Is Facebook Blocking Google Plus Invite Links?

Is Facebook Blocking Google Plus Invite Links?

Facebook is irked about the growth of Google Plus. Google Plus now has over 25 million users, and ever since it was launched, it has had a tremendous growth. Despite that Google Plus is in field test and new registrations to the site can be done via “invite only“, and the fact being that Google had to shut down the invite system because of high demand, it somehow still managed to achieve enormous popularity.

Now that Google allows its Plus users to invite (more people) their friends to experience the new social network, its rival Facebook, seems to be overwhelmed. Of course, currently the best way to interact with friends on the Internet is via Facebook, and thus users are making use of this means by sharing Google Plus invite links on their walls. Users are not just getting themselves a Plus account, but are also attracted to the new social network and slowly migrating from Facebook.

Facebook appears to be piqued about this and is reported to be blocking Google Plus invites from the users’ Facebook news feed. This came into light when the Senior Vice President of social business, Vic Gundotra posted a video on YouTube demonstrating that Google+ invites that have been shared on Facebook did not show up in the news feed of other Facebook users.

The video was posted after which the company had gotten reports of this unusual behavior. “I wonder how widespread this problem is?” Gundotra asked.In response to Vic Gundotra’s statement, Facebook (obviously) has denied the fact that it is stopping users from sharing the Google Plus invite URL. Facebook noted that they have a display-filtering technology that help prevent spam and thus could exclude certain links from re-appearing on a user’s news feed if it had previously been posted several times.

“Newsfeed is an automated system that is designed to deliver the most relevant content to you and your friends. The technology evaluates hundreds of factors, including your relationship to the poster, the type of content, the click-through rate (where appropriate), and people hiding similar posts from their feed.

In real time, it decides what to display to you and what to filter for both Top News and Most Recent. It also includes systems that attempt to identify and block spam. Links have a history of the most abuse and are given the most scrutiny. As a result of all of these factors, a given link may be shown or filtered to people differently at different times.”

Facebook, are you sure that you truly “attempt” to “identify” and “block” spam messages? Well, there are several scams that are out there on Facebook, and practically a new one is born every day. As a matter of fact, scams that were reported months back are still spreading on Facebook.

Nevertheless, after watching the video, I tried the same by sharing a Google Plus invite on Facebook and simultaneously checking with another account if it had updated or not? The results? Well, it successfully posted the invite link in the news feed of the other account.



Now the question is whether Google tried to drive attention towards its social network by creating this gimmick or did Facebook really block the invite link? Vic Gundotra, edited his original post and added – “they appear to have stopped on Friday”


Author: Joel Fernandes

20yrs young and is a passionate Blogger, Web Developer, Photographer, Gamer and an Entrepreneur. Not a professional in anyway!My Twitter handle - @joelfernandesHe owns a tech blog TechnoBitez Joel Fernandes has written 136 articles.