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Even if it were legal (which it should be IMO), I can't see anything other than a cat and mouse game happening where the primaries change their authentication p
by taurath 8y ago
Even if it were legal (which it should be IMO), I can't see anything other than a cat and mouse game happening where the primaries change their authentication patterns on a daily, hourly or minute to minute basis. Consider all the things that facebook does to mess with scrapers right now - every single letter in a div, multiples that are hidden, etc. Its a complete mess.
"Forced open APIs" is an interesting idea in terms of actually bringing value to users - its almost on the level of nationalizing a company though in terms of being anti-business. Why Facebook would front the cost of running a service they can't monetize though is a big question.
- surrealize 8y agoForcing open APIs isn't anti-business. It's pro-competition and pro-startup. The only thing it's anti- is big incumbents, which is the point.
- taurath 8y agoWe've gone from social media being a relatively unmonetized public good to a heavily monetized semi-private good. I hope we can find some middle ground eventually - though the "problem" with unmonetized services is they go away because nobody can afford to run them (Wikipedia being a good example of one that is treating the line as a non-profit). Isn't fixing that the promise of distributed apps?
- danra 8y ago> every single letter in a div That's... I... Well. :0
- salawat 8y agoThat alone is enough to assure me my conviction to never support them beyond a token account was justified. ...though I may formally delete my account now. That's just... I'm going to be sick. That's Hostile Architecture if I've ever seen it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_architecture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_architecture I'm growing increasingly weary of this type of offensive programming. I've never felt or understood the need to actively make something as hard to consume and process as possible. Again though, it really speaks to Facebook's view of their users: 'Look, but don't touch!' Then again, I tend to build by the maxim 'it is vain to do with more what can be done with less'.
- labster 8y agoHow dare they. They should put every letter in a <span> instead, since letters should be inline. Heathens.
- jolux 8y agoDo they really do this? I would totally believe it but I don't see it...
- fouc 8y agoNext time you are on facebook, just right click and inspect element or view source code.
- csomar 8y agoEasy to get around. Just use "innerText" and it'll generate whatever text is inside. They do have plenty of other tactics, though.
- taurath 8y agoThey also will write the divs out of order, put in "fake" letter divs that are hidden or on a different z axis, all sorts of fun stuff.