Facebook Forces Pharma to Show Comments

The social media site enforces its rule that pages should allow social interaction through comments, even on drug company pages.

Written byEdyta Zielinska

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Facebook enabled commenting on some drug companies pages on Monday (Aug 15)—a move that is forcing some to close their pages altogether, while other reassess their comment moderation policies.

Most Facebook pages have commenting, but the site allowed pharma companies to turn off that feature because the companies might be liable for inappropriate or misleading comments in ways other industries are not. Drug companies are obligated to act on comments about adverse events, for example, and because commenters may share non-expert medical advice that could have the appearance of being promoted by the company, many preferred to shutter the comments section altogether. According to The San Francisco Chronicle, pharma was just about the only industry on Facebook with such comment-blocking privileges.

The new policy does ...

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Meet the Author

Edyta Zielinska
Edyta Zielinska was a senior editor at The Scientist from 2007 to 2013, where she worked closely with scientific illustrators to develop accompanying graphics to illuminate complex concepts.
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