For long, Facebook has been under scrutiny for the Cambridge Analytica Scandal. Following the testimony before the senators, Facebook is relentlessly trying to restore users’ trust in the platform. In the latest post, Facebook has announced a bunch of API restrictions to “better protect peoples information.”
The API restrictions range from strict app review before developers access the API to limiting public content discovery APIs to Pages content.
Following are API restrictions that the developers will face –
Graph API Explorer – Now developers will require to use their app access tokens to test queries on the Graph API explorer. You can no longer use the Graph API Explorer App with the Graph API Explorer.
Profile Expansion kit – Facebook will depreciate it on October 1 because of low adoption. Profile extension kit lets people create profile pictures and videos through other apps and post them directly on Facebook.
Media Solution APIs – Now public content discovery APIs will be limited to page content and public posts on certain verified profiles. Also on August 1, Facebook will remove Topic Search, Topic Insights and Topic Feed and Public Figure APIs due to low usage.
Facebook has also placed an app review before developers can use Marketing API which helps businesses in creating ads and managing campaigns.
There is some good news too for the developers. Facebook has re-enabled them to search for Facebook pages via Pages API. This will enable developers to find similar Pages more easily.
The company is persistently overhauling its app ecosystem to “enable developers to create social experiences while protecting people’s information.”
While the company is adding more and more policies every day like the new Ads transparency rules, it is yet to come out of the storm. Only recently, a bounty program by Facebook revealed that a quiz app misused data of 120 million users for years.
Also Read: Facebook Rolls Out New Ads Feature For More Transparency
