Let’s take a trip in wonderland for a second and imagine how awesome would it be if every time we posted on Facebook, the company would commit to give us a percentage of the ad revenue earned against our update.
- Tsu is a small social platform that claims Facebook feels threatened by its business model
- Users posting on Tsu receive a percentage of the ad revenue gained against their content
- The small startup was blocked from Facebook’s posts or messages
- Facebook claims the purge protects users from digital rubbish
Okay, now back to reality. That’s not the kind of business Facebook is interested in, but its much smaller competitor Tsu.co is. Pronounced “Sue,” Tsu seems to not only pay its users, but also a price it was probably not ready for.
Ever since late September, Tsu claims that Facebook has been deleting somewhere around 9.5 million posts that included links to Tsu. More recently, Facebook has started blocking updates that just contain the text “tsu.co,” even if there are no links included.
According to those experiencing this restriction, Facebook includes a warning stating that “links to Tsu are unsafe.” Other Facebook-related services – such as Instagram or Messenger – also fail to deliver content that mention Tsu’s link to the site.
Facebook argues that its Tsu ban is nothing short of an efficient method to keep its platform clean from scam artists who want a piggyback ride and a quick buck. On their side of the argument, Tsu claims Facebook is trying to shut down worthy competition, seeing that their photo and video features might actually be worth something.
With 1.5 billion users to protect from digital rubbish, Facebook’s reaction is somewhat excused in taking its job as Internet gatekeeper very seriously. It might not be synonymous with the actual Internet – yet – but Facebook certainly has a word in making or breaking an online startup.
Therefore, the social platform is very careful in triaging who reaches its vast membership and who doesn’t – not to mention that it has power over what its members can discuss in its apps and services. But when it comes to changing the company’s core business – in this case, selling advertising for the content its users post – Facebook doesn’t seem to want to change.
Launched just over a year ago, Tsu enjoys a rather accelerated growth; according to CEO Sebastian Sobczak, the platform already boasts 4 million members, and roughly $11 million in venture capital. Facebook’s Tsu purge seems to be driven by the fact that Tsu “pays its users to post links on other sites,” according to Facebook, which can give incentive for spammy sharing.”
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Ulrichis Lamb says
I’m reading these and laughing. Tsu is not competition for Facebook. You can’t do half on that site that you can on Facebook. They don’t even have a groups or business page model set up yet. Not only that they have 4 million users that think that the “money train” is going to keep on coming. When that $11 million is done, there will be no more money.