Why some small businesses are quitting the socials

After nearly two years under fire for false news and Russian election meddling, Facebook has felt the pressure from users and government regulators to address these issues. Earlier this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced changes to the platform’s news feed product with content from "more posts from friends and family" and "less public content, including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses."

The goal was to make Facebook more social with fewer commercial and product posts. Publishers ranging from big businesses to mommy bloggers are forced to post more content that they create personally, rather than sharing products or affiliate links.

With these changes, some small publishers claim to see a massive downside.

“One of the Facebook policy changes that kind of went under the radar and it went into effect in February was the branded content policy. And it decreased my income from Facebook by 60 percent, overnight. No explanation.” said Holly Homer, an entrepreneur from Texas who owns the Facebook pages for “Quirky Mama” and “Kids Activities.”

With over 3 million followers, Homer’s Facebook page had become so popular she hired five employees and her husband quit his full-time medical job to help with the business. Homer showed NBC News a chart of interactions with her Facebook page that shows a decrease in February when Facebook implemented changes to News Feed.

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