4 ms·

>The only other reason I can think of that would make any sense is that the games servers might have had load issues (since the plugin could act faster and on m

by mbell 15y ago

>The only other reason I can think of that would make any sense is that the games servers might have had load issues (since the plugin could act faster and on more things than a human). However, I would put my ad theory above as far more likely. Also consider that many facebook games operate with a micro-transactional model where you CAN buy stuff with in game currency earned by the 'tedious clicking' but if you want to speed things up, you can buy currency with real cash. If the 'tedious clicking' is mitigated by a plugin, then the pressure to pay real cash is decreased, costing the app developers revenue So, this plugin reduces facebook's ad revenue, reduces app developer's revenue and if the application uses facebook credits as currency, facebook loses its cut of lost developer revenue as well. Its' not at all surprising that facebook went after it.

shadowmint 15y ago
The key issue here is that is was a plugin that acted like a robot on the site. Effectively they only thing that Facebook can do about that sort of application is ban people using it. However, just like the Wow Glider saga they chose to pressure the developer instead. However, unlike that, it was just a browser plugin. No magical API calls, or anything like that. I couldn't care less about micro-transactions, ad views and the spamware Facebook applications: Facebook is doing this because they can't take the bitter pill of banning _users_ who violate their TOS; instead they will attack the developer of said tool. There is no justifying their actions. fail.
- mbell 15y ago
  Sorry but this post reeks of of personal hatred toward facebook and contains little value. Regardless of the method chosen to attack this issue at the end of the day this hurts both their bottom line and their app developer's bottom line, which hurts the user base as a whole. Clearly your not a facebook user, so frankly, your opinion doesn't matter to them as long as your the minority. Of course they would go after the source of the issue instead of their profit center (users). Are you really arguing that Facebook is evil for not attacking their users? I mean really its terrible of them to focus on their users and their profit centers over a singular third party developer, absolutely terrible. I have a feeling if this article was titled "Facebook bans 50,000 users" you would have come here and made the same "I hate Facebook" argument.
  - shadowmint 15y ago
    Don't be silly. Of course I use Facebook. Most people do. I have no time of day for the developers of the spamware that fill it, but that's not the issue here. A plugin that does not in any way use the Facebook api is just a stand alone application. This is exactly what Cory Doctorow is talking about with the war on general purpose computing. A company flailing wilding and applying bad (legal) pressure to bare against the issue of people using their computers to do something the company doesn't like (in this case automating game actions) is the wrong solution.
    - mbell 15y ago
      I don't understand your position at all. In essence it appears to be "if they don't use our API we have no recourse at all, its all fair use". Along the same lines any bot that automates any computer game is "ok", even if it destroys an entire industry of professional gaming, any application that scraps web data is "ok", etc. HN even blocks that kind of use.

by mbell 15y ago

shadowmint 15y ago

The key issue here is that is was a plugin that acted like a robot on the site. Effectively they only thing that Facebook can do about that sort of application is ban people using it. However, just like the Wow Glider saga they chose to pressure the developer instead. However, unlike that, it was just a browser plugin. No magical API calls, or anything like that. I couldn't care less about micro-transactions, ad views and the spamware Facebook applications: Facebook is doing this because they can't take the bitter pill of banning _users_ who violate their TOS; instead they will attack the developer of said tool. There is no justifying their actions. fail.

mbell 15y ago
Sorry but this post reeks of of personal hatred toward facebook and contains little value. Regardless of the method chosen to attack this issue at the end of the day this hurts both their bottom line and their app developer's bottom line, which hurts the user base as a whole. Clearly your not a facebook user, so frankly, your opinion doesn't matter to them as long as your the minority. Of course they would go after the source of the issue instead of their profit center (users). Are you really arguing that Facebook is evil for not attacking their users? I mean really its terrible of them to focus on their users and their profit centers over a singular third party developer, absolutely terrible. I have a feeling if this article was titled "Facebook bans 50,000 users" you would have come here and made the same "I hate Facebook" argument.
- shadowmint 15y ago
  Don't be silly. Of course I use Facebook. Most people do. I have no time of day for the developers of the spamware that fill it, but that's not the issue here. A plugin that does not in any way use the Facebook api is just a stand alone application. This is exactly what Cory Doctorow is talking about with the war on general purpose computing. A company flailing wilding and applying bad (legal) pressure to bare against the issue of people using their computers to do something the company doesn't like (in this case automating game actions) is the wrong solution.
  - mbell 15y ago
    I don't understand your position at all. In essence it appears to be "if they don't use our API we have no recourse at all, its all fair use". Along the same lines any bot that automates any computer game is "ok", even if it destroys an entire industry of professional gaming, any application that scraps web data is "ok", etc. HN even blocks that kind of use.