August 17, 2011
The social network opens the message boards of fan pages. And they delete them
As Facebook decided to gradually open pharmaceutical company pages to the public allowing users to comment this week, a number of companies decided to close them.
FREEDOM OF FACEBOOK – The Washington Post tells us that Facebook has changed the policy which allowed pharmaceutical companies to keep the walls of fan pages closed and did not allow comments. Pages focused on the companies themselves and the disease or patient communities are now open for comment, while those targeting a specific product prescription continue to be closed. Companies fear that open bulletin boards could lead to the reporting of side effects, the promotion of unlabelled drugs or inappropriate claims – which could cause concern to government regulators. Like other Facebook users, businesses can delete comments once they've been posted.
Sanofi, which has pages about diabetes and whooping cough and a company page, hasn't reported any particular problems so far. Pfizer also had no problems, spokesman Andrew Widger said. Other companies have instead decided to remove the pages in the last couple of days. Amgen, which previously planned to keep its cancer page, then removed it on Monday. The company sells iNeulasta, Neupogen and Vectibix. “We are still working on implementing a comment moderation,” spokeswoman Christine Regan said. Amgen has been working with Facebook, but "we're not comfortable with the solutions they've suggested," he added.
Bayer shut down the "Strong at Heart" page, which had more than 26,000 likes. Instead, the company wants to keep the "I Am ProHeart," which has more than 49,000 likes. “We have monitoring and response procedures already in place for the page,” spokeswoman Anne Coiley said. Purdue Pharma and Johnson & Johnson have also closed their pages.
August 17, 2011 hours 18:27
