5 ms·

How tightly does Facebook lock their stuff down to barely get a mention here? I deactivated my account years ago, and my only interaction is checking things lik

How tightly does Facebook lock their stuff down to barely get a mention here? I deactivated my account years ago, and my only interaction is checking things like local restaurants and groups to see their schedules or other such public information and it's hell. Say I want to eat out on Christmas eve. Around 80% of local restaurants will only publicly say if they're open on a Facebook post, and like half of those will be inaccessible without logging in. This became even worse with covid, where I had to basically guess which part of their service was open. So I was hoping for some workaround, like using nitter to bypass Twitter's new account requirements, but it looks like I'm out of luck.

noisy_boy 5y ago
Sad state of affairs. One alternative could be to create a dummy account for this purpose, turn-off every notification, add no friends and use it only for the purpose of accessing pages for businesses (I don't use Facebook at all personally but the way things are going, I may have to resort to such shenanigans).
- BbzzbB 5y ago
  Out of curiosity, can Facebook do something more with a dummy account presumably linked to you IP than they can with any other unregistered person tracked over Facebook Connects, friend's contact syncs, etc.?
  - spacebeer 5y ago
    They will connect it to you sooner or later. Then it doesn't matter if it's dummy or "real". [rant start] Similar thing happened to me recently (not restaurants, but language schools), I decided I would rather continue without services I need (even if it was e.g. kindergarten for a kid) than make (dummy) FB account (Whatsapp, Instagram included). I am more annoyed by big tech practices by each day (Google and Paypal even more). I really hate them all :| The only bigtech service I'm still using is LinkedIn (also hate it) and only because it remained as only connection to some old friends and acquaintances. They all really suck in any possible way [end of rant]
- chii 5y ago
  creating a dummy account might alleviate the immediate issue, but it doesn't really fix the root cause of the problem - which is that the restaurant thinks it's ok to only post on facebook, and assume everyone has access.
  - noisy_boy 5y ago
    Indeed but I think (hopefully wrongly) that we can't put that genie back in the bottle. Business are most influenced by shareholders/customers and the vast majority of these groups are quite ok interacting on Facebook despite what the HN minority thinks.
  - afavour 5y ago
    It is OK, though. It’s not that they’re assuming everyone has access, it’s that they’ve made the business decision that it isn’t worth going the extra mile to cater to a minority of customers that aren’t on Facebook. It annoys me too but I’m not blaming my local restaurants for following market forces.
    - andrewflnr 5y ago
      "Made a business decision" is not the same as "it's ok", and it's dangerous to conflate these. I'm not sure where posting on Facebook falls, but for a relatively clear-cut case consider "made a business decision to not bother with wheelchair accessibility".
      - afavour 5y ago
        There are laws preventing you from ignoring wheelchair accessibility. As a society we have decided it is important. We’ve done no such thing for keeping information on Facebook only.
        guerrilla 5y ago
        That's not a counterargument since maybe we should.
joecot 5y ago
> How tightly does Facebook lock their stuff down to barely get a mention here? Pretty hard. There are some extensions (FB Purity being the most popular), but they focus on trying to modify the facebook site in your browser, and they break often. There used to be more 3rd party android apps but FB locked their APIs down more. And even the FB app linked on this Github directory, Frost, does not work, as FB will not allow you to login with the embedded browser.
- Rebelgecko 5y ago
  FB also sent a C&D letter to at least one of the Android apps
artificialLimbs 5y ago
Hey Siri, call $restaurant in $currentCity.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  That's a fine solution if I'm only curious about whether one place is open. I want to know what options I have and I may want to do it late at night or in the morning rather than call twenty places during a busy period.
  - driverdan 5y ago
    Calling them is literally how people did it for decades. I think you can make due.
  - artificialLimbs 5y ago
    This is a serious problem. Maybe an opportunity for a SaaS solution with a monthly fee.
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      Or stores could just not require you to log in to see their posts. Many already set it up that way, I don't know why some don't.
daptaq 5y ago
Have you ever brought this up to the restoraunt owners? I would guess that if they are not some large chain, they listen to direct customer feedback, over statistics and corporate guidelines.
jonititan 5y ago
Yeah and seeing it from the other side as a cafe owner you have so many different sites to manage to try and help people find out where you are, when you are open, and the events you have running. Would really love some sort of framework for managing all those competing offering for location services. An open source framework in particular would be ace although it would mean the vast majority of small businesses wouldn't use it. Too little time.
topdancing 5y ago
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:opening_hours https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:opening_hours You go around, survey the opening hours posted on local restaurants (I usually take a photo, and don't copy and paste from other sources as this normally goes against their T&C) and then add these to openstreetmap.org. Then next time apps like organicmaps.app update, you'll have all the local opening hours for restaurants and things directly on your device. I have found that places usually change opening houes by an hour or two. And if anyone reads this and thinks: "well, that sounds like a chore", this is the only solution I've found that: 1. Is under an open data license 2. Is easily editable as a normal user 3. Isn't backed by "Big Tech" that can wall it off 4. At least has apps that make the data searchable in an offline way 5. Fully exposes the data in open formats (just zoom in on the map, right click on an object and press "Query features" for a basic example or see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Databases_and_data_access_APIs https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Databases_and_data_acces... ) But like anything else, you need people to contribute to it.
- Vinnl 5y ago
  For an actually easy-to-use method for collecting opening hours (and lots of other data, if you're interested): https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/#download https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/#download
- polaco 5y ago
  Shout out to the open source Android app Street Complete, which shows you a map indicating missing OSM data points and lets you easily contribute (opening hours, road surfaces, house numbers etc.) Available in the Play Store and on F-Droid. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.westnordost.streetcomplete https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.westnordost... https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplet... Edit: Vinnl beat me to it. I need to refresh more often :)

noisy_boy 5y ago

Sad state of affairs. One alternative could be to create a dummy account for this purpose, turn-off every notification, add no friends and use it only for the purpose of accessing pages for businesses (I don't use Facebook at all personally but the way things are going, I may have to resort to such shenanigans).

BbzzbB 5y ago
Out of curiosity, can Facebook do something more with a dummy account presumably linked to you IP than they can with any other unregistered person tracked over Facebook Connects, friend's contact syncs, etc.?
- spacebeer 5y ago
  They will connect it to you sooner or later. Then it doesn't matter if it's dummy or "real". [rant start] Similar thing happened to me recently (not restaurants, but language schools), I decided I would rather continue without services I need (even if it was e.g. kindergarten for a kid) than make (dummy) FB account (Whatsapp, Instagram included). I am more annoyed by big tech practices by each day (Google and Paypal even more). I really hate them all :| The only bigtech service I'm still using is LinkedIn (also hate it) and only because it remained as only connection to some old friends and acquaintances. They all really suck in any possible way [end of rant]
chii 5y ago
creating a dummy account might alleviate the immediate issue, but it doesn't really fix the root cause of the problem - which is that the restaurant thinks it's ok to only post on facebook, and assume everyone has access.
- noisy_boy 5y ago
  Indeed but I think (hopefully wrongly) that we can't put that genie back in the bottle. Business are most influenced by shareholders/customers and the vast majority of these groups are quite ok interacting on Facebook despite what the HN minority thinks.
- afavour 5y ago
  It is OK, though. It’s not that they’re assuming everyone has access, it’s that they’ve made the business decision that it isn’t worth going the extra mile to cater to a minority of customers that aren’t on Facebook. It annoys me too but I’m not blaming my local restaurants for following market forces.
  - andrewflnr 5y ago
    "Made a business decision" is not the same as "it's ok", and it's dangerous to conflate these. I'm not sure where posting on Facebook falls, but for a relatively clear-cut case consider "made a business decision to not bother with wheelchair accessibility".
    - afavour 5y ago
      There are laws preventing you from ignoring wheelchair accessibility. As a society we have decided it is important. We’ve done no such thing for keeping information on Facebook only.
      - guerrilla 5y ago
        That's not a counterargument since maybe we should.

joecot 5y ago

> How tightly does Facebook lock their stuff down to barely get a mention here? Pretty hard. There are some extensions (FB Purity being the most popular), but they focus on trying to modify the facebook site in your browser, and they break often. There used to be more 3rd party android apps but FB locked their APIs down more. And even the FB app linked on this Github directory, Frost, does not work, as FB will not allow you to login with the embedded browser.

Rebelgecko 5y ago
FB also sent a C&D letter to at least one of the Android apps

artificialLimbs 5y ago

Hey Siri, call $restaurant in $currentCity.

boomboomsubban 5y ago
That's a fine solution if I'm only curious about whether one place is open. I want to know what options I have and I may want to do it late at night or in the morning rather than call twenty places during a busy period.
- driverdan 5y ago
  Calling them is literally how people did it for decades. I think you can make due.
- artificialLimbs 5y ago
  This is a serious problem. Maybe an opportunity for a SaaS solution with a monthly fee.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    Or stores could just not require you to log in to see their posts. Many already set it up that way, I don't know why some don't.

daptaq 5y ago

Have you ever brought this up to the restoraunt owners? I would guess that if they are not some large chain, they listen to direct customer feedback, over statistics and corporate guidelines.

jonititan 5y ago

Yeah and seeing it from the other side as a cafe owner you have so many different sites to manage to try and help people find out where you are, when you are open, and the events you have running. Would really love some sort of framework for managing all those competing offering for location services. An open source framework in particular would be ace although it would mean the vast majority of small businesses wouldn't use it. Too little time.

topdancing 5y ago

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:opening_hours https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:opening_hours You go around, survey the opening hours posted on local restaurants (I usually take a photo, and don't copy and paste from other sources as this normally goes against their T&C) and then add these to openstreetmap.org. Then next time apps like organicmaps.app update, you'll have all the local opening hours for restaurants and things directly on your device. I have found that places usually change opening houes by an hour or two. And if anyone reads this and thinks: "well, that sounds like a chore", this is the only solution I've found that: 1. Is under an open data license 2. Is easily editable as a normal user 3. Isn't backed by "Big Tech" that can wall it off 4. At least has apps that make the data searchable in an offline way 5. Fully exposes the data in open formats (just zoom in on the map, right click on an object and press "Query features" for a basic example or see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Databases_and_data_access_APIs https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Databases_and_data_acces... ) But like anything else, you need people to contribute to it.

Vinnl 5y ago
For an actually easy-to-use method for collecting opening hours (and lots of other data, if you're interested): https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/#download https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/#download
polaco 5y ago
Shout out to the open source Android app Street Complete, which shows you a map indicating missing OSM data points and lets you easily contribute (opening hours, road surfaces, house numbers etc.) Available in the Play Store and on F-Droid. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.westnordost.streetcomplete https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.westnordost... https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplet... Edit: Vinnl beat me to it. I need to refresh more often :)