Another in a long line of Facebook violations for Tourism Authority of Thailand.

This time it is the Thai Language Facebook page of the Tourism Authority of Thailand that violates the Facebook Promotions Guidelines.  The Sukjai Thailand Facebook page committed at least one violation and maybe more.

Yesterday evening, the Tourism Authority of Thailand, on their Thai language Facebook page, announced winners of a contest that was held on Facebook.  You can see from the above screenshot the list of the 10 winners.

According to the Facebook Promotions Guidelines, you are not allowed to post winners names on Facebook.

You will not administer a promotion through Facebook, except through an application on the Facebook Platform.  Administration includes operation of any element of the promotion, such as collecting entries, conducting a drawing, judging entries, or notifying winners.

It must be important since the one-page list of guidelines lists this again:

You cannot: Notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles or Pages.

Google translate has a hard time with the Thai Language, but I did not see any of the following disclaimers on the contest page:

1. You will include the following disclosures:
   1. Adjacent to any promotion entry field: “This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You are providing your information to [disclose recipient(s) of information] and not to Facebook. The information you provide will only be used for [disclose any way that you plan to use the user's information].”
   2. In the promotion’s rules:
      1. A complete release of Facebook by each entrant or participant.
      2. Acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.

Just so you know, this was a contest to see which of Sukjai Thailand’s followers could get the most additional people to follow the Sukjai Thailand page. Pretty sad when a Thai government organization has to hold a contest in order to get people attracted to the site.

Sad part of it is, there may now be more “followers” for Sukjai Thailand, but in reality, they just signed up because they were helping out their friend who was trying to win a contest.

This is very similar to the numerous contests that the Tourism Authority of Thailand Amazing Thailand (English language) Facebook page has.  It is all geared towards having that big number of followers on their page (xxx number of people like this).

It doesn’t mean a thing.

Probably 90% or more clicked “Like” to help out a friend and have since totally disregarded the Tourism Authority of Thailand and their Facebook pages.

Nice to see that the various Tourism Authority of Thailand Facebook pages all seem to adhere to the total disregard for following the rules.

The text was modified to remove a broken link to http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php.

Tags: amazing thailand facebook guidelines promotions sukjai thailand tourism authority of thailand violation