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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

#41
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you accusing these developers of violating privacy? If not, you're twisting things to the point of deception. Facebook is supposed to crack down, yes, but it's a specific thing they're supposed to crack down on, not ad-removal.

> Are you accusing these developers of violating privacy? Yes, the app is downloading private user messages (ostensibly to show a modified messaging interface) and private photos, according to their feature list. This isn't a simple DNS-level ad-block, its acting as a proxy where the app developers can intercept and see all data. Their website doesn't even have a privacy policy, just a dummy link: https://www.theogap…

An app downloading on behalf of the user isn't a privacy issue.

Are their servers acting as a proxy? Whether that's a privacy issue depends on how they configure/limit/audit their servers.

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

#42
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, what did they expect? It would be good if companies did not ban you on one site for violating the TOS of a completely different site.

https://help.instagram.com/581066165581870 Except for the part where the TOS explicitly states that you will be banned from all Metas products…

No, not except. That is a bad thing, and putting it in the TOS does not change whether it is a bad thing.

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

#43
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you accusing these developers of violating privacy? If not, you're twisting things to the point of deception. Facebook is supposed to crack down, yes, but it's a specific thing they're supposed to crack down on, not ad-removal.

> Are you accusing these developers of violating privacy? Yes, the app is downloading private user messages (ostensibly to show a modified messaging interface) and private photos, according to their feature list. This isn't a simple DNS-level ad-block, its acting as a proxy where the app developers can intercept and see all data. Their website doesn't even have a privacy policy, just a dummy link: https://www.theogap…

On my old-ish laptop the website managed to lag like the browser tab is running at 15fps, impressive...

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

#44
post #3

These companies can ban the US President from their platforms. What makes you think they can't ban yours - you don't even have any nuclear launch codes...

> These companies can ban the US President from their platforms. Good, you should be able to choose who you do business with, or at least that’s what conservatives argued for years.

Not exactly. You can't deny baking someone a carrot cake because they are gay for example. But you can deny baking them a cake that represents a gay celebration, for example asking to have two male figured on top, or delivering it to a gay wedding.

I don't think you should be able to ban someone because you don't like them. If it's the case that you should, why doesn't Facebook scrape off and ban known sexual offenders list? Criminals? Should someone that beat their exwife in 1987 really be on Facebook, let alone be able to look up his victim?

I personally think people should be allowed on unless they break the actual rules of the platform on the platform.

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

#45
Oh wow, this app got pulled from everything because it's an unofficial 3rd party client for Instagram? I'll say it again, companies should be legally forbidden from blocking 3rd party clients. They don't have to explicitly support them, but taking action to explicitly thwart them (and writing ToS that forbids them) should be outlawed. There's no reason I should have to be subjected to untold tracking, snooping and advertising functionality to be able to post or look at photos and comment on them. Tech companies get to exploit the public under the guise of something useful, while also getting to completely dictate the terms of that usage. The only thing that limits their exploitation of users is the laws applicable in the relevant jurisdictions (and sometimes not even that). Too bad looking out for the rights of users is apparently just a complete non-issue to anyone in power.

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

#46

Well, what did they expect? Does anyone think a company will sit around while you strip their app of their revenue source and republish it? Now I'm all for trying, I use adblockers and SponsorBlock, but we all know that they're unofficial methods that could be taken down at any time. That's exactly what happened to Vanced.

I could totally understand blocking the app, but going after the developers' personal accounts is petty and weak. OGapp should lean into it and offer to make something better; Meta's behavior is the sign of a failing company that's ripe for disruption, and many people are just looking for an excuse to get off the platform.

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

#47

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

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

#48
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company retaliated against their employees through unrelated services it happens to also own? Is this the kind of free market we want? Turf wars?

I don't know what definition of free market would exclude the idea that private companies can take actions to protect their property.

"can" and "want" are very different things.

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

#49

Oh wow, this app got pulled from everything because it's an unofficial 3rd party client for Instagram? I'll say it again, companies should be legally forbidden from blocking 3rd party clients. They don't have to explicitly support them, but taking action to explicitly thwart them (and writing ToS that forbids them) should be outlawed. There's no reason I should have to be subjected to untold tracking, snooping and ad…

Without control of the client, it gets much harder to fight abuse.
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