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Comment by eugenez | Hacker News Reader

I am an engineer working on Platform Integrity at Facebook. Just as friends can't consent to transferring friend data outside of an app, they also can't consent to an app taking actions on their friends' behalf (such as posting a story when the friend didn't consent to it). Even if it's funny.

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Any way to get ahold of you guys and ask questions about ideas etc to help understand what is legal before building it?

Best ways are to check https://developers.facebook.com/policy/ thoroughly - it's actually a very well written and concise set of policies - or come see us at one of the hackathons we frequently run (such as the UPenn one mentioned in this thread).

It's people taking actions on behalf of themselves.

People just happen to be using it innapropriately.

Because you're inducing them to do so. I think your app is funny, but the language makes it clear that the intent is at odds with FB's platform rules.

Yeah...we've come to see that the language was encouraging behavior that was clearly against the spirit of the Facebook platform. We have since removed most of that language.

How does changing the language absolve you from the implications of your malicious app.

It can't be used appropriately.

From the homepage: "BuddyHack: Did a friend leave Facebook open? Mess with it now."

It's an app designed to be authorized on someone else's account. You make that pretty clear.

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