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by pr0zac
1447 days ago
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While I agree with your assessment of the BS in the article wrt scraping, and also agree with your assessment that the behaviour is completely about FB protecting itself and its monopoly control (the word control being important), I think its important to emphasize its not about FB caring whether other entities having access to the data, its about FB caring about it's public perception with regard to its having that data at all. Over the last few years or so it feels like, to reference a @dril tweet[1], Facebook has just been 'turning a big dial taht says "data access" on it and constantly looking back at the audience for approval like a contestant on the price is right' with how much it allows 3rd parties to get at its data. Keep in mind ~5 years ago the big thing at FB was "Open Graph" and "Graph Search" which gave everyone really in-depth access to their data with the idea that Facebook would be the "data platform" on top of which all of these 3rd parties would build apps and interfaces. This of course eventually resulted in the whole Cambridge Analytica thing and now this gigantic swing in the other direction of being overly protective of the data as a kneejerk PR reaction to all the bad press. FB loved sharing data and provided a direct API for accessing it when the public narrative was about data freedom and 3rd party developer friendliness and it hates giving any access at all and goes around sues web scrapers now that the public narrative is all about privacy. Facebook will happily align itself in whatever way results in the least public outcry arguing they shouldn't be allowed to have the data in the first place regardless of if that means giving access or restricting it. 1: https://twitter.com/dril/status/841892608788041732 |
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