Thrash Band Starts Petition Urging Facebook To Stop Charging For Views

Christopher Murray, vocalist for the Tragic Hero Records thrash/punk band Illuminate Me, has started a petition on Change.org in an (unquestionably futile) attempt to stop Facebook from charging pages to reach their fans.

The petition started on 2/19 at 11pm EST and is averaging 1,000 signatures an hour. If you feel the need to shout at the uncaring void, you can sign the petition at this location. Illuminate Me comments:

"Facebook has raised its rates on bands and small business's promoting themselves through their website several times over the last few years, asking to pay even more money to simply reach the audience the band or small business has already acquired. It's getting to a point where it's blatant greed and is unjustifiable. Bands like us for example, (especially the unsigned ones) pay Facebook a hefty amount of money for an ad, just to get potential new fans to visit our page. On top of that now, we must pay a LARGE fee to talk to the fans already subscribed to our page. So we're paying double on a service that we heavily rely on. It's an exploitation of what bands need the most: communication with their fan base.

"On my band's Facebook page for example (nearly 25k likes), I have paid up to 3k in Facebook advertising to get the amount of people connected to it that it has now. (On top of the heavy touring that we do) I need to pay Facebook now 150 dollars if I want one of my posts to reach all of the people that I already paid to get in the first place. I have talked to even bigger acts that rely on communication with their fan base to sell their product, and the price can get up to $2,000 or more.

"You need $2,000 dollars from a band that's barely making ends meet just so they can talk to a fan base they already paid and worked their ass off to get in the first place? Facebook does not seem to care about bands, or even small business's that also rely on communication with their audience for that matter.

"This is what I personally love about our Twitter or Instagram, and have since been using more heavily to communicate with our fans. Neither sites charge you to reach all of your followers. (which hopefully won't change, since Facebook owns Instagram) I understand the platforms are built differently, but why can't Facebook do the same as Twitter/Instagram?

"I urge every single musician or small business owner to share this petition around and sign it. If you have a photo of the ridiculous fee that Facebook is making you pay to 'boost a post' then please post it as well. I have used social media to promote my bands in the past before, I've never had to pay anything let alone this much money just to talk to the people that love our music. Enough is enough, let's fight back.

"We want Facebook to remove having to pay to reach fans and followers. We are not money making machines, we are people. Facebook it is not your place to put a price on our fans eyes and ears."