CorpComms Magazine

Pharmaceutical companies have been warned that they will no longer be able to block the 'comment' facilities, a special dispensation known as 'whitelisting', on their Facebook pages.

The social networking giant has sent an email to the page administrators of pharmaceutical brands that their ability to whitelist will be removed to 'encourage an authentic dialogue between people and businesses on Facebook'.

The new ruling comes into play immediately for new pages while pharmaceutical companies with pre-existing pages will be required to allow comments from 15 August. The only exceptions relate to pages dedicated to specific prescription drugs where whitelisting may be permitted on a case-by-case basis.

The email said: 'Previously, pharmaceutical brands could submit a request through their Facebook Sales Representative to disable commenting on their Facebook page. We think these policy changes support consistency for the Facebook Pages product.'

Prior to this email, pharmaceutical companies had been able to disable comments on brand posts, photos and videos, although they still had to permit post by fans. The dispensation is particularly important in North America, where pharmaceutical companies are required to report any comments about adverse side effects of a drug to the Food and Drug Administration. This includes any online conversations, even if the information is incorrect or wrongly attributed to a specific drug.

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