7 ms·

Hey guys, I work on anti-spam at FB (though not specifically platform) and just looked into this. It looks like their app was disabled for pre-filling content s

by mkjones 15y ago

Hey guys, I work on anti-spam at FB (though not specifically platform) and just looked into this. It looks like their app was disabled for pre-filling content so that it looks like users typed it, which makes for a super spammy experience and is explicitly against our ToS. They were disabled within policy (and the reason was communicated to them - check out the OP at http://www.nimitkumar.in/?p=196 http://www.nimitkumar.in/?p=196). The vanity URL "videocalling" wasn't reclaimed until June, and I'm pretty sure was completely unrelated to this app being disabled. If we wanted it for our own use, we would have been up-front about that, not done some roundabout make-up-an-excuse-and-kill-an-innocent-app tomfoolery that the poster is suggesting. Besides, it'd be a gigantic waste of time to build marketing pages 3 months before a product launch given how fast things change even in the week or two prior to a launch. All that being said, we're working pretty hard on improving the developer experience when an app is found to be in violation of policies. This isn't something I work on directly, so I don't wanna go shooting my mouth off, but check out https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/521/ https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/521/ for some background.

domador 15y ago
If things are as you say, then we may have jumped to conclusions and judged Facebook unfairly on this particular matter. However, I'd say jumping to conclusions is to be expected, given Facebook's track record. I long ago stopped giving FB the benefit of the doubt, considering the many questionable and thoughtless actions in its past. FB has a long way to go in recovering the goodwill it has lost (from me and surely from others). (BY the way, I have not watched "The Social Network" or formed any opinions on FB based on that movie. My opinions are strictly based on news articles and my personal experience with the service.)
- mkjones 15y ago
  Sad to hear we've lost your faith :-/. Hopefully we can build it back, though I know it's often hard to change one's feelings about things. I'm curious what you think we've done that's particularly questionable or thoughtless. I think a lot of memes ("facebook sells your data to advertisers!") are just plain wrong, and if you think about them for a while you realize they make no sense (we'd clearly stand to gain more by not giving anyone access to it and only allowing advertisers to target things with various criteria, then handling the assignment of ad to user internally, without leaking any data). A lot of other issues are just more nuanced, and it drives a lot more clicks to posit some sensationalist conspiracy theory than to discuss the complexities behind a situation. I try not to discuss anything on here that I don't directly work on, so bear in mind that I may not be able to address any of your concerns.
  - domador 15y ago
    I'll oblige your curiosity. Here's what comes to mind right now... The sin that takes the cake was Facebook's attempted smear campaign against Google: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/05/12/facebook-busted-in-clumsy-smear-attempt-on-google.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/05/12/facebook-bu... I can't currently remember other acts on a similarly questionable level. Most don't sink that low, and are "only" irresponsible, such as allowing newly-created accounts to be used without first verifying the user's e-mail address: http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/10/being-eric-schmidt-on-facebook/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/10/being-eric-schmidt-on-faceb... (Was this security hole ever closed?) Facebook is a pioneer in on-line human interaction, and a reckless one at that (not a good thing). Privacy is one area in particular where FB keeps pushing the boundaries and exposing its users to new dangers. Is the company clueless about its users' privacy needs? Are FB's goals at cross-purposes with its users' goals? It's hard to tell which of the two is a better-fitting explanation. Other FB actions aren't evil or irresponsible, but are still careless. One type of carelessness is FB's willingness to throw away users' valuable information. For example, FB has been announcing its intention of wiping out membership information for old Groups as it archives them. Does FB really think this is in users' best interest? (I value the Groups I've joined through the years, and most of them will apparently have their membership lists purged. This is not the only case where information I value was/will be destroyed by Facebook.) Another sign of careless is FB's apparent unresponsiveness to user feedback. I understand that it's hard to be responsive with a 1 : 250,000 employee-to-customer ratio. I understand that many aspects of customer service would need to be automated. However, because of this, FB needs to be very careful about how and what it automates, as exemplified by stories like this one: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/facebook-takedown-followup-what-happened-and-what-facebook-needs-to-fix.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/facebook-tak... Incidentally, I really appreciate the fact that you are personally responding to FB-related complaints. Keep it up! (I hope you don't become too discouraged.) Make no mistake, I've greatly enjoyed using Facebook and derive great benefit from the service. However, actions like the ones I've mentioned chronically fuel my distrust of and annoyance at Facebook.
loumf 15y ago
In the link you provided to the OP's website, right after quoting the FB email, he writes: We obviously did not “pre fill” any fields without any user action.
- mkjones 15y ago
  See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2756661 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2756661
johnyzee 15y ago
> If we wanted it for our own use, we would have been up-front about that With all due respect, are you really in a position to say that with any kind of authority?
rwolf 15y ago
The first post you linked to goes on to say "We obviously did not 'pre fill' any fields without any user action." Is there any evidence you can provide our ridiculous INTERNET COURT that they did?
- mkjones 15y ago
  It looks like this app was both automatically classified and manually verified by a person as violating the terms, and I trust that there wouldn't be a double failure in that regard. I'm hesitant to speculate at all since, as you hint, this could quickly devolve into an unproductive he-said / she-said squabble.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- kingsley_20 15y ago
  While working for a social-game maker, I've been wrist-slapped for a game that ostensibly pre-filled fields. After multiple internal reviews failed to find the offending form/screen, we finally reached out to our facebook contact (thankfully, the company I was working for was important enough to have one). It turned out that we pre-filled the name of the user's town (this was a city-building game) with "Firstname's Town". Changing this to a blank field wrecked our funnel, but heh. Point I'm trying to make is, it's often hard to tell what/if you're doing wrong, when you get a rejection like that.
nimitk 15y ago
We do not doubt the hard work put in by Facebook employees and the talent of their engineers. You have done a fabulous job in making Facebook and scaling to a massive user base. We love to use Facebook and are more than happy to acknowledge it. The point we are discussing is about the policy implementation and its consistency. First of all it is not new for Facebook to take away someone else's URL. See this post from early 2010 - http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/23/facebook-vanity-url-harman/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/23/facebook-vanity-url-harman/ . Clearly the argument you have around "If we wanted it for our own use, we would have been up-front about that" does not hold much to the test of history. Second, the work on Facebook-Skype integration seems to have started around November, 2010 - http://blog.greenanysite.com/index.php/2010/11/facebook-video-chatting-with-skype/ http://blog.greenanysite.com/index.php/2010/11/facebook-vide.... We all know software product life-cycles and how marketing pages are made/thought. Let's not discuss how that works. Coming to specifics on this application disabling. Here are some facts to clear the air: 1. In sending Video Calling Invitations, we were not doing anything different from the following applications: Video Chat Rounds, Tiny Chat, vChatter. 2. When we exchanged some emails with the Facebook representative, we highlighted the fact that we being singled out when there were bunch of other apps having much worse policy implementations. 3. After three months of our reporting this, these apps are still functional. This demonstrates Facebook indeed had a vested interest in disabling our application. 4. Why would Facebook recommend developers to relaunch their application at a different URL when the application is known to be spammy. There is no point trying to defend an error, which may have happened in ignorance or in intent. Nor is my intention to prove anything. We have merely stated the facts and it is for people to decide. We have moved on from this incident and as an organization we have far more important aspirations than to worry about a Facebook application. I am responding to this, as I believe it is only fair to put the entire perspective in place. Best, Nimit
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

by mkjones 15y ago

domador 15y ago

If things are as you say, then we may have jumped to conclusions and judged Facebook unfairly on this particular matter. However, I'd say jumping to conclusions is to be expected, given Facebook's track record. I long ago stopped giving FB the benefit of the doubt, considering the many questionable and thoughtless actions in its past. FB has a long way to go in recovering the goodwill it has lost (from me and surely from others). (BY the way, I have not watched "The Social Network" or formed any opinions on FB based on that movie. My opinions are strictly based on news articles and my personal experience with the service.)

mkjones 15y ago
Sad to hear we've lost your faith :-/. Hopefully we can build it back, though I know it's often hard to change one's feelings about things. I'm curious what you think we've done that's particularly questionable or thoughtless. I think a lot of memes ("facebook sells your data to advertisers!") are just plain wrong, and if you think about them for a while you realize they make no sense (we'd clearly stand to gain more by not giving anyone access to it and only allowing advertisers to target things with various criteria, then handling the assignment of ad to user internally, without leaking any data). A lot of other issues are just more nuanced, and it drives a lot more clicks to posit some sensationalist conspiracy theory than to discuss the complexities behind a situation. I try not to discuss anything on here that I don't directly work on, so bear in mind that I may not be able to address any of your concerns.
- domador 15y ago
  I'll oblige your curiosity. Here's what comes to mind right now... The sin that takes the cake was Facebook's attempted smear campaign against Google: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/05/12/facebook-busted-in-clumsy-smear-attempt-on-google.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/05/12/facebook-bu... I can't currently remember other acts on a similarly questionable level. Most don't sink that low, and are "only" irresponsible, such as allowing newly-created accounts to be used without first verifying the user's e-mail address: http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/10/being-eric-schmidt-on-facebook/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/10/being-eric-schmidt-on-faceb... (Was this security hole ever closed?) Facebook is a pioneer in on-line human interaction, and a reckless one at that (not a good thing). Privacy is one area in particular where FB keeps pushing the boundaries and exposing its users to new dangers. Is the company clueless about its users' privacy needs? Are FB's goals at cross-purposes with its users' goals? It's hard to tell which of the two is a better-fitting explanation. Other FB actions aren't evil or irresponsible, but are still careless. One type of carelessness is FB's willingness to throw away users' valuable information. For example, FB has been announcing its intention of wiping out membership information for old Groups as it archives them. Does FB really think this is in users' best interest? (I value the Groups I've joined through the years, and most of them will apparently have their membership lists purged. This is not the only case where information I value was/will be destroyed by Facebook.) Another sign of careless is FB's apparent unresponsiveness to user feedback. I understand that it's hard to be responsive with a 1 : 250,000 employee-to-customer ratio. I understand that many aspects of customer service would need to be automated. However, because of this, FB needs to be very careful about how and what it automates, as exemplified by stories like this one: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/facebook-takedown-followup-what-happened-and-what-facebook-needs-to-fix.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/facebook-tak... Incidentally, I really appreciate the fact that you are personally responding to FB-related complaints. Keep it up! (I hope you don't become too discouraged.) Make no mistake, I've greatly enjoyed using Facebook and derive great benefit from the service. However, actions like the ones I've mentioned chronically fuel my distrust of and annoyance at Facebook.

loumf 15y ago

In the link you provided to the OP's website, right after quoting the FB email, he writes: We obviously did not “pre fill” any fields without any user action.

mkjones 15y ago
See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2756661 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2756661

johnyzee 15y ago

> If we wanted it for our own use, we would have been up-front about that With all due respect, are you really in a position to say that with any kind of authority?

rwolf 15y ago

The first post you linked to goes on to say "We obviously did not 'pre fill' any fields without any user action." Is there any evidence you can provide our ridiculous INTERNET COURT that they did?

mkjones 15y ago
It looks like this app was both automatically classified and manually verified by a person as violating the terms, and I trust that there wouldn't be a double failure in that regard. I'm hesitant to speculate at all since, as you hint, this could quickly devolve into an unproductive he-said / she-said squabble.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
kingsley_20 15y ago
While working for a social-game maker, I've been wrist-slapped for a game that ostensibly pre-filled fields. After multiple internal reviews failed to find the offending form/screen, we finally reached out to our facebook contact (thankfully, the company I was working for was important enough to have one). It turned out that we pre-filled the name of the user's town (this was a city-building game) with "Firstname's Town". Changing this to a blank field wrecked our funnel, but heh. Point I'm trying to make is, it's often hard to tell what/if you're doing wrong, when you get a rejection like that.

nimitk 15y ago

We do not doubt the hard work put in by Facebook employees and the talent of their engineers. You have done a fabulous job in making Facebook and scaling to a massive user base. We love to use Facebook and are more than happy to acknowledge it. The point we are discussing is about the policy implementation and its consistency. First of all it is not new for Facebook to take away someone else's URL. See this post from early 2010 - http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/23/facebook-vanity-url-harman/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/23/facebook-vanity-url-harman/ . Clearly the argument you have around "If we wanted it for our own use, we would have been up-front about that" does not hold much to the test of history. Second, the work on Facebook-Skype integration seems to have started around November, 2010 - http://blog.greenanysite.com/index.php/2010/11/facebook-video-chatting-with-skype/ http://blog.greenanysite.com/index.php/2010/11/facebook-vide.... We all know software product life-cycles and how marketing pages are made/thought. Let's not discuss how that works. Coming to specifics on this application disabling. Here are some facts to clear the air: 1. In sending Video Calling Invitations, we were not doing anything different from the following applications: Video Chat Rounds, Tiny Chat, vChatter. 2. When we exchanged some emails with the Facebook representative, we highlighted the fact that we being singled out when there were bunch of other apps having much worse policy implementations. 3. After three months of our reporting this, these apps are still functional. This demonstrates Facebook indeed had a vested interest in disabling our application. 4. Why would Facebook recommend developers to relaunch their application at a different URL when the application is known to be spammy. There is no point trying to defend an error, which may have happened in ignorance or in intent. Nor is my intention to prove anything. We have merely stated the facts and it is for people to decide. We have moved on from this incident and as an organization we have far more important aspirations than to worry about a Facebook application. I am responding to this, as I believe it is only fair to put the entire perspective in place. Best, Nimit

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]