Facebook deletes Social Fixer page, blocks page admins
socialfixer.com
socialfixer.com
What are the _single_ actions / events / scenarios that could kill your business overnight?
I emphasize single because every business is going to have the potential for a series of unforeseen events kill them (i.e. Microsoft would probably not have seen 'Apple releases a phone' as a business/Balmer-killer), but every business should be keenly aware of the single-points-of-failure (SPoF).
It seems obvious, but so many folks either willfully ignore or choose to pretend that SPoF don't exist or rationalize the scenario away.
Examples:
* You run on AWS in a single availability zone, and that availability zone goes down for a week ("The cloud is super reliable. Amazon won't go down.")
* Your CTO is the only person on the company who knows the product, and he quits overnight / gets injured / becomes incapacitated. ("He's my partner. He'd never abandon the business. We're in this together.")
* You rely solely on Facebook / Twitter / Apple App Store and are at the mercy of their changes in policy ("Oh Facebook would never just shut us down.")
* You're built solely on the Foursquare Places API. ("Foursquare won't just kill all the companies that rely on their API...right?")
Etc. etc. etc.
Now, this isn't saying that you should be paralyzed by the potential for SPoFs to hurt your business -- it may make sense to proceed even with them around (i.e. lots of people have made a lot of money building FB apps).
But you MUST be aware of what they are, and you MUST have a plan in place to handle the continuation of the business if one of them comes true.
For example, how does FB benefit from your product? Does it hamper them in any way? Even the name (Social "Fixer") does not align with FB's interests.
The rational thing to do would be to shut you down. If you had leverage or tied into a broader strategy they might not. But you don't, so they did.
Which is fine - they have a right to do that. But everyone should be aware of this, because at some point when Facebook decides they don't like your politics, or hobby, or sexual choices, they'll arbitrarily shut you down, too. So, don't give them any more than you can afford to lose. But I see many companies investing a ton of time and money into their Facebook strategy. My point is to beware, because it may not be a good choice.
The only possible chance you have around this is growing so fast and becoming so essential that the platform provider can't punish you without punishing themselves. See, e.g., Facebook and Zynga.
Were you paying Facebook to provide your business [edit: I see from another post of yours that it's actually a side project--so this might not be strictly applicable to you, but I still think it's worth bringing up] with a communication medium between you and your users? I'm going to take a wild guess and say that the answer is no.
And that brings up what I see as the real issue here; actually two of them:
(1) Business owners still seem to see Facebook as a free platform that they can build on as they please, without realizing that you get what you pay for. If you're not paying Facebook, you're not their customer and your business has no leverage over them, particularly if your business is built on something they're known to dislike.
(2) Why doesn't Facebook allow businesses to pay for some kind of premium business account that lets them communicate with their users, or even alter the user interface their users see? That would solve both problems--your problem of needing a communication platform that everybody knows about, and FB's problem of not getting any benefit from third parties piggybacking off their popularity.
How about: Your hosting relies totally on amazon?
Advertisers didn't kill adblock, and they won't kill this. How much revenue and resources they lose before they accept this fact and adapt, is up to them.
Facebook basically would like to pretend the browser is something like a "trusted client" rather than an inherent unknown.
It's a thing that you do pretending it's for security but, of course, it doesn't work for security but does work reasonably well for the masses aiming to view their own data in the way they like it.
Facebook stands by banning Robert Scoble for downloading the emails of his friend from his account using a script. The difference between a "browser" and "script" is completely arbitrary in the world of bits and bytes but banning "upsupported browsers"
SF-guy can write his app, I can use it, and FB can delete his FB pages. No laws broken.
That was In response to "It is against Facebook tos to create or use extensions that alter the experience".
When you say "that doesn't make it legal", does that not imply you think something is illegal....? Regardless, I see from your comment that you weren't talking about the page removal, but rather going on a tangent about the legality / enforceability of the ban on creating and using extensions that alter Facebook (as opposed to banning pages n Facebook that promote these extensions). We're on total agreement on that.
Anyway, I think it's silly for Facebook to be going after tools that make users like Facebook more, as long as they don't somehow degrade the experience for others (spamming, etc)
I suspect it has more to do with the fact that many of these tools strip ads.
The correct analogy would be:
Q) Am I forbidden from writing an application using the facebook API that tints/alters the color of the website?
A) Yes, you are forbidden from doing that.
Facebook could be defining anything that blocks or interferes with their advertising and revenue stream as malware.
This is quite unfair to you IMO...downright shameful of facebook to do this.
Why isn't Comcast regulated like a utility? It definitely ought to be if we regulate Facebook.
good question.
Are Facebook really serious about stopping abuses of their system?
That's life developing for Facebook. Don't be under any illusions if you decide to play in their sandbox.
These comments are depressing as hell.
On topic: I'd just be happy you lasted this long with a facebook page for an extension that does this kind of thing. This gets you an extra bump in publicity and now you don't have the threat of this hanging over your head anymore. Is there anything that your users want that would really piss Facebook off that you can do now but were wary of doing before because of not wanting to push them too far? Aggressive ad filtering?
"Not only did they remove the page, but they also blocked my personal account from posting anything for 12 hours (I can’t even Like anything). They also did the same for anyone who was an Administrator or Moderator of the Page – including my wife’s personal account! Members of the support team, who generously volunteer their time to help users, have been shut out as well. They did one big sweep, I guess."
I came here to post this story, it is unfortunate that this news is not getting more visibility. If possible, check "tell facebook what you think" and try to help Matt since he has worked very hard on this app
I certainly can (and do) expect humanity and rational thought to take priority over cold application of The Rules Über Alles - and any instances of the latter deserve to be called out for the silliness that they are.
Further, it's not like Facebook didn't know about this until now. Social Fixer used to be called Better Facebook until Facebook tapped them on the shoulder and asked them to change the name last year.
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But please keep in mind what this is. This is not a startup company or a business who was shot down, this was a hobby project by one guy[1]. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse.. better I suppose since nobody's livelihood was wrecked over it.
SF is not a threat to Facebook in any way - this is just plain old dickery hiding behind the rule book as an excuse.
You speak of Facebook as though it's a democracy or a public service. Facebook is a business, not a charity, and not a humanitarian enterprise.
Yes, but not public control or public voting on policies.
> The fact of the matter is, this sucks, and complaining (loudly) is the way to get it fixed.
You think businesses deserve to be controlled by the loudest voice among its detractors? If that were true, Tesla would be out of business -- it has many quiet fans, and a few loud detractors.
"Can Social Fixer hide the Sponsored ads?
Yes, just click on the "X" in the upper right of the box, and all boxes with the same title will be hidden every time you load a page."
There is a lesson here somewhere...
You have to go into the settings and opt out to stop all ads.
...if you allow yourself to rely entirely on them.
Violating the TOS means you should expect to get burned (and you've done it to yourself). Either they utterly failed at any kind of due diligence while designing this product or they're lying about not understanding Facebook's actions; neither really engenders sympathy.
I'm not a fan of FB, but this clearly is not some arbitrary evilness on their end.
This is why I would hesitate before developing a facebook or iOS app. Being subject to the whims of some tech bureaucrat's interpretation is a little too discomforting.
I can certainly see why Facebook might not want someone else controlling their user experience. It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch that they would kill this.
Don't rely on one platform.