Why can't Facebook App allow to select text in it's iOS App?

5 pointsmihir66924 comments

If you use Facebook App on iOS, It would be very hard to copy part of text from post/comment. You can either copy entire text or none of it.

Great UX!!!!! {facepalm}

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The short version is: they don’t want to. The whole of facebook’s interaction model is to keep you on Facebook. They want you to discover in Facebook, engage in Facebook, and share in Facebook. They do not want you to leave Facebook. Being able to select text and copy it is giving you a method of getting something out.

I think it's pretty much a failure on their part. You could be copying something to form a post, staying in FB. This and probably other annoyances led me to uninstall the app some years ago. To FB's credit the web app works pretty great.

Wow, I just noticed the web app even "succeeds" at not letting me select text normally in a post. Oh well, that sucks, and maybe why I don't use it much, esp. on iOS.

It isn’t great because it adds an extra step, but on iOS 15, parts of text can be copied from screenshots.

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