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The cease and desist seemingly has no real legal basis, but I mean you can send a cease and desist for anything you want. My mom was building a shed on her prop

The cease and desist seemingly has no real legal basis, but I mean you can send a cease and desist for anything you want. My mom was building a shed on her property, some neighbors didn't like it so they had a lawyer send a cease and desist with no legal basis. My mom ignored the C&D and is enjoying her new shed. The only problem is Facebook is huge and is willing to drag out lawsuits they won't win just to destroy people's lives because they can afford to hold out much longer than everyone else. It's complete abuse of process, and really should be dealt with more harshly than it is.

JadeNB 5y ago
Even more ominous than a cease & desist is a cease & decease, which is how the article (presumably inadvertently) describes it.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Stop it & die! It would be an appropriate way for Facebook to phrase their C&D considering the forms that cyber-bullying take on the platform
walrus01 5y ago
Give the source code to the extension to a developer located in an impossible legal jurisdiction like Afghanistan. Let them publish it. Good luck to Facebook hiring a lawyer and trying its luck in the Taliban's court system. Even before the collapse of the previous government in Kabul it would have been a near impossibility.
- Eikon 5y ago
  And then, where to publish it? On a website based in an American jurisdiction? On some browser extension store? Great idea.
  - walrus01 5y ago
    Individual civilian afghans are not embargoed by US law - it's not Iran. The Taliban are, of course, embargoed and listed in various things like the OFAC list. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary Afghans have gmail accounts, many companies use google workspace or office365, etc. For example.
    - notatoad 5y ago
      I think the point was that having an Afghani publish the source wouldn't really accomplish anything because Facebook could just go after whatever service was used to publish it, instead of the person who published it. An Afghani can access GitHub or the chrome extension store, but those are both run by American companies who will obey Facebook's takedown requests.
      - 14 5y ago
        What about torrenting? Why not offer is somewhere a bit more decentralized?
        throwawayboise 5y ago
        Now you're into territory where yes, the extension is available, but nobody can find it and only the very technically astute will be able and willing to install it. FB achieves 99.9% of their goal.
      - walrus01 5y ago
        At least that shifts the dangerous legal-financial burden onto google's lawyers, if they want to fight a takedown request to remove an extension from the extension store.
        colejohnson66 5y ago
        I doubt Google would fight it and would just take it down no questions asked
- JulianMorrison 5y ago
  Do you want a Facebook own-brand drone army? Because this is how you get one.
  - notatoad 5y ago
    Meh, given current Facebook PR trends I give it about a week before we learn they've already got one.
    - aaroninsf 5y ago
      Delivery drone can deliver quite a range of things.
      - JulianMorrison 5y ago
        "Our new fleet of stand-off delivery drones and inertially guided gliding packages can accurately drop your purchase onto your front lawn from 31,000 feet"
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - quickthrower2 5y ago
    Free clay pigeon shooting? Sure!
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    So the MVP drones will do what twenty years of trillion-dollar brutality couldn't do? Wow you seem to have an even lower opinion of the effectiveness of USA military than I do... I suspect Taliban would laugh at this idea.
    - JulianMorrison 5y ago
      I mean #1 you missed the bit where I'm not being serious? But #2, the US military is just fine at blowing up specific named people in specific locations. It's trying to mould an entire nation with their own ideas and traditions into a carbon copy of America that they're not great at. Facebook, I think, would avoid this trap.
- FromTheSteppe 5y ago
  I'm a developer in Iran willing to do this, email in the profile, just in case the owner wants to and reads this.
  - 650REDHAIR 5y ago
    I'll donate to this project.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      Donating money to a project in Iran may be legally hairy for Americans. Check the situation before doing so. I am all for helping worthwhile projects financially, but international politics is a mess.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - walrus01 5y ago
        I've seen a case where somebody had their zelle or venmo account permanently removed for sending a small transfer to their friend with the description "for the cubans" - they were paying their buddy back for an order of sandwiches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_sandwich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_sandwich
        short12 5y ago
        I've never seen a bank or credit card company put in any effort regarding cuban cigars. A few of the best shops are clearly illegal just because of the name alone. But they all accept visa and Mastercard You don't even need to bother with h dark web and cryptocurrency. It will just flat out show up on your bill without issue.
        mthoms 5y ago
        I think they might have interpreted it as "please give this money to the Cubans". Which, AFAIK is (was?) illegal in the US.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  That's actually... interesting. It's a well established tactic to go to another country and publish your stuff from there if you like to keep annoying a government or institution. You know, Snowden is in Russia, some Russian journalists are in EU countries. It happens all the time since ever. What if someone creates a Telegram group where developers from hostile countries(like US&Iran, UK&Russia, Japan&China) pass each other projects that are not obviously illegal but not feasible due to risk of persecution? In this case, If FB thinks it has a case can try its luck by sending Google a scary looking letter then proceed to compel Google to remove the extension by court order.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  Oh yeah, find someone that wants to be a target of a major US corporation in Afghanistan/third world. You forget we have Guantanamo where people were "renditioned" with little or no legal basis either in the US or otherwise, and I believe there are people in Guantanamo that have no publicly provided evidence to be there? All it takes is waiting for some politically opportune reason to enact a little dragnet and getting someone on some CIA list with little evidence, and BAM, You're in something like Guantanamo or even worse (client torture security services, assassination, etc). Yes we withdrew forces, but we've been there a decade and likely have a large network of CIA contacts that would kill or injure a random Afghan civilian. The US Government is a very very very very dangerous entity to anyone in the third world should you get on their radar. They are dangerous to US citizens with the Padilla case, antiterrorism law overreach, no fly lists, and a variety of other harassment techniques. The state department and CIA are power extensions of the corporate elite in the United States. We have toppled regimes for oil... minerals... even bananas. Russia would be far better.
  - rpmisms 5y ago
    I have family there, let me know if I can help.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Better yet: anonymous git hosting as a tor hidden service. Now there's nothing they can do but rage at all the "unauthorized" extensions giving users control over their little platform.
- manquer 5y ago
  Even better fund organizations like EFF to take cases like this and make sure there is legal precedent that gives a strong footing to all developers. Hiding in other countries is a not sustainable solution, they are going to force extension stores to remove it etc payment gateway not to process you, pushing you as a dev to the fringes and silence others The chilling effect is the real aim, they are effectively signaling that they can come after anyone who pisses their business model of.
pixl97 5y ago
Would this be considered a SLAPP?
- bathtub365 5y ago
  It’s impossible to tell since there isn’t a lawsuit
- cyral 5y ago
  Not a lawyer but I believe that only applies to actual lawsuits. Anyone can send you a C&D and you can choose to ignore it. It will cost at least $300 to consult with a lawyer to even write a response. If the other party really believes they are right, they will sue you.
  - bityard 5y ago
    I can't find it now because google is garbage these days but years ago I once ran across forum thread or blog post from a small business owner who semi-regularly received random bogus patent infringement and other claims with offers to settle matter out of court for thousands of dollars. He had a lawyer but after burning through a lot of money with carefully-written objections, he decided to just start ignoring them altogether. Which generally worked. These lawyers (and their clients) were just trolling for easy cash and never actually wanted to go to court because their claims were bogus and they would almost certainly lose. Sometimes, however, the other party's law firm would call him on the phone to follow with their demands. He would let them yammer on for a few minutes, ask some innocent questions, and then finally interrupt them with something like this. "Here is what I have to say to your client's claim... you have a pen and paper ready? I need you to write this down. Okay, good. Here it is: 'Fuck you.' No wait, I'm not done yet. Just let me speak. I want you to also add, 'and go to hell" please. That is my official legal response. Have a nice day." And slammed the phone down. Take the story with a grain of salt, but he said it worked 100% of the time.
    - xxpor 5y ago
      C&Ds are also specifically protected speech under the first amendment, under the theory they're really a threat to petition the government.
javajosh 5y ago
Tangentially, I wonder why both the words "cease" and "desist" are necessary. Aren't they synonyms? Perhaps it's just for emphasis?
- morsch 5y ago
  It has an interesting history. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_doublet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_doublet
- fogof 5y ago
  They are slightly different in meaning. Cease = Stop doing it. Desist = Don’t do it again.
- dlivingston 5y ago
  “ A legal doublet is a standardized phrase used frequently in English legal language consisting of two or more words that are near synonyms, usually connected by "and", and in standard orders, such as "cease and desist". The doubling—and sometimes even tripling—often originates in the transition from use of one language for legal purposes to another… To ensure understanding, the terms from both languages were used. This reflected the interactions between Germanic and Roman law following the decline of the Roman Empire.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_doublet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_doublet
  - thinkloop 5y ago
    Now we're only missing what the two languages are for "cease and desist"
    - zinekeller 5y ago
      Cease - Latin to cessare meaning "to yield", then Old French. Desist - Latin to stare (sta-re, not homonym of stair) meaning "to stand", then (still) Latin to "sistere" meaning "to stop" plus prefix de, which in this context is "an order (from top, aka court) to down (aka to you)", then Old French. Huh. So this is basically court-enforced stop and yielding to the other party.
smileysteve 5y ago
A much more related example of ignoring of ignoring a Cease and Desist is the one that Zuckerberg received from the Winklevoss twins as he and Eduardo were marketing The Facebook -- only it had some legal basis.
lacker 5y ago
The cease and desist seemingly has no real legal basis It seems pretty straightforward to me - the Facebook terms of service say that you won't make scripts that interact with the Facebook site except through approved APIs, the cease and desist is telling him that he is breaking this agreement. There's no lawsuit involved, Facebook will just enforce this themselves by banning the account and making the script not work. It's not a big deal, this probably happens hundreds of times a day for various bots that people make that manipulate Facebook in different ways.
- asdff 5y ago
  I feel like websites shouldn't be able to just ban scripting. What if I have a disability and a custom script is the only way I can interface with fb?
  - feanaro 5y ago
    Agreed, but people seem to often miss this point. There is nothing special in browsers that allows them to do something that "scripts" cannot do. They are both HTTP user agents.
    - asdff 5y ago
      I hate the whole song and dance too with how you have to fake your user agent and add human like delay to interactions whenever you make a useful script on the web these days. You aren't stopping malicious behavior since they know how to penetrate these systems trivially, you just make it harder for the average user who has to learn as they go how to rope around these issues and hope they don't get IP banned along the way for making a website slightly more useful to them.
  - dghlsakjg 5y ago
    If Facebook makes a change to intentionally make accessibility harder, then you can sue Facebook under the ADA if you are an American. There is a whole category of law where they just go around suing businesses for not being accessible enough. Quite a lot of money in it.
akudha 5y ago
demanded that I agree to never again create tools that interact with Facebook or its other services. How is this legal in any shape or form? It is a browser extension, running on users' browsers, installed intentionally by his users. This is insane. The level of arrogance and entitlement here is mind blowing.
- unclebucknasty 5y ago
  >How is this legal in any shape or form? IANAL, but have some experience with this from a business matter, resulting in obtaining advice of counsel. And, yeah this is not a criminal matter, but a civil one, so you're right that the developer isn't likely in civil breach unless they are using FB resources (e.g. API or SDK) that they access under agreement with FB and are violating. The irony is that if the FB standard user agreement prevents users from, say, using software to programmatically access the site, then it's the user of the extension who would be in breach with FB. So, as long as the developer doesn't use the extension on their own FB account, then FB doesn't have much to stand on (and even then the C&D would only be applicable to the developer's use of the extension as a user). On a related side note, if the extension actually did something not related to a specific account (e.g. scraped a public profile while not signed in), then even the user would likely not be in breach, as there is no affirmative assent (i.e. clickwrap) to terms of use required to simply visit the site.
  - invokestatic 5y ago
    There’s actually a concept of tortious interference, which can make you liable for assisting other people in breaking a terms of service, even if you never broke it yourself.
    - zja 5y ago
      Sounds similar to what happened when Blizzard sued a company for selling World of Warcraft hacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glider_(bot) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glider_(bot)
XCSme 5y ago
> My mom was building a shed on her property, some neighbors didn't like it Note that depending on the country, you might still need authorization to build any structure on your own property.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  I recently moved into a neighborhood with a stricter HOA, after avoiding them for most of my life. My plan is to wait until February 2022, and build the ugliest golden Trump mailbox I can slap together. Then, when they ask me to take it down, request an appeal, and film the ensuing meeting. Then, send said video to Fox News et al. Then, run for HOA on a platform of abolishing the HOA. ... I really don't like neighbors telling me what I can and can't do.
  - vegetablepotpie 5y ago
    I can’t help but point out the irony of this post that building an idol of a politician is considered an act of defiance against authority.
    - Nasrudith 5y ago
      Well it is being used as a tool in the literal sense. Who it applies to of all parties mentioned above in the perojative sense will be left as an exercise to the reader (as it is a matter of opinion).
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- TravisHusky 5y ago
  Yeah; she had the permits. It was kinda funny from the outside because people kept complaining to the county and the county kept pushing back saying it was approved. That shed must've been inspected 3 separate times because of a couple of neighbors who didn't even live on the same street but I guess were just bored. The neighborhood has an HOA but the HOA actually had no actual rules because they were not properly registering with the county when they made bylaws (where my mom is all HOA rules have to be submitted to the state, otherwise they are not enforceable). Gotta love HOAs.
blocked_again 5y ago
> My mom was building a shed on her property, some neighbors didn't like it so they had a lawyer send a cease and desist with no legal basis > The only problem is Facebook is huge and is willing to drag out lawsuits they won't win just to destroy people's lives because they can afford to hold out much longer than everyone else. Convincing people that America is the land of the free, is the biggest trick the devil has ever pulled.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  Nobody has ever been “free” but damn are we a whole lot more free than most humans in the history of civilization.
  - int_19h 5y ago
    Americans are so free that they have to pay $2,350 for the privilege of becoming non-Americans.
UglyToad 5y ago
Yeah this is the problem more generally with the legal system both in my home country of England but especially in the US. As one hn user put it so perfectly recently "the process is the punishment". I think a lot of people in the software bubble don't realize what a huge sum even $100 is for the average person, the law only affords power and protection to the rich and already powerful.
panta 5y ago
> The only problem is Facebook is huge and is willing to drag out lawsuits they won't win just to destroy people's lives because they can afford to hold out much longer than everyone else. There is no certainty in the legal system, they could very well win even if they are in the wrong. More so when they can employ an army of lawyers and put economic pressure on the system.
ransom1538 5y ago
"The only problem is Facebook is huge and is willing to drag out lawsuits they won't win just to destroy people's lives because they can afford to hold" Meh. Just show up. Don't hire lawyers. File motions all day to see more evidence.
- 6510 5y ago
  and in this case: bring journalists and popcorn

JadeNB 5y ago

Even more ominous than a cease & desist is a cease & decease, which is how the article (presumably inadvertently) describes it.

ineedasername 5y ago
Stop it & die! It would be an appropriate way for Facebook to phrase their C&D considering the forms that cyber-bullying take on the platform

walrus01 5y ago

Give the source code to the extension to a developer located in an impossible legal jurisdiction like Afghanistan. Let them publish it. Good luck to Facebook hiring a lawyer and trying its luck in the Taliban's court system. Even before the collapse of the previous government in Kabul it would have been a near impossibility.

Eikon 5y ago
And then, where to publish it? On a website based in an American jurisdiction? On some browser extension store? Great idea.
- walrus01 5y ago
  Individual civilian afghans are not embargoed by US law - it's not Iran. The Taliban are, of course, embargoed and listed in various things like the OFAC list. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary Afghans have gmail accounts, many companies use google workspace or office365, etc. For example.
  - notatoad 5y ago
    I think the point was that having an Afghani publish the source wouldn't really accomplish anything because Facebook could just go after whatever service was used to publish it, instead of the person who published it. An Afghani can access GitHub or the chrome extension store, but those are both run by American companies who will obey Facebook's takedown requests.
    - 14 5y ago
      What about torrenting? Why not offer is somewhere a bit more decentralized?
      - throwawayboise 5y ago
        Now you're into territory where yes, the extension is available, but nobody can find it and only the very technically astute will be able and willing to install it. FB achieves 99.9% of their goal.
    - walrus01 5y ago
      At least that shifts the dangerous legal-financial burden onto google's lawyers, if they want to fight a takedown request to remove an extension from the extension store.
      - colejohnson66 5y ago
        I doubt Google would fight it and would just take it down no questions asked
JulianMorrison 5y ago
Do you want a Facebook own-brand drone army? Because this is how you get one.
- notatoad 5y ago
  Meh, given current Facebook PR trends I give it about a week before we learn they've already got one.
  - aaroninsf 5y ago
    Delivery drone can deliver quite a range of things.
    - JulianMorrison 5y ago
      "Our new fleet of stand-off delivery drones and inertially guided gliding packages can accurately drop your purchase onto your front lawn from 31,000 feet"
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  Free clay pigeon shooting? Sure!
- jessaustin 5y ago
  So the MVP drones will do what twenty years of trillion-dollar brutality couldn't do? Wow you seem to have an even lower opinion of the effectiveness of USA military than I do... I suspect Taliban would laugh at this idea.
  - JulianMorrison 5y ago
    I mean #1 you missed the bit where I'm not being serious? But #2, the US military is just fine at blowing up specific named people in specific locations. It's trying to mould an entire nation with their own ideas and traditions into a carbon copy of America that they're not great at. Facebook, I think, would avoid this trap.
FromTheSteppe 5y ago
I'm a developer in Iran willing to do this, email in the profile, just in case the owner wants to and reads this.
- 650REDHAIR 5y ago
  I'll donate to this project.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Donating money to a project in Iran may be legally hairy for Americans. Check the situation before doing so. I am all for helping worthwhile projects financially, but international politics is a mess.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - walrus01 5y ago
      I've seen a case where somebody had their zelle or venmo account permanently removed for sending a small transfer to their friend with the description "for the cubans" - they were paying their buddy back for an order of sandwiches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_sandwich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_sandwich
      - short12 5y ago
        I've never seen a bank or credit card company put in any effort regarding cuban cigars. A few of the best shops are clearly illegal just because of the name alone. But they all accept visa and Mastercard You don't even need to bother with h dark web and cryptocurrency. It will just flat out show up on your bill without issue.
        mthoms 5y ago
        I think they might have interpreted it as "please give this money to the Cubans". Which, AFAIK is (was?) illegal in the US.
mrtksn 5y ago
That's actually... interesting. It's a well established tactic to go to another country and publish your stuff from there if you like to keep annoying a government or institution. You know, Snowden is in Russia, some Russian journalists are in EU countries. It happens all the time since ever. What if someone creates a Telegram group where developers from hostile countries(like US&Iran, UK&Russia, Japan&China) pass each other projects that are not obviously illegal but not feasible due to risk of persecution? In this case, If FB thinks it has a case can try its luck by sending Google a scary looking letter then proceed to compel Google to remove the extension by court order.
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
Oh yeah, find someone that wants to be a target of a major US corporation in Afghanistan/third world. You forget we have Guantanamo where people were "renditioned" with little or no legal basis either in the US or otherwise, and I believe there are people in Guantanamo that have no publicly provided evidence to be there? All it takes is waiting for some politically opportune reason to enact a little dragnet and getting someone on some CIA list with little evidence, and BAM, You're in something like Guantanamo or even worse (client torture security services, assassination, etc). Yes we withdrew forces, but we've been there a decade and likely have a large network of CIA contacts that would kill or injure a random Afghan civilian. The US Government is a very very very very dangerous entity to anyone in the third world should you get on their radar. They are dangerous to US citizens with the Padilla case, antiterrorism law overreach, no fly lists, and a variety of other harassment techniques. The state department and CIA are power extensions of the corporate elite in the United States. We have toppled regimes for oil... minerals... even bananas. Russia would be far better.
- rpmisms 5y ago
  I have family there, let me know if I can help.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
Better yet: anonymous git hosting as a tor hidden service. Now there's nothing they can do but rage at all the "unauthorized" extensions giving users control over their little platform.
manquer 5y ago
Even better fund organizations like EFF to take cases like this and make sure there is legal precedent that gives a strong footing to all developers. Hiding in other countries is a not sustainable solution, they are going to force extension stores to remove it etc payment gateway not to process you, pushing you as a dev to the fringes and silence others The chilling effect is the real aim, they are effectively signaling that they can come after anyone who pisses their business model of.

pixl97 5y ago

Would this be considered a SLAPP?

bathtub365 5y ago
It’s impossible to tell since there isn’t a lawsuit
cyral 5y ago
Not a lawyer but I believe that only applies to actual lawsuits. Anyone can send you a C&D and you can choose to ignore it. It will cost at least $300 to consult with a lawyer to even write a response. If the other party really believes they are right, they will sue you.
- bityard 5y ago
  I can't find it now because google is garbage these days but years ago I once ran across forum thread or blog post from a small business owner who semi-regularly received random bogus patent infringement and other claims with offers to settle matter out of court for thousands of dollars. He had a lawyer but after burning through a lot of money with carefully-written objections, he decided to just start ignoring them altogether. Which generally worked. These lawyers (and their clients) were just trolling for easy cash and never actually wanted to go to court because their claims were bogus and they would almost certainly lose. Sometimes, however, the other party's law firm would call him on the phone to follow with their demands. He would let them yammer on for a few minutes, ask some innocent questions, and then finally interrupt them with something like this. "Here is what I have to say to your client's claim... you have a pen and paper ready? I need you to write this down. Okay, good. Here it is: 'Fuck you.' No wait, I'm not done yet. Just let me speak. I want you to also add, 'and go to hell" please. That is my official legal response. Have a nice day." And slammed the phone down. Take the story with a grain of salt, but he said it worked 100% of the time.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    C&Ds are also specifically protected speech under the first amendment, under the theory they're really a threat to petition the government.

javajosh 5y ago

Tangentially, I wonder why both the words "cease" and "desist" are necessary. Aren't they synonyms? Perhaps it's just for emphasis?

morsch 5y ago
It has an interesting history. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_doublet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_doublet
fogof 5y ago
They are slightly different in meaning. Cease = Stop doing it. Desist = Don’t do it again.
dlivingston 5y ago
“ A legal doublet is a standardized phrase used frequently in English legal language consisting of two or more words that are near synonyms, usually connected by "and", and in standard orders, such as "cease and desist". The doubling—and sometimes even tripling—often originates in the transition from use of one language for legal purposes to another… To ensure understanding, the terms from both languages were used. This reflected the interactions between Germanic and Roman law following the decline of the Roman Empire.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_doublet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_doublet
- thinkloop 5y ago
  Now we're only missing what the two languages are for "cease and desist"
  - zinekeller 5y ago
    Cease - Latin to cessare meaning "to yield", then Old French. Desist - Latin to stare (sta-re, not homonym of stair) meaning "to stand", then (still) Latin to "sistere" meaning "to stop" plus prefix de, which in this context is "an order (from top, aka court) to down (aka to you)", then Old French. Huh. So this is basically court-enforced stop and yielding to the other party.

smileysteve 5y ago

A much more related example of ignoring of ignoring a Cease and Desist is the one that Zuckerberg received from the Winklevoss twins as he and Eduardo were marketing The Facebook -- only it had some legal basis.

lacker 5y ago

The cease and desist seemingly has no real legal basis It seems pretty straightforward to me - the Facebook terms of service say that you won't make scripts that interact with the Facebook site except through approved APIs, the cease and desist is telling him that he is breaking this agreement. There's no lawsuit involved, Facebook will just enforce this themselves by banning the account and making the script not work. It's not a big deal, this probably happens hundreds of times a day for various bots that people make that manipulate Facebook in different ways.

asdff 5y ago
I feel like websites shouldn't be able to just ban scripting. What if I have a disability and a custom script is the only way I can interface with fb?
- feanaro 5y ago
  Agreed, but people seem to often miss this point. There is nothing special in browsers that allows them to do something that "scripts" cannot do. They are both HTTP user agents.
  - asdff 5y ago
    I hate the whole song and dance too with how you have to fake your user agent and add human like delay to interactions whenever you make a useful script on the web these days. You aren't stopping malicious behavior since they know how to penetrate these systems trivially, you just make it harder for the average user who has to learn as they go how to rope around these issues and hope they don't get IP banned along the way for making a website slightly more useful to them.
- dghlsakjg 5y ago
  If Facebook makes a change to intentionally make accessibility harder, then you can sue Facebook under the ADA if you are an American. There is a whole category of law where they just go around suing businesses for not being accessible enough. Quite a lot of money in it.

akudha 5y ago

demanded that I agree to never again create tools that interact with Facebook or its other services. How is this legal in any shape or form? It is a browser extension, running on users' browsers, installed intentionally by his users. This is insane. The level of arrogance and entitlement here is mind blowing.

unclebucknasty 5y ago
>How is this legal in any shape or form? IANAL, but have some experience with this from a business matter, resulting in obtaining advice of counsel. And, yeah this is not a criminal matter, but a civil one, so you're right that the developer isn't likely in civil breach unless they are using FB resources (e.g. API or SDK) that they access under agreement with FB and are violating. The irony is that if the FB standard user agreement prevents users from, say, using software to programmatically access the site, then it's the user of the extension who would be in breach with FB. So, as long as the developer doesn't use the extension on their own FB account, then FB doesn't have much to stand on (and even then the C&D would only be applicable to the developer's use of the extension as a user). On a related side note, if the extension actually did something not related to a specific account (e.g. scraped a public profile while not signed in), then even the user would likely not be in breach, as there is no affirmative assent (i.e. clickwrap) to terms of use required to simply visit the site.
- invokestatic 5y ago
  There’s actually a concept of tortious interference, which can make you liable for assisting other people in breaking a terms of service, even if you never broke it yourself.
  - zja 5y ago
    Sounds similar to what happened when Blizzard sued a company for selling World of Warcraft hacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glider_(bot) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glider_(bot)

XCSme 5y ago

> My mom was building a shed on her property, some neighbors didn't like it Note that depending on the country, you might still need authorization to build any structure on your own property.

ethbr0 5y ago
I recently moved into a neighborhood with a stricter HOA, after avoiding them for most of my life. My plan is to wait until February 2022, and build the ugliest golden Trump mailbox I can slap together. Then, when they ask me to take it down, request an appeal, and film the ensuing meeting. Then, send said video to Fox News et al. Then, run for HOA on a platform of abolishing the HOA. ... I really don't like neighbors telling me what I can and can't do.
- vegetablepotpie 5y ago
  I can’t help but point out the irony of this post that building an idol of a politician is considered an act of defiance against authority.
  - Nasrudith 5y ago
    Well it is being used as a tool in the literal sense. Who it applies to of all parties mentioned above in the perojative sense will be left as an exercise to the reader (as it is a matter of opinion).
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
TravisHusky 5y ago
Yeah; she had the permits. It was kinda funny from the outside because people kept complaining to the county and the county kept pushing back saying it was approved. That shed must've been inspected 3 separate times because of a couple of neighbors who didn't even live on the same street but I guess were just bored. The neighborhood has an HOA but the HOA actually had no actual rules because they were not properly registering with the county when they made bylaws (where my mom is all HOA rules have to be submitted to the state, otherwise they are not enforceable). Gotta love HOAs.

blocked_again 5y ago

> My mom was building a shed on her property, some neighbors didn't like it so they had a lawyer send a cease and desist with no legal basis > The only problem is Facebook is huge and is willing to drag out lawsuits they won't win just to destroy people's lives because they can afford to hold out much longer than everyone else. Convincing people that America is the land of the free, is the biggest trick the devil has ever pulled.

colechristensen 5y ago
Nobody has ever been “free” but damn are we a whole lot more free than most humans in the history of civilization.
- int_19h 5y ago
  Americans are so free that they have to pay $2,350 for the privilege of becoming non-Americans.

UglyToad 5y ago

Yeah this is the problem more generally with the legal system both in my home country of England but especially in the US. As one hn user put it so perfectly recently "the process is the punishment". I think a lot of people in the software bubble don't realize what a huge sum even $100 is for the average person, the law only affords power and protection to the rich and already powerful.

panta 5y ago

> The only problem is Facebook is huge and is willing to drag out lawsuits they won't win just to destroy people's lives because they can afford to hold out much longer than everyone else. There is no certainty in the legal system, they could very well win even if they are in the wrong. More so when they can employ an army of lawyers and put economic pressure on the system.

ransom1538 5y ago

"The only problem is Facebook is huge and is willing to drag out lawsuits they won't win just to destroy people's lives because they can afford to hold" Meh. Just show up. Don't hire lawyers. File motions all day to see more evidence.

6510 5y ago
and in this case: bring journalists and popcorn