5 ms·

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 th

by 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.
- nickff 5y ago
  If you have a disability, and you can't use the site, you're probably entitled to make an ADA claim against them.
- KerryJones 5y ago
  I agree with you that they shouldn't be able to ban scripting... but they're only going to use it for things that they believe hurt the website. If there's a law that says "don't do it" they can sue the people they don't like and ignore the ones they don't care about.
- lacker 5y ago
  Disabilities deserve special protection, but in practice companies seem pretty good about working with usability extensions. AFAICT almost all cases where companies don't support disabled users enough, it's unintentional. There's a little bit of extra work like providing alt image tags that companies neglect, or they don't think to test on color-blind users, that sort of thing, rather than banning usability extensions for violating the TOS.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Why do we need to appeal to the differently abled? If I own a general purpose computer, and I purchase a connection to the internet, I'm entitled to interact however I desire* with an internet service, or the information it chooses to send me. It is not entitled to have the information it sent to me displayed in a certain way, and it certainly isn't entitled to bitch when I choose to interact with it in a way different than its preferences. If that's what it wants, then it's welcome to sell a sealed appliance that only interacts in allowed ways. And we'll see what choices people make. * With the exception of actions that impact others, e.g. DoS, authentication bypass, malicious hacking
  - NoSorryCannot 5y ago
    If everyone is entitled to interact with the internet on their own terms, then why would that not include a service being entitled to act in a way that's adversarial to your desires?
    - cybernautique 5y ago
      In my opinion, it does! However, on my machines, I am the arbiter. Facebook cedes control to me the moment any of their content hits my browser.
      - throwawayboise 5y ago
        Except that when you signed up for a FB account you agreed to access the site on their terms, not yours. And let's be honest, and I'm the last person to defend FB, but they are not likely to be going to be going after a lone user who has automated something for his own convenience with Selenium or whatever... Once I decided I wanted to delete a lot of old email from a webmail account. There was no "select all" function so I wrote a one-liner in the javascript console of the browser. When that worked, I automated clicking the "delete" button, and then added a loop to do it over and over. This probably violated a TOS clause somehow, but nothing ever came of it.
        5y ago
- quantified 5y ago
  Browsers only automate user interactions with the underlying HTTP APIs. What defines “scripting” here?
salawat 5y ago
They can't ban the account. The account would be the downloader's and presumably, would auto-generate unfollow actions just as a user in a browser would manually. If they break the script, they'll probably break the unfollow UI for legitimate human user's and create evidence that they employ dark UI practices as a core part of their business strategy, which would be a P.R. nightmare. Messing with this is a lose-lose for Facebook.
- lacker 5y ago
  If they break the script, they'll probably break the unfollow UI for legitimate human users Messing with this is a lose-lose for Facebook. Nah, this sort of thing really happens all the time. Think hundreds of scripts like this automatically disabled each day. This one just flukily got some press attention. Large tech companies will have teams entirely dedicated to preventing scripts from doing things while keeping the site running as normal for regular users.
newhotelowner 5y ago
If they could ban the account, they would have done it. Extension is more like a automated tool. Don't need any permission from Facebook. User can install the tool, and click on a button to unfollow your friends. Facebook could write TOS for his users not to run a script on their website. I write scripts (userscripts) all the time. I have a script for Gmail that I use it all the time. Gmail doesn't know that.
Talanes 5y ago
https://slate.com/technology/2021/10/facebook-unfollow-everything-cease-desist.html https://slate.com/technology/2021/10/facebook-unfollow-every... The actual timeline of events doesn't match what you think would happen. They banned him and then used the threat of a lawsuit to get him to take down the extension/code.

by lacker 5y ago

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.
nickff 5y ago
If you have a disability, and you can't use the site, you're probably entitled to make an ADA claim against them.
KerryJones 5y ago
I agree with you that they shouldn't be able to ban scripting... but they're only going to use it for things that they believe hurt the website. If there's a law that says "don't do it" they can sue the people they don't like and ignore the ones they don't care about.
lacker 5y ago
Disabilities deserve special protection, but in practice companies seem pretty good about working with usability extensions. AFAICT almost all cases where companies don't support disabled users enough, it's unintentional. There's a little bit of extra work like providing alt image tags that companies neglect, or they don't think to test on color-blind users, that sort of thing, rather than banning usability extensions for violating the TOS.
ethbr0 5y ago
Why do we need to appeal to the differently abled? If I own a general purpose computer, and I purchase a connection to the internet, I'm entitled to interact however I desire* with an internet service, or the information it chooses to send me. It is not entitled to have the information it sent to me displayed in a certain way, and it certainly isn't entitled to bitch when I choose to interact with it in a way different than its preferences. If that's what it wants, then it's welcome to sell a sealed appliance that only interacts in allowed ways. And we'll see what choices people make. * With the exception of actions that impact others, e.g. DoS, authentication bypass, malicious hacking
- NoSorryCannot 5y ago
  If everyone is entitled to interact with the internet on their own terms, then why would that not include a service being entitled to act in a way that's adversarial to your desires?
  - cybernautique 5y ago
    In my opinion, it does! However, on my machines, I am the arbiter. Facebook cedes control to me the moment any of their content hits my browser.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      Except that when you signed up for a FB account you agreed to access the site on their terms, not yours. And let's be honest, and I'm the last person to defend FB, but they are not likely to be going to be going after a lone user who has automated something for his own convenience with Selenium or whatever... Once I decided I wanted to delete a lot of old email from a webmail account. There was no "select all" function so I wrote a one-liner in the javascript console of the browser. When that worked, I automated clicking the "delete" button, and then added a loop to do it over and over. This probably violated a TOS clause somehow, but nothing ever came of it.
      - 5y ago
quantified 5y ago
Browsers only automate user interactions with the underlying HTTP APIs. What defines “scripting” here?

salawat 5y ago

They can't ban the account. The account would be the downloader's and presumably, would auto-generate unfollow actions just as a user in a browser would manually. If they break the script, they'll probably break the unfollow UI for legitimate human user's and create evidence that they employ dark UI practices as a core part of their business strategy, which would be a P.R. nightmare. Messing with this is a lose-lose for Facebook.

lacker 5y ago
If they break the script, they'll probably break the unfollow UI for legitimate human users Messing with this is a lose-lose for Facebook. Nah, this sort of thing really happens all the time. Think hundreds of scripts like this automatically disabled each day. This one just flukily got some press attention. Large tech companies will have teams entirely dedicated to preventing scripts from doing things while keeping the site running as normal for regular users.

newhotelowner 5y ago

If they could ban the account, they would have done it. Extension is more like a automated tool. Don't need any permission from Facebook. User can install the tool, and click on a button to unfollow your friends. Facebook could write TOS for his users not to run a script on their website. I write scripts (userscripts) all the time. I have a script for Gmail that I use it all the time. Gmail doesn't know that.

Talanes 5y ago

https://slate.com/technology/2021/10/facebook-unfollow-everything-cease-desist.html https://slate.com/technology/2021/10/facebook-unfollow-every... The actual timeline of events doesn't match what you think would happen. They banned him and then used the threat of a lawsuit to get him to take down the extension/code.