With the release of Graph API v2.1 last week, Facebook has also announced two changes to it’s Platform Policy, which goes into affect on November 5th 2014. One of the changes is a major change that affects brands and companies that rely on Like gated application to increase their fan base. The new Platform Policy now prohibits developers from incentivising users to use social plugins or the use of “likegates” to hide content.
The Platform Policy has been updated to say:
You must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a page. This includes offering rewards, or gating apps or app content based on whether or not a person has liked a page. It remains acceptable to incentivize people to login to your app, check in at a place or enter a promotion on your app’s page. To ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives. We believe this update will benefit people and advertisers alike.
As a result, the API has been updated to hide the “liked” status of a page, and will come into affect on November 5th 2014. Any apps that continue to check for the Like status will always see “true”, effectively bypassing any likegates in place.
Developers have 90 days to update their application to comply with the new Platform Policy. This is a major change for many companies. For us, 90% of our Page Apps use Like Gates – all of which will need to be updated before November 5th 2014.