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Meta has banned the personal Facebook accounts for everyone on our team

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Re: Meta has banned the personal Facebook accounts for everyone on our team

#341

Post by Nextgrid »

xwowsersx wrote: post #179
minimaxir wrote: post #8

It's worth noting that the app received $1M in preseed funding: https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/27/og-app-promises-you-an-ad-... It's also worth noting that the Instagram API is extremely locked down for typical users (which is the reason why there hasn't been a clone like this) as it is limited to Businesses and Creators, but the app demonstrates features not available by the official API: https://developers.facebook…

How did they get pre-seed funding for this? Unless I'm missing something, any angel who would invest $1M into a company that is building an alternative, ad-free Instagram client has to be one of the dumbest people around, no? How could anyone even conceivably think this could go on indefinitely? I'm asking genuinely because I don't get how anyone could've thought this would end any way other than by Meta putting the…

It can be that they're actively looking for this to happen to set a legal precedent legalizing this.

It's not a bad argument - if you are allowed to view content in an official client, it must mean that you are licensed to view said content and that a third-party client which displays the same content should be allowed to do so since you've already got a license for it.

Adversarial interoperability is our only escape of big-tech monopolies.

Re: Meta has banned the personal Facebook accounts for everyone on our team

#342

Post by Nextgrid »

yieldcrv wrote: post #47
minimaxir wrote: post #8

It's worth noting that the app received $1M in preseed funding: https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/27/og-app-promises-you-an-ad-... It's also worth noting that the Instagram API is extremely locked down for typical users (which is the reason why there hasn't been a clone like this) as it is limited to Businesses and Creators, but the app demonstrates features not available by the official API: https://developers.facebook…

> It's worth noting that the app received $1M in preseed funding Guess the investors should have stuck to real estate

They could've been explicitly looking for this to happen in order to set a legal precedent: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33018319

Re: Meta has banned the personal Facebook accounts for everyone on our team

#343

Post by xvector »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #242
xvector wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a naive view. If/when the app devs go malicious, it will be Meta on the legal hook for users' "stolen data." The press and users will blame Meta, not the developers of this app, or the users that unwittingly handed over their data. The headlines will say "X million Facebook users' data leaked," or "X million Facebook users hacked." Meta is acting in an entirely reasonable manner for a company under such regul…

That's a potential privacy violation. Distinguishing "it violates privacy" and "it could violate privacy if the code was changed" is not naive.

Are you seriously saying it should be Meta's job to continuously reverse engineer a third party client (that doesn't even have a privacy policy) to figure out if it violates users' privacy?

That's absurd. Far more sensible to just ban it and call it a day.

Re: Meta has banned the personal Facebook accounts for everyone on our team

#344

Post by 12907835202 »

tptacek wrote: post #149
bfdm wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't I be able to uae the software of my choosing? If i habe an account and have properly authenticated, the client I use is my choice. You can't reasonably make the "go elsewhere" argument with the monopoly hold FB has on much social data. We need to choose yo regulate them and others to force interoperability, or at the very least allow comcom explicitly (competitive compatibility).

Because your access to their API is conditioned on an agreement not to use unauthorized clients. You are free to use the software of your choosing in conjunction with your own computers, but not necessarily with everybody else's.

What's an unauthorized device? If I fork chromium and make my own browser what makes it authorized or unauthorized? If I make a CURL request from my terminal is that authorized or unauthorized?

If FB blocked any requests from Firefox Focus they'd likely be in hot water from government agencies.

Do they have the right to block any other app?

Re: Meta has banned the personal Facebook accounts for everyone on our team

#345

Post by hrbf »

So a group of developers gets their app and accounts banned because they violated the terms of service of a major platform. They built a third-party client for Instagram, fully aware that this use-case is a violation of the terms they agreed to. Now they complain because the obvious happened. Not only that, on Twitter they complain about Apple removing their app and not a dozen of similar but different apps.

All larger issues regarding infrastructure providers and user rights aside (and that’s a big swipe), this is childishly silly. It’s the equivalent of stealing some merchandise from a big box store, getting caught and claiming that it should be okay because “everyone’s doing it”. No, it is not okay.

And I say that as someone who fundamentally despises Facebook/Meta. Effective regulation needs to happen resulting in a different set of incentives driving actors like Meta. However, unnecessary stunts like this will only ever cause a storm in a glass of water.

Stunts like this are also intellectually dishonest – they confuse, twist and blend different issues together just to try to amplify their outrage potential until they dissolve into meaninglessness. If the developers are actually serious about this, I’m at a loss for words. Then again, maybe that’s today’s social media in a nutshell.

Re: Meta has banned the personal Facebook accounts for everyone on our team

#346

Post by murderfs »

franga2000 wrote: post #310
murderfs wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you mean? On what planet is it a provider's fault if a third party farms logins through a custom client. Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana...

> Cambridge Analytica then arranged an informed consent process for research in which several hundred thousand Facebook users would agree to complete a survey for payment that was only for academic use. > However, Facebook allowed this app not only to collect personal information from survey respondents but also from respondents’ Facebook friends.[13] In this way, Cambridge Analytica acquired data from millions of Fa…

Yes, the reason this happened was that when a user authorized the Cambridge Analytica app, it would have the ability to view information about all of that user's friends. Sound familiar?

Re: Meta has banned the personal Facebook accounts for everyone on our team

#347

Post by Kbelicius »

fsociety wrote: post #290
GauntletWizard wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree that this isn't the right way to fight Meta, but I disagree about "Letting" you build a machine that consumes resources. It's not OG or Facebook's machine that is consuming Facebook's API Resources. It is software that is running on the User's hardware. The user should be, and generally is, allowed to make any request to Facebook that's not actively malicious - Using whatever software they choose a…

That’s an idealistic view. The pragmatic one is to turn the page back a few years to Cambridge Analytica. There is a good quote from Zuck testifying to Congress in this article https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/11/mark-zuck... > “When we heard back from Cambridge Analytica that they had told us that they weren’t using the data and deleted it, we considered it a closed case. In retrospect, that was clear…

> So, it has now become against the TOS to have a third-party make requests on your behalf.

Me installing a third party FB client on my phone and making request through that is not a third party making requests to FB otherwise browsers would then have to be classified as third party. There is no requirement for a third party client to go through a third party server.

Re: Meta has banned the personal Facebook accounts for everyone on our team

#348

Post by searchableguy »

xwowsersx wrote: post #179
minimaxir wrote: post #8

It's worth noting that the app received $1M in preseed funding: https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/27/og-app-promises-you-an-ad-... It's also worth noting that the Instagram API is extremely locked down for typical users (which is the reason why there hasn't been a clone like this) as it is limited to Businesses and Creators, but the app demonstrates features not available by the official API: https://developers.facebook…

How did they get pre-seed funding for this? Unless I'm missing something, any angel who would invest $1M into a company that is building an alternative, ad-free Instagram client has to be one of the dumbest people around, no? How could anyone even conceivably think this could go on indefinitely? I'm asking genuinely because I don't get how anyone could've thought this would end any way other than by Meta putting the…

Several YC companies are doing the same in later stage of funding such as beeple. They reverse engineer and bridge multiple platforms.

Reverse engineering is not illegal and if there is genuine demand for an alternative client, why would investors not fund it?

Eventually, you will become big enough to be next plaid and force everyone to open their APIs.

Re: Meta has banned the personal Facebook accounts for everyone on our team

#349

Post by mcv »

jart wrote: post #217
Matheus28 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should 3rd parties be allowed to make unauthorized api requests? Additionally, some apps are only monetized through advertisement, and 3rd party apps don't display them. How do you expect the 1st party to stay in business? I don't align with Meta on a lot of issues, but they should be able to control what apps interact with their platform. Don't like it, don't use it.

If it's unauthorized, then not only does MITM the ad revenue, it MITM's the user's authentication too.

If it's a client, it's not in the middle.

Re: Meta has banned the personal Facebook accounts for everyone on our team

#350

Post by [deleted] »

fzeroracer wrote: post #254
josephcsible wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, there's a risk there. But it should be my choice whether or not to accept that risk, not Meta's.

In this case the risk you take doesn't matter (though I argue from a security standpoint this is something you should really care about in any argument around Meta), it's the risk Meta takes by allowing it. Because if the company takes your data and runs, Meta is the one also on the hook for not securing their APIs. If it turns out they're farming passwords from users to sell to whatever group ultimately the class ac…

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