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Instagram deprecates majority of their API
- kchoudhu 9y agoLooks like it's being brought in line with data practices at Facebook. This isn't an entirely bad thing.
- balls187 9y agoWow. Were developers notified at all this was going to happen? Purely speculating--but I bet they discovered that their APIs were open for privacy abuse, and rather than just disable the abusing accounts, they shut down the APIs until they can be fixed.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gubby 9y agoA deprecation is, normally, a notification (not the same thing as actually turning something off).
- bkanber 9y agoThis was not a deprecation. They immediately and without prior announcement revoked access to many endpoints that had been scheduled for shutdown later this year and next year.
- achairapart 9y agoThey already closed down everything in 2015 setting up a permission review system with very silly criteria.
- Naomarik 9y agoSilly indeed. I applied for it twice, having submitted a screen recording explaining what I was using it for. They gave me partial API access, pretty useless functionality. Not what I needed which was clearly explained in the second video. The application felt like I was begging. Not something I'd ever do again.
- ChrisLTD 9y agoYes. I had many web projects that were cut short by the requirement that you had to submit a video of a working app to get access to the API.
- bkanber 9y agoMany of these endpoints were scheduled for retirement in July and December of this year. Developers were NOT notified in advance that they would be abruptly shut down today. I also believe this is a reaction to all the recent privacy issues that Facebook is facing. They identified Instagram as a huge risk for behavioral mining (it is) and abruptly shut down all features that can be used to analyze behavior and infringe on privacy at a large scale.
- dvt 9y agoEveryone knew this was going to happen, it's under the "Graph API" umbrella now: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-api/overview/ https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-api/overview/ (Not sure if this is related to the Cambridge Analytica situation. Maybe the timeline was sped up, but IG's APIs have been deprecating for the past 2-3 years now.)
- bkanber 9y agoThe problem is that they threw out the deprecation schedule that they originally published and immediately retired/shutdown many endpoints with no prior announcements. Not even Instagram Partners were notified. For those reasons, I absolutely believe it was related to the Cambridge Analytica situation.
- dvt 9y agoGotcha, I do remember seeing the deprecation schedule (some stuff was late 2018), so it was definitely sped up.
- openmosix 9y agoIt seems like - the deprecation has been announced as part of the overall effort of locking users' data - https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/04/restricting-data-access/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/04/restricting-data-access...
- eosophos 9y agoWhy would this be happening? This seems to make their platform even more useless.
- thephyber 9y ago> Why would this be happening? Facebook owns Instagram. Have you heard about Facebook's issues in the national news recently?
- Eyas 9y agoAlso important to see this in the context of the Cambridge Analytica story. Giving out user data about all of the followers / followings of a user, etc., including simple things like bios, hashtags, etc., is how these databases of user info get seeded.
- Latteland 9y agoSo they are blocking what looks like a friend graph. Reaction to CA I guess.
- Yhippa 9y agoTalk about "open/closed principle".
- auntad 9y agoI find it concerning that Facebook now has an excuse to lock in their data monopoly by effectively refusing to give up their users' data about themselves. For example, it appears it would now be impossible to build an IG alternative platform that piggybacks off of your existing follow graph. So switching costs to a competitor suddenly skyrocket when there's no possibility of an "import" feature. So basically Facebook's data monopoly just got stronger. Am I missing something?
- samfisher83 9y agoIf they give their data to other people, people will complain. If they don't people will complain. It seems like no matter what they do someone will be mad.
- jameslevy 9y agoThe solution is obvious. Allow people to export their data at least in a bulk snapshot, for the purpose of data portability. However, make it somewhat difficult/scary to do this, so that a personality quiz app won't be able to successfully trick you into agreeing to it.
- samfisher83 9y agoYou can export your data. They even list what you can export: https://www.facebook.com/help/405183566203254?helpref=page_content https://www.facebook.com/help/405183566203254?helpref=page_c...
- bkanber 9y agoThe important thing to note here is that these endpoints were scheduled for retirement at future dates; some in July 2018, some in Dec 2018. Today, with no prior announcement, these endpoints were abruptly retired. Instagram had previously published a deprecation schedule for these endpoints, and threw that schedule out the window without notifying even Instagram Partners. Edit to add: these endpoints are all related to the profile data and behaviors of non-oauthed users. This is the exact data that ML researchers (myself included) would normally use to analyze social graph behavior, interests, and audiences of Instagram users, and also is exactly the type of processing activity that GDPR restricts by requiring explicit and revocable consent. I see the abrupt retirement of these endpoints as a reaction to the pressure FB is facing as of late. This is a positive for personal privacy and will reduce the potential for abuse, however many types of legitimate and responsible businesses will be affected as well.
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- hw 9y agoIt looks like Instagram is starting to feel the shockwaves of Facebook's issues. Here I was hoping that Instagram would not go down the same path as Facebook, but I guess that was only a matter of time. As a developer building and maintaining IG apps, it's extremely frustrating not just for me but also my clients who depend on apps we build to manage their Instagram. This also comes on the heels of IG dialing down their API limits from ~5000 per hour to 200 per hour [0], which is ridiculously low. If my app has 20 IG accounts connected to it, each account can only hit 10 per hour. Crippling. [0]: https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/03/instagram-api-limits/ https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/03/instagram-api-limits/
- charlesdm 9y agoI always thought these rate limits often to be ridiculous. Same applies to Twitter -- they have quite a restrictive API with few opportunities to get the query rate increased. Honestly, do they want people to build scrapers using sets of IP addresses?
- vevis 9y agoTo think the modified rate limit with no announcement was a critical issue--the effect of this shutdown will be seriously widespread. Despite the deprecation schedule, this seems drastic. Considering the number of fires this is going to cause, application-wise...yikes.
- matte_black 9y agoI’ve always just used their private APIs, has that been broken now??
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kylehotchkiss 9y agoDoes instagram have a data export option now?
- charlieegan3 9y agoIt does not. I've asked support about it but there isn't even one hidden away at the moment. I suspect with GDPR coming one might show up sometime soon though. In the meantime I've been using instalooter (https://github.com/althonos/InstaLooter https://github.com/althonos/InstaLooter) along with some of my own scripts.
- kylehotchkiss 9y agoThanks Charlie, I'm trying to get an export of old messages from Instagram. Scrolling up takes ages and I met my SO there, I'm hoping to get access to those first messages again one day!
- charlieegan3 9y agoNo probs. I spent quite a long time experimenting and instaLooter was the best I could find. Instagram's gone from a place where I posted the odd picture to a serious attempt to document my life (mostly to be consumed by myself). Throughout last year I became increasingly nervous about not having access to all the data!
- cvaidya1986 9y agoThis is always the risk with trying to run a business or develop an app on someone else’s platform.
- mbesto 9y ago@dang I'd suggest changing the name of this submission to: Instagram abruptly deprecates a majority of its API before plan As this is the real story. The current title is a bit misleading. Good discussion none the less.
- saagarjha 9y agoThis isn't even deprecation. This is shutting down the API endpoints.
- mbesto 9y agoHence why it reads "abruptly deprecates a majority of it's API before plan" and not "abruptly eliminates a majority of its API endpoints before plan"
- kelnos 9y agoBut they have abruptly eliminated those API endpoints before plan. "Deprecate" means that you've marked something for removal at some point in the future. From the other comments here, it seems that the endpoints have been abruptly shut down, effective immediately.
- seanca 9y agoNot surprising - as someone who has worked in the Facebook APIs for going on three years, the amount of undocumented breaking changes or abrupt API retirements is insane. Their overarching principle here has been "we're doing it now so you figure it out."
- hw 9y agoDoes anyone know if their private API is still accessible? https://github.com/mgp25/Instagram-API https://github.com/mgp25/Instagram-API
- chatmasta 9y agoIt still works in the sense that their app needs to use it. But AFAIK Instagram stepped up server side security a few months ago, and it’s now nearly impossible to use that API from a data center IP. There’s a big thread on it in the issues of that repo you linked, but I’m on mobile atm can’t find it.
- slaymaker1907 9y agoWith all these lock downs, it looks like we are back to the great cat and mouse game of web scraping.
- rokhayakebe 9y agoPlease take note: never build a business which depends majorly on someone's else platform be that free or paid.
- AznHisoka 9y agoYes, and if Buffer (Twitter), SimilarWeb (Chrome extensions, yes I know you buy extensions, i’m on to you!!), AppAnnie (App Store), Hootsuite (fb/twitter) and Heroku (aws) all listened to you, their founders wouldn’t have been rich. Not everything is black and white.
- siquick 9y agoI never understood how this logic became so trendy. - All software above the OS layer is built on someone else's platform. - All websites unless hosted on your own servers are built on someone elses platform, most likely using libraries built by someone else, on someone elses platform. - All websites run in a browser which you don't own.
- brianwawok 9y agoThis logic is worse than strawman. You build a business that 100% depends on facebook. Facebook is a commercial company. At any point they can shut it down, and you are back to 0. Bad. You build a website that depends on "a browser". There are at least 4 popular browsers desktop browsers, with several variations on mobile and more exotic browsers. All 4 are run by different companies. For most websites you would still function if even 3 of the 4 major browsers were shut down. Furthermore, desktop software is downloaded and cannot just vanish (let's ignore app store and that kind of magic, as not all browsers come in like that). So I think you just proved the point on writing a "website" is a safer bet then writing a "tool for facebook"
- rokhayakebe 9y agoWith FB you have a single point of failure: "Hey Jerry block api_key." That is one field updated in one table. For Firefox to block your website/web app they may have to force an update on the millions of browsers out there, which is not equally easy. If your hosting company shuts you down, you move to another (hopefully you had backups). If Google stops supporting Angular maybe you move to React. If Apple removes you from the appstore and people really want your app, maybe they may find ways to download. If Instagram says "no more access to our users from your app," well your app just became useless if it depended solely on Insta.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rokhayakebe 9y agoI don't understand. Instagram == Facebook. Facebook is being hit left and right for giving away too much user data (which I agree with). Facebook takes steps and decides to close its data doors immediately. People complaint about the doors being closed.
- Shish2k 9y agoDifferent people in each case - Facebook have an API to export data - team privacy are loudly outraged, team data-portability are quietly happy. Facebook lock down their APIs - team privacy are quietly happy, team data-portability are loudly outraged. The end result being that no matter what happens, there will be a fairly consistent supply of outrage - the only question is do you want it from one side, the other side, or a bit of both?
- idax 9y agoSooo, can I still cross reference customers from my database to see if they are influenecers on instagram or does GET /users/{user-id} and GET /users/self/followed-by ruin that?
- tokyohans 9y agoGot that notice too. Indeed, deprecated isn't "we're in panic mode and gotta act erratically to show those poor souls who have actually never read the T&C that we care". We invested $50k in analytics and client experience. Going to the trash can. Agree with quite a few comments here. The most profound one was an observation I made too: FB is effectively strengthening its monopoly by using the Cambridge debacle. Feels very much like post financial crisis behavior of the too big to fail banks (I worked for one). But perhaps more importantly: Are "Instagram" partners actually affected? Beasts like Salesforce.com and Oracle consume huge amounts of data. There are dozens that consume audience data etc. Pretty sure that they are paying license fees to continue to operate with much more sensible API permissions and limits. Thoughts?
- tibyat 9y agoaww boohoo now my business using ig users’ data without their understanding isn’t going to be successful. really guys? pursue an ethical career.
- alexharrisnyc 9y agoMissing from their changelog is the most basic endpoint which has been retired. /media/ which now returns {"meta": {"code": 400, "error_type": "APINotAllowedError", "error_message": "This endpoint has been retired"}}.