SAN FRANCISCO, CA - SEPTEMBER 14: Vice President of Product Management

Facebook's Explore Feed Experiment Is Already Crushing Cambodia's Businesses

Forbes | 2 November 2017

If entrepreneur In Vichet had launched his online shopping outlet "Little Fashion" this year, Facebook’s latest experiment--pushing content from companies and organizations into a separate Explore feed--would have killed his site.

Since it opened in 2010, Little Fashion has built a large local clientele and become one of the more successful forays into ecommerce in Cambodia, but in its early years, Little Fashion relied on Facebook posts that reached users’ main feeds.

“If this happened a few years ago, it would be a huge shock for us,” Vichet said. “And I know some sellers on Facebook will have big problems."

Facebook introduced an experiment last week, aimed at streamlining users’ news feeds so they just see posts from family and friends, and the companies that pay for placement in the main feed. Since then, Cambodia-based businesses and NGOs that rely on the social media platform to communicate with their audiences have been forced to adapt quickly.

Maya Gilliss-Chapman, California-based founder of the Cambodians in Tech network, said she has been monitoring the impact of this change on Cambodian businesses and organizations. She has already seen an average 60% drop in organizations’ reach.

“Facebook has always been moving towards a pay-to-play model,” she said. “The Explore Feed experiment is just their latest effort to squeeze more ad dollars out of businesses. The Explore Feed experiment will be a challenge for some businesses and the end for others.”

Why is Facebook targeting a small, post-conflict developing economy?

The experiment coincides with political upheaval, as Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen unleashed a crackdown on opposition voices.  

As a Silicon Valley transplant who’s worked to educate the California scene on innovators in Cambodia, Gilliss-Chapman said she was disappointed that Facebook had used developing countries as its testing site.

"This is a country that suffered a recent genocide," she said. "It’s a country where the economy is fragile and politics is fragile. Using the Cambodian people as test subjects is like kicking someone while they’re already down."

A Facebook spokesperson said over email that these countries were selected partly because there are no other Facebook tests currently running in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Slovakia, Bolivia, Serbia and Guatemala. These countries’ online engagement dynamics would also help the company understand what’s relevant to their audiences, the spokesperson said.

Men sit outside a store with a sign displaying the Apple Inc., left, and Google Inc.'s Android robot, right, logos in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Sunday, June 21, 2015. The World Bank projects that the Cambodian economy will expand about 6.9 % in 2015 and 2016. Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg

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Galeno Chua, CEO of Phnom Penh-based digital marketing firm The Idea, said most of his clients still did not know they were losing their previous social media reach.

Business education and knowledge is not at the same level in Cambodia as it is in developed countries, he said. While Chua’s media clients in Cambodia are aware and concerned about the change, those without strong marketing sensibilities or even knowledge of English might be doomed before they can prepare. Facebook is a marketing platform they know how to use and their potential clients already gravitate toward, he explained.

“Businesses don’t have a choice, especially in Cambodia,” Chua said. “It’s now the number one, highest-density channel that’s got the highest level of users.”

Solving or causing problems?

Chua said he does not believe the new Explore Feed addresses one of the problems Facebook is intending to solve: bursting users’ “filter bubble,” or exposing them to content outside their predisposed online paths and habits.

At least in Cambodia, where netizens already have a hard time finding accurate information, the experiment will limit users exposure to local businesses, creative projects and news about their own country.

“Facebook puts the articles [about the Explore Feed experiment], where they would have learned more about it, onto the Explore Feed, so that information is still not getting to them,” he said with some exasperation.

Chua and Vichet agreed that the most innovative businesses would always find a way to market their products to the public. Some will do this naturally with high-quality content and strong client services, but others might introduce campy promotions, like requiring customers to check into a coffee shop for a 10% discount.

In a post last week, Facebook’s head of news feed Adam Mosseri said the company had no plans to roll out the Explore Feed globally. But for small businesses in Cambodia, especially those who are not savvy to the experiment, the damage is already piling up, said Gilliss-Chapman of Cambodians in Tech.

Even if companies find out about the Facebook change, the small promotion fees still might be too high for the small but ubiquitous “mom and pop” businesses in Cambodia.

“I do think the lack of education around different countries and cultures is what contributed to this misstep," Gilliss-Chapman said. "It seems like Facebook didn’t consider the businesses, organizations and people they might negatively impact as a result of their experiments.”