Meta Cuts Off Third-Party Access To Facebook Groups

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The recent surprise announcement that Meta will soon be shutting down its Facebook Groups API is throwing some businesses and social media marketers into disarray. On January 23, Meta announced the release of its Facebook Graph API v19.0, which included the news that the company would be deprecating its existing Facebook Groups API. The latter, which is used by developers and businesses to schedule posts to Facebook Groups, will be removed within 90 days, Meta said. This includes all the Permissions and Reviewable Features associated with the API, it also noted.

Meta explained that a major use case for the API was a feature that allowed developers to privately reply in Facebook Groups. For example, a small business that wanted to send a single message to a person who posted on their Facebook Group or who had commented in the group could be messaged through the API. However, Meta said that another change in the new v19.0 API would enable this feature, without the need for the Groups API. But developers told TechCrunch that the shutdown of the API would cause problems for companies that offer solutions to customers who want to schedule and automate their social media posts. [...]

What's more, developers tell us that Meta's motivation behind the API's shutdown is unclear. On the one hand, it could be that Facebook Groups don't generate ad revenue and the shutdown of the API will leave developers without a workaround. But Meta hasn't clarified if that's the case. Instead, Meta's blog post only mentioned one use case that would be addressed through the new v.19.0 API. [...] On Meta's forum for developers, one developer says they're "pretty shocked" by the company's announcement, noting their app relies on the Groups API and will essentially no longer work when the shutdown occurs. Others are frustrated that Meta hasn't clearly explained if posting on Groups will be done with a Page Access token going forward, as the way the announcement is worded it seems that part is only relevant for those posting private replies, not posting to the group as a whole. [...] the whole thing could just be some messaging mistake -- like Meta perhaps forgot to include the part where it was going to note what its new solution would be. There is concern, however, that Meta is deprioritizing developers' interests having recently shut down its developer bug portal as well.

Can you go ahead and cut off ALL access?

[MIPSPro]

... then just turn off the lights and someone shut off all those noisy servers. The world would be better off without Facebook groups. You can go back to NNTP on Usenet though, if you like.

Re:

[Seven Spirals]

Should have never left NNTP. I like how they have to invent a new API and protocol then shut it down again. Sounds like NNTP went the distance (USENET is still around though not exactly going strong) but the "Facebook Groups API" didn't. [insert HAHAHAHA meme here]

Re:

[noshellswill]

Why did this post get rated minus-one ( -1 ) ? It's a snappy comment directed toward a mega-corp dashing mud against any available wall. 

Re:

[vbdasc]

NNTP has no provision for showing advertisements. Meta doesn't do such protocols.

Re:

[nightflameauto]

Your mom is all about third parties from facebook groups.

As a lover of your mom jokes, this one rates about a 2/10 on the Shoresy scale. Try again.

Developers Developers Developers Developers

[Himmy32]

There is concern, however, that Meta is deprioritizing developers' interests having recently shut down its developer bug portal as well.

This is one of those feels bad moments for the few people dependent on those APIs. But it's hard to feel too bad for developers making tools to market to people on Facebook Groups. Tie your to the whims of a mega-corp, their going to change their product for what's in their best interests and don't own you an explanation.

Re:

[pixelpusher220]

especially with quotes like this:

“A number of years ago [Meta] abruptly ended their Events API, with zero notice,” Burge says. “We just came in one day and everything was broken, we had thousands of support requests open from our customers and it almost destroyed our business that time as well.”

Dude.

Re:

[vbdasc]

An average man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from others' mistakes. But one who doesn't even learn from his own mistakes, is a hopeless fool.

It's about AI

[rsilvergun]

same thing reddit did. They don't want people using APIs to scrape their data and train AI. They want to sell that data for huge sacks of cash. LLMs make online conversations incredibly valuable.

Please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please block everyone from using FB. We already have enough pics of what people ate for lunch.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take FB any day over Tiktok with dumb people dancing, doing makeup, being assholes, or doing stupid challenges like pouring bleach down alligator nostrils while frozen in ice, like what they were doing in Florida a few weeks ago when things froze.

non-interoperability

[cas2000]

My guess is that they're gearing up to resist demands for interoperability (because, remember, Facebook's only real strength is that network effects make it hard to leave).

It would be much harder for them to claim, with a straight face, that "interoperability is hard and we can't do that because it would require an API but APIs are really really hard" if they still have an API for marketing & propaganda scumbags.

That would lead to embarrassing questions like "why can scumbags have an API, but users can'

Re:

[Errol backfiring]

In other words: it is totally in line with the enshittification process. No surprise here.

Full maturation

[byronivs]

Despite the coining of phrase just recently, I thought the "enshittification" by any other name began circa the rise of facebook's use.

Re:

[cas2000]

It began when the advertising industry started to take over the internet, so in the late 1990s. Animated banner ads were the beginning of the end.

Or maybe even earlier, when spam in email and on usenet moved on from the occasional arsehole individual posting green card and make-money-fast scams (translating existing paper mail and chain-letter scams to the internet) and became "professionalised", a never-ending deluge of spam turning both to shit.

Advertising ruins everything - it's a crime against humanit

Sizan Rulez

[gavron]

You can rename it all you want.

Meta is facebook, a company that trades in private informaton. It has no rules, no ethics, no morals, no mores.
If kids use, then kids get fucked. If adults use it, then adults get fucked.

Facebook doesn't care. They want to make money.

Stop letting them pretend "oh we're not facebook -- ha ha - we're meta". Meta what? Meta doesn't mean anything by itself. It's Facebook. Call it what it is.
Stop letting them pretend they do anything to prevent harms to any group (children,

Seems like SOP.

[BluenoseJake]

I am unsure why this is shocking, rely on one of the tech giants for tech, access, or APIs, and eventually you will get burned.

Followup

[Dan East]

They essentially did this 5-6 years ago, when they added a draconian approval process to access that portion of the API, granted only to proven businesses who jumped through enough hoops. Even then, they disallowed any "automated" posting to groups. Each post had to be initiated directly by a person. So in other words they were basically only allowing 3rd party front ends to post instead of having to actually do it in Facebook.

I had some very successful community pages that my system automatically posted im

Enshittification

[mspohr]

This is just further enshittification of the Internet led by one of the worst offenders.
Screw the customer. If they can't make money from it then it deserves to die.

Spam prevention

[Gilgaron]

I use Facebook for as little as possible, but even the nominal usage has been negatively impacted by spammers joining groups to sell algorithmically generated products recently. This may be just to cut that off.