Facebook: No Guns, No Drugs, No Cheese

Facebook: No Guns, No Drugs, No Cheese

Here’s something I found out last week that I thought I should share. This is completely unrelated to yesterdays post on the Irish Free Cheese story that lit up Twitter last Friday. The only connecting is a slight dairy theme to both. Instead let me draw you to a very odd guideline in Facebooks rules on running page promotions:

Section 2. Prohibitions

You may not publicize or administer a promotion on Facebook if:The promotion is open or marketed to individuals who are under the age of 18;

The promotion’s objective is to promote any of the following product categories: gambling, tobacco, firearms, prescription drugs, or gasoline;

The prize or any part of the prize includes alcohol, tobacco, dairy, firearms, or prescription drugs;

You can get the full Facebook guidelines here.

What I’m drawing your attention to is point 2.5 most notably the inclusion of dairy amongst the items that cannot form part of any prize on Facebook. It does seem odd that dairy products such as cheese, milk, cream and even yogurts would find themselves sharing such billing as more dubious products such as guns, tobacco and drugs. And I guess the question is why?

There’s obvious points such as you cannot really transport dairy through regular post. Maybe its to do with allergies? Thats not the case because then surely nuts would be included along with a million other products.

But the rule states dairy cannot form the prize or any part of the prize so giving away dairy by another means such as an instore coupons and even products like a free cheese burger from an outlet, or milkshake could be viewed as being ‘part of the prize’. It had me a little confused.

Why this odd rule?

After a bit of research I found out the rule has to do with discount promotion of dairy produce being against some US states laws. This post from almost a year ago also states that rule will be changed to exclude dairy, (or at least name the states where it’s prohibited). There’s been no change in the rule in the meantime, and as with most of Facebook’s rules there’s plenty of brands out there flaunting them (especially the no promotions on the wall). Yet for many small brands they will be too worried to go against FB in case they’re the ones made example of.