “severity 1,” which is a descriptor used internally when there is a high-priority issue with the site.

The only type of issue that would take higher priority than this is a “SEV0,” which is used when site is down.

Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone told NBC News that the platform’s policies are “designed to give everyone a voice,” and that Facebook applies them equally regardless of a user’s personal beliefs. He continued:

We have a dedicated team, which includes Arabic and Hebrew speakers, closely monitoring the situation on the ground, who are focused on making sure we’re removing harmful content, while addressing any enforcement errors as quickly as possible.

Apparently, Facebook also contacted Apple to have the negative reviews removed from the App Store, but its request was denied.

Facebook Under Fire, Again

Unfortunately, it’s become pretty easy these days to find a reason to be frustrated with Facebook. For instance, despite its efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 misinformation, the platform still allows the use of anti-vax themed profile picture borders .

And not all of Facebook’s issues stem from a political discussion—you can be completely oblivious to that stuff and still have a reason to furrow your brow.

At the beginning of May, Facebook released a notice that claimed app tracking kept its services free after Apple’s iOS 14.5 privacy updates indirectly cut much of its revenue. Thousands of users turned to Twitter and Reddit to vent about how they were unappreciative of Facebook’s “fearmongering” tactics.

Facebook might be the prime example of the phrase “all publicity is good publicity.” It’s a platform that everyone seems to hate, and yet, we stay on it anyway.