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Facebook Requires Social Fixer Browser Extension to Remove Features

124 points by selmnoo 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- mattkruse 13y ago
  What is this? Some kind of malware? Whoever it is, they don't have permission to use my code and distribute it with my name/logo.
  - johnchristopher 13y ago
    Parent deleted the message so your reply got me curious. Could you clarify ?
    - orenbarzilai 13y ago
      johnchristopher - I have deleted it because it's not working properly. mattkruse - TOMODO.com is a platform that enables anyone to modify any existing website by injecting JS/CSS. Unlike browser extensions the injection happens in server side so the client doesn't need to install anything, additionally it's supports all browser and platforms. Since the Mod was created using your original code but not by you, if you want me I will remove this Mod. Feel free to post here a message or send an email to support@tomodo.com
      - ktr100 13y ago
        TOMODO.com Interesting Idea but I think I’ll pass… All my HN clicks views and votes would go through your site first. You know I’m just not that trusting. Not to mention with mass adoption it could render HN’s algorithms useless.
      - avree 13y ago
        These sorts of modifications are done client-side for a reason. If I want the page to look different, I'd make it look different. Doing it server-side opens up a whole ton of security concerns... Not to mention copyright issues, etc.
  - selmnoo 13y ago
    I see that you are the creator of the Social Fixer extension. Your writing mentions this interesting piece: http://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/the-end-of-the-power-user http://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/the-end-of-the-power-u... I am just waiting for a more powerful entity like Google or Facebook to take on Ad-block, that's when it'll get really interesting. I'm guessing Facebook is just testing the waters for now by taking you on, and demanding you to take down ad-blocking features for now. edit: I just read in your article: I asked about both of these cases, as examples, and I was told by the person at Facebook that she was not aware of these apps or Pages, but would check into them. They don't know about Ad-block! That is just so rich.
    - criley2 13y ago
      >I am just waiting for a more powerful entity like Google or Facebook to take on Ad-block, that's when it'll get really interesting. https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads Tl;dr: Google pays Adblock Plus to mark Google ads "acceptable". Google ads are whitelisted from adblocking.
      - RexRollman 13y ago
        I don't use Adblock (I am a NoScript man) but I never knew that! Thanks for the info.
shaggyfrog 13y ago
> What About AdBlock? Why Not Go After Them? Because it's too popular and too many of their users have it. > I asked about both of these cases, as examples, and I was told by the person at Facebook that she was not aware of these apps or Pages, but would check into them. Yeah, right. I'm sure they've got top men working on it right now. Top men.
RexRollman 13y ago
The real fix is not to use Facebook in the first place.
- walid 13y ago
  Yup! That is what I finally fell back to. At first I was worrying about all the stuff that I will miss but realized that as long as I was worrying I will never stop using Facebook. Btw, do you still use Facebook?
  - RexRollman 13y ago
    I haven't had an account in years. I stopped when they started playing games with their privacy settings.
    - brymaster 13y ago
      Good man. They have a long history of not giving a damn about privacy: http://pleasedeletefacebook.com http://pleasedeletefacebook.com
pdonis 13y ago
From the article: every user I talk to now seems to think that Facebook is going downhill and increasingly making decisions that benefit their stock holders rather than their users Why would you expect them not to? Facebook is a publicly traded company; they have to make decisions that benefit their stockholders or they will go bankrupt. Also, Facebook's users are not customers; Facebook gets its revenue from ads, not users. So benefiting users only helps them if it increases their ad revenue. That might happen indirectly if an improvement to the FB user interface gets them more users or keeps existing users on the site longer so they see more ads. But FB already has a billion users, and many of them already seem to spend most of their available free time on FB, so the relative benefit to FB from improving the UI is going to be pretty small. Finally, I think it's worth mentioning a historical parallel that seems relevant to me. I believe pg mentioned in one of his essays that many companies who made third-party Windows software ended up basically doing market research for Microsoft: MS just took all the popular features from third-party apps and added them to their own apps. Developers of FB apps like SocialFixer seem to me to be in a similar position. Caveat programmer. :-) [Edit: I see that the "End of the Power User" article that was linked to hits some of these same points.]
- jasonlotito 13y ago
  > they have to make decisions that benefit their stockholders I wish the meme that this is the only thing a public company can do would die. It's not true in any way.
  - selmnoo 13y ago
    I too wish the meme would die, but not because it's not true, rather because it's overused a lot as a reply. As I understand it these companies do in fact have a fiduciary responsibility to make every move be one that benefits their shareholders. Can you please voice your thoughts on how that is not true?
    - philwelch 13y ago
      Any good faith business decision counts as a move meant to benefit shareholders, especially where there are tradeoffs involved. If you make user experience worse to boost advertising revenues, you can argue that was the right call because you get more money. If you make your user experience better in a way that hurts advertising revenues, you can argue that it was the right call because it improves user loyalty and user perception of Facebook, making it more valuable in the long run. Even if it turns out that your decision was wrong, it's an honest mistake and you're allowed to make those. There's no way shareholders could ever win a lawsuit by second-guessing business decisions they disagree with! About the only thing you can't do is outright embezzle money from the company or something. Now, for a public company, lots of investors base their decisions on the GAAP numbers companies are forced to report, so there are incentives to improve those numbers each quarter if you want to boost stock price. But if you communicate a long-term strategy to investors and seem competent enough to pull it off, you're Amazon and your stock price does well anyway, even if you lose money.
blibble 13y ago
the solution to this sort of thing is to always wrap yourself in a limited company... company formation in the UK costs around £20 and then you're personally immune to this sort of legal bullying
- ksrm 13y ago
  How so?
  - blibble 13y ago
    so say a new shiny product (an extension) is produced by a newly founded company (smallco). bullyco decides they don't like this and sues smallco. what's the most the owners (shareholders) of the smallco can lose? their share capital (likely £1).
    - lancewiggs 13y ago
      And then they sue the directors. Limited liability is sadly inadequate in today's world. On the other hand it's also good to be able to go after the people behind companies that are truly fraudulent.
      - blibble 13y ago
        there's nothing fraudulent or criminal about what this extension is doing, at most it's breach of contract and possibly tortious interference, neither which would allow the 'injured' party to go after the directors
tmister 13y ago
I think it is a bad decision from Facebook to go after Social Fixer. From the Chrome extensions page they have ~200K installs. This is peanuts compared to Facebook's user base(compared to Google where number of Adblock installs are ~40 million combining Firefox and Chrome, it hurts Google more they can't say much about it because of fearing of criticism from their core supporters). But future will be bright for them because people are accessing Facebook more from mobile devices where default mobile browsers are very restrictive and the trend will not change for foreseeable future.
joshribakoff 13y ago
About 6yrs ago my friend made a script, which was essentially a pyramid scheme for adding friends. Basically it helps you find other people who want to add you, to inflate each other's egos. It blew up & I was called in to fix the performance, part of that entailed moving it to my server - about a week later Facebook sent me a cease & desist & demanded the domain name be transferred to them. Pretty lame move on their part, because we were having fun hacking the code to handle the load, etc..
- seiji 13y ago
  You realize any non-law entity can't forcibly compel you to do things, right? They can talk a big game, but it's up to them to file legal proceedings if they really want to shut you down.
  - ceejayoz 13y ago
    How is "we can force you into bankruptcy by suing you" all that less forcible than "the government will fine you"?
    - tedunangst 13y ago
      Is Facebook suing him?
      - ceejayoz 13y ago
        It sounds like he caved at the C&D stage. Refusing to do so risks bankruptcy, even if you're in the right, if the deep-pocketed company decides to sue.
babs474 13y ago
Watch out, when I ran into a similar situation with my extension, unedditreddit. Reddit, was able to convince google to simply remove the the extension from the webstore. Chrome makes it really difficult to install a non app store extension, so your normal user will not do it. On the other hand, google and facebook have a more competitive relationship so maybe there is less to worry about.
- seeingfurther 13y ago
  $4.00 a month to read edited comments is why they went after you.
  - babs474 13y ago
    What makes you say that?
    - ceol 13y ago
      You used their trademarked brand name in a product and URL for that product. That's a huge mistake. Plus there's the whole issue with your app sidestepping reddit's "delete", "remove", "edit", and "private subreddit" functionality. Those things exist for very good reasons and are nothing like what Social Fixer did.
      - babs474 13y ago
        You might have a point about naming, I don't know. In my defense a bunch of reddit tools do the same thing: metareddit.com, uneddit.com, redditenhancementsuite.com But I'm really curious about what you said regarding sidestepping delete functionality. How do you view search engines indexing and caching of reddit and other sites? Does the Barbara Streisand effect apply? I think that the issue is way more nuanced than no "sidesteppping" allowed. One of my main motivations for creating unedditreddit was noticing that there was a lot of baloney moderation going on. Cabals of power users can censor quite a bit and it is completely opaque as to who deleted something and for what. I think it could damage the community in the same way digg vote rings used to.
mcintyre1994 13y ago
"Even if they left my personal account alone, they could still mark socialfixer.com as being a risky and/or spammy site, like they have done for http://FBPurity.com." http://FBPurity.com." That is seriously disappointing to see. I understand that, like Google and others, they have a right to filter on behalf of their users (and in some cases may be legally obliged to do so), but they're clearly in a position of power and trust in doing so. If they want to tell a user they can't post a site, and that site is neither illegal, risky or spammy, but simply something they dislike, they shouldn't suggest it is. Abuse of user's trust sucks, especially when the reason is this pathetic.
- MichaelApproved 13y ago
  It'll take time but I think problems like these (unfair flagging a site as spammy/risky) will eventually land a company in hot water with anti-trust issues. Until that happens, this will kind of abide of trust be more widespread.
javajosh 13y ago
This story should cause outrage among the users and developers (and any potential users and developers) of any software that is like Social Fixer, that is, any software that stores, manipulates, and presents proprietary data in ways that the "owner" (e.g. Facebook) of said data did not intend, for the use of a first party. The thing that makes the FB legal threats against Social Fixer different, and more troubling than when 3rd party services are shut down, is that Fixer is a "first party" piece of software. It's not helping users syndicate information, or reselling it, or letting anyone else even look at it or use it. I'm just organizing the data that I do have into a format that is more useful to me. If you accept that there are limits on what we do with our data, where does it stop? Am I allowed to download pictures of my friends and view them in programs that do not display ads? Am I allowed to store and search my own messages, or my friends' messages, in a program that does not notify Facebook or display their ads? If I have an Excel Spreadsheet with friends addresses and phone numbers gleaned from Facebook profiles, have I broken the law? I can understand Facebook's concern. If it suddenly became common to run programs like this over Facebook's site, then the "user experience" will suddenly get completely out of FB's control. People might not become immune to tracking, but neither would they no longer be manipulated by feed algorithms. FB has about as much right to control what I do with the messages my friends send to me on Facebook as Google has to control what I do with my email. It doesn't matter if the "messaging protocol" is screen-scraped from the DOM. The key over-reaching provision is this gem: "You will not do anything that could disable, overburden, or impair the proper working or appearance of Facebook, such as a denial of service attack or interference with page rendering or other Facebook functionality."[1] Does changing my browser window size "interfere with page rendering"? What about changing font? Or user styles? Or Ad Blocker? What if I switch browsers? What if that browser renders Facebook poorly or not at all, am I in violation? If I edit the DOM in Firebug or Inspector should I get sued? Going after people who make tools that help me organize, manage, and control my consumption of the Internet firehose is absolutely wrong. If the Justice system supports Facebook's claim (which very well could happen) then the only alternative is to stop using Facebook, and any other 3rd party that claims not only ownership of the data you disseminate on it, but claims the right to limit your ability to organize and read your own inbox. [1] https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms Section 3.11
- 13y ago
casca 13y ago
Social Fixer is great - I've been using it for a while and it makes my infrequent forays onto Facebook less miserable. From what I can tell, Facebook has removed the Social Fixer page on Facebook and are requiring the author to make significant changes in order to return it. The author is going to make those changes. Why not just lose the page on Facebook and keep developing Social Fixer? If they threaten legal action, throw the code on Github and stop development on it under your own name. Or put it in an LLC or equivalent and just liquidate if they sue. Why does capitulation seem to be the most appealing option?
- mattkruse 13y ago
  I have a family and limited time. I could lay out an exact plan of how to do a lot of things, including get around all of this. But I just don't have enough time to implement it. My microwave has been broken for 4 weeks and I haven't had time to even replace it. There are only 24 hours in a day.
  - alextingle 13y ago
    Would you like me to buy you a new microwave? I will if you promise to keep Social Fixer the way it is.
- bambax 13y ago
  Capitulation is a strong word; I empathize with the OP's concerns. However, yes, why not open source the code on Github and let others try?
yason 13y ago
This isn't a Facebook app. This isn't using Facebook API. It's effectively as if he had written a custom browser that displays the Facebook page in a way he likes: a script like that is basically a functional rather than visual stylesheet. Facebook only gets to push some HTML, CSS, and JS to its customers. If I understood that correctly then Facebook has absolutely no say about that piece of software. Because if they had, they could also tell us not to distribute a browser that displays Facebook "badly". Or an operating system that does that. Or blueprints for hardware that does that. They could forbid using such a software in the account terms for each individual user but that would be highly unenforceable (as in as soon as the data gets to my computer, I can and will mangle the bits whichever way I happen to like). What Facebook can do is to terminate the author's Facebook account: I assume he might have broken some legal terms regarding his own account. However, writing and distributing a piece of software is absolutely out of their limits. It's sad and disappointing to see Facebook use the legal card, a multibillion company threatening a one-man party with costly lawsuits.
- deong 13y ago
  Presumably they can terminate his account for any reason they like. There's no legal right to a Facebook account, so they don't have to hunt for any terms he might have violated. But yes, I don't see how they could expect to win in court if they decided to go further than that, but in losing they could ruin his life.
- JacobJans 13y ago
  > Facebook only gets to push some HTML, CSS, and JS to its customers. This is completely false. Facebook is a business. That means they have the legal right to do a lot more than transmit data. This is such a basic, obvious, fact that I find it difficult that so many people seem to not understand it. Facebook is not a data transmission service. They're a business. They have a product that they offer. If you want to use that product, they ask that you agree to a set of rules. This is very, very, normal. It is the foundation of society: The ability to make agreements. Whether or not this software violates the agreement Facebook asks of its users is another question. But, they absolutely DO have the right to do more than "push some HTML, CSS, and JS to its customers."
jrockway 13y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but the ToS says you may not interfere with the rendering of the page, but it doesn't say that you may not provide software that interferes with the rendering of the page. Anyone with a pair of scissors, a microwave oven, or black piece of paper could interfere with the rendering of Facebook for a particular user, but I doubt the ToS applies to them. Not to mention browser bugs, or OS bugs, or video driver bugs. I think this is too broad to be meaningful. I sort of get what they're getting at ("don't post broken Javascript that fucks up the page for everyone"), but it's not what they wrote. What they wrote is laughable. All I can say is: I hope you prevail in your battle. Content creators have absolutely no right to tell users how to render the HTML they deliver; the HTML is advisory, not mandatory. If you want to control rendering, buy a billboard.
- JacobJans 13y ago
  Actually, content creators get to ask you to agree to a "Terms of Service" that gives you access to that content. If you don't like the terms of service, you could say they are "laughable," but that doesn't mean they don't exist, or have a specific meaning. It seems very clear to me that a page that promotes the removal of Facebook ads, via its software, fits squarely in violation of the agreement. Facebook seems very reasonable in this -- they're giving him a second chance, after blatantly violating the terms of service. And yes, it is blatant. Anyone who thinks that removing Facebook's ads are compliant with the Terms of Service is living in the world they wish exists, and not the one that actually does.
  - mattkruse 13y ago
    Removal of ads isn't even something I "advertise" as a feature. It's a side-effect of being able to remove anything you want from the UI. And if they have a problem with that, surely they would have sued AdBlock Plus by now. Right?
    - alextingle 13y ago
      As far as I can tell, they haven't sued you either. In fact, I don't think you've even received a letter from their lawyers. All that's happened is that someone at FB had threatened you. Personally, I think they're full of it. I'd at least wait until you get an actual letter from their lawyers before making any decisions.
bambax 13y ago
> Freedom is more important than control. ... and Facebook is about freedom... how?? I'm not on Facebook, but just this weekend I needed a Facebook account, so I tried to create a (fake) one. I entered a perfectly real (French) name (not my own but a real one) and was told it was incorrect. I was directed to this "help" page: https://www.facebook.com/help/212848065405122 https://www.facebook.com/help/212848065405122 that dares say "Make sure your name meets our name standards". "Make sure your name meets our name standards"?? What does that even mean? Is Facebook in charge of naming people? What do they know about names? (And of course I changed the fake name to another one (more fake by French standards) and they accepted it). How over 1.2 billion people accept that kind of control/arrogance/stupidity is beyond me; but if you expect Facebook to ever care about "freedom" you're delusional, at best.
venomsnake 13y ago
Here is a suggestion - above certain size - lets say 10% on NA adult population classify every social network and such as a common carrier and regulate them. Problem solved.
captainmuon 13y ago
Why not make the source available and put it in public domain?

124 points by selmnoo 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mattkruse 13y ago
What is this? Some kind of malware? Whoever it is, they don't have permission to use my code and distribute it with my name/logo.
- johnchristopher 13y ago
  Parent deleted the message so your reply got me curious. Could you clarify ?
  - orenbarzilai 13y ago
    johnchristopher - I have deleted it because it's not working properly. mattkruse - TOMODO.com is a platform that enables anyone to modify any existing website by injecting JS/CSS. Unlike browser extensions the injection happens in server side so the client doesn't need to install anything, additionally it's supports all browser and platforms. Since the Mod was created using your original code but not by you, if you want me I will remove this Mod. Feel free to post here a message or send an email to support@tomodo.com
    - ktr100 13y ago
      TOMODO.com Interesting Idea but I think I’ll pass… All my HN clicks views and votes would go through your site first. You know I’m just not that trusting. Not to mention with mass adoption it could render HN’s algorithms useless.
    - avree 13y ago
      These sorts of modifications are done client-side for a reason. If I want the page to look different, I'd make it look different. Doing it server-side opens up a whole ton of security concerns... Not to mention copyright issues, etc.
- selmnoo 13y ago
  I see that you are the creator of the Social Fixer extension. Your writing mentions this interesting piece: http://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/the-end-of-the-power-user http://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/the-end-of-the-power-u... I am just waiting for a more powerful entity like Google or Facebook to take on Ad-block, that's when it'll get really interesting. I'm guessing Facebook is just testing the waters for now by taking you on, and demanding you to take down ad-blocking features for now. edit: I just read in your article: I asked about both of these cases, as examples, and I was told by the person at Facebook that she was not aware of these apps or Pages, but would check into them. They don't know about Ad-block! That is just so rich.
  - criley2 13y ago
    >I am just waiting for a more powerful entity like Google or Facebook to take on Ad-block, that's when it'll get really interesting. https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads Tl;dr: Google pays Adblock Plus to mark Google ads "acceptable". Google ads are whitelisted from adblocking.
    - RexRollman 13y ago
      I don't use Adblock (I am a NoScript man) but I never knew that! Thanks for the info.

shaggyfrog 13y ago

> What About AdBlock? Why Not Go After Them? Because it's too popular and too many of their users have it. > I asked about both of these cases, as examples, and I was told by the person at Facebook that she was not aware of these apps or Pages, but would check into them. Yeah, right. I'm sure they've got top men working on it right now. Top men.

RexRollman 13y ago

The real fix is not to use Facebook in the first place.

walid 13y ago
Yup! That is what I finally fell back to. At first I was worrying about all the stuff that I will miss but realized that as long as I was worrying I will never stop using Facebook. Btw, do you still use Facebook?
- RexRollman 13y ago
  I haven't had an account in years. I stopped when they started playing games with their privacy settings.
  - brymaster 13y ago
    Good man. They have a long history of not giving a damn about privacy: http://pleasedeletefacebook.com http://pleasedeletefacebook.com

pdonis 13y ago

From the article: every user I talk to now seems to think that Facebook is going downhill and increasingly making decisions that benefit their stock holders rather than their users Why would you expect them not to? Facebook is a publicly traded company; they have to make decisions that benefit their stockholders or they will go bankrupt. Also, Facebook's users are not customers; Facebook gets its revenue from ads, not users. So benefiting users only helps them if it increases their ad revenue. That might happen indirectly if an improvement to the FB user interface gets them more users or keeps existing users on the site longer so they see more ads. But FB already has a billion users, and many of them already seem to spend most of their available free time on FB, so the relative benefit to FB from improving the UI is going to be pretty small. Finally, I think it's worth mentioning a historical parallel that seems relevant to me. I believe pg mentioned in one of his essays that many companies who made third-party Windows software ended up basically doing market research for Microsoft: MS just took all the popular features from third-party apps and added them to their own apps. Developers of FB apps like SocialFixer seem to me to be in a similar position. Caveat programmer. :-) [Edit: I see that the "End of the Power User" article that was linked to hits some of these same points.]

jasonlotito 13y ago
> they have to make decisions that benefit their stockholders I wish the meme that this is the only thing a public company can do would die. It's not true in any way.
- selmnoo 13y ago
  I too wish the meme would die, but not because it's not true, rather because it's overused a lot as a reply. As I understand it these companies do in fact have a fiduciary responsibility to make every move be one that benefits their shareholders. Can you please voice your thoughts on how that is not true?
  - philwelch 13y ago
    Any good faith business decision counts as a move meant to benefit shareholders, especially where there are tradeoffs involved. If you make user experience worse to boost advertising revenues, you can argue that was the right call because you get more money. If you make your user experience better in a way that hurts advertising revenues, you can argue that it was the right call because it improves user loyalty and user perception of Facebook, making it more valuable in the long run. Even if it turns out that your decision was wrong, it's an honest mistake and you're allowed to make those. There's no way shareholders could ever win a lawsuit by second-guessing business decisions they disagree with! About the only thing you can't do is outright embezzle money from the company or something. Now, for a public company, lots of investors base their decisions on the GAAP numbers companies are forced to report, so there are incentives to improve those numbers each quarter if you want to boost stock price. But if you communicate a long-term strategy to investors and seem competent enough to pull it off, you're Amazon and your stock price does well anyway, even if you lose money.

blibble 13y ago

the solution to this sort of thing is to always wrap yourself in a limited company... company formation in the UK costs around £20 and then you're personally immune to this sort of legal bullying

ksrm 13y ago
How so?
- blibble 13y ago
  so say a new shiny product (an extension) is produced by a newly founded company (smallco). bullyco decides they don't like this and sues smallco. what's the most the owners (shareholders) of the smallco can lose? their share capital (likely £1).
  - lancewiggs 13y ago
    And then they sue the directors. Limited liability is sadly inadequate in today's world. On the other hand it's also good to be able to go after the people behind companies that are truly fraudulent.
    - blibble 13y ago
      there's nothing fraudulent or criminal about what this extension is doing, at most it's breach of contract and possibly tortious interference, neither which would allow the 'injured' party to go after the directors

tmister 13y ago

I think it is a bad decision from Facebook to go after Social Fixer. From the Chrome extensions page they have ~200K installs. This is peanuts compared to Facebook's user base(compared to Google where number of Adblock installs are ~40 million combining Firefox and Chrome, it hurts Google more they can't say much about it because of fearing of criticism from their core supporters). But future will be bright for them because people are accessing Facebook more from mobile devices where default mobile browsers are very restrictive and the trend will not change for foreseeable future.

joshribakoff 13y ago

About 6yrs ago my friend made a script, which was essentially a pyramid scheme for adding friends. Basically it helps you find other people who want to add you, to inflate each other's egos. It blew up & I was called in to fix the performance, part of that entailed moving it to my server - about a week later Facebook sent me a cease & desist & demanded the domain name be transferred to them. Pretty lame move on their part, because we were having fun hacking the code to handle the load, etc..

seiji 13y ago
You realize any non-law entity can't forcibly compel you to do things, right? They can talk a big game, but it's up to them to file legal proceedings if they really want to shut you down.
- ceejayoz 13y ago
  How is "we can force you into bankruptcy by suing you" all that less forcible than "the government will fine you"?
  - tedunangst 13y ago
    Is Facebook suing him?
    - ceejayoz 13y ago
      It sounds like he caved at the C&D stage. Refusing to do so risks bankruptcy, even if you're in the right, if the deep-pocketed company decides to sue.

babs474 13y ago

Watch out, when I ran into a similar situation with my extension, unedditreddit. Reddit, was able to convince google to simply remove the the extension from the webstore. Chrome makes it really difficult to install a non app store extension, so your normal user will not do it. On the other hand, google and facebook have a more competitive relationship so maybe there is less to worry about.

seeingfurther 13y ago
$4.00 a month to read edited comments is why they went after you.
- babs474 13y ago
  What makes you say that?
  - ceol 13y ago
    You used their trademarked brand name in a product and URL for that product. That's a huge mistake. Plus there's the whole issue with your app sidestepping reddit's "delete", "remove", "edit", and "private subreddit" functionality. Those things exist for very good reasons and are nothing like what Social Fixer did.
    - babs474 13y ago
      You might have a point about naming, I don't know. In my defense a bunch of reddit tools do the same thing: metareddit.com, uneddit.com, redditenhancementsuite.com But I'm really curious about what you said regarding sidestepping delete functionality. How do you view search engines indexing and caching of reddit and other sites? Does the Barbara Streisand effect apply? I think that the issue is way more nuanced than no "sidesteppping" allowed. One of my main motivations for creating unedditreddit was noticing that there was a lot of baloney moderation going on. Cabals of power users can censor quite a bit and it is completely opaque as to who deleted something and for what. I think it could damage the community in the same way digg vote rings used to.

mcintyre1994 13y ago

"Even if they left my personal account alone, they could still mark socialfixer.com as being a risky and/or spammy site, like they have done for http://FBPurity.com." http://FBPurity.com." That is seriously disappointing to see. I understand that, like Google and others, they have a right to filter on behalf of their users (and in some cases may be legally obliged to do so), but they're clearly in a position of power and trust in doing so. If they want to tell a user they can't post a site, and that site is neither illegal, risky or spammy, but simply something they dislike, they shouldn't suggest it is. Abuse of user's trust sucks, especially when the reason is this pathetic.

MichaelApproved 13y ago
It'll take time but I think problems like these (unfair flagging a site as spammy/risky) will eventually land a company in hot water with anti-trust issues. Until that happens, this will kind of abide of trust be more widespread.

javajosh 13y ago

This story should cause outrage among the users and developers (and any potential users and developers) of any software that is like Social Fixer, that is, any software that stores, manipulates, and presents proprietary data in ways that the "owner" (e.g. Facebook) of said data did not intend, for the use of a first party. The thing that makes the FB legal threats against Social Fixer different, and more troubling than when 3rd party services are shut down, is that Fixer is a "first party" piece of software. It's not helping users syndicate information, or reselling it, or letting anyone else even look at it or use it. I'm just organizing the data that I do have into a format that is more useful to me. If you accept that there are limits on what we do with our data, where does it stop? Am I allowed to download pictures of my friends and view them in programs that do not display ads? Am I allowed to store and search my own messages, or my friends' messages, in a program that does not notify Facebook or display their ads? If I have an Excel Spreadsheet with friends addresses and phone numbers gleaned from Facebook profiles, have I broken the law? I can understand Facebook's concern. If it suddenly became common to run programs like this over Facebook's site, then the "user experience" will suddenly get completely out of FB's control. People might not become immune to tracking, but neither would they no longer be manipulated by feed algorithms. FB has about as much right to control what I do with the messages my friends send to me on Facebook as Google has to control what I do with my email. It doesn't matter if the "messaging protocol" is screen-scraped from the DOM. The key over-reaching provision is this gem: "You will not do anything that could disable, overburden, or impair the proper working or appearance of Facebook, such as a denial of service attack or interference with page rendering or other Facebook functionality."[1] Does changing my browser window size "interfere with page rendering"? What about changing font? Or user styles? Or Ad Blocker? What if I switch browsers? What if that browser renders Facebook poorly or not at all, am I in violation? If I edit the DOM in Firebug or Inspector should I get sued? Going after people who make tools that help me organize, manage, and control my consumption of the Internet firehose is absolutely wrong. If the Justice system supports Facebook's claim (which very well could happen) then the only alternative is to stop using Facebook, and any other 3rd party that claims not only ownership of the data you disseminate on it, but claims the right to limit your ability to organize and read your own inbox. [1] https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms Section 3.11

13y ago

casca 13y ago

Social Fixer is great - I've been using it for a while and it makes my infrequent forays onto Facebook less miserable. From what I can tell, Facebook has removed the Social Fixer page on Facebook and are requiring the author to make significant changes in order to return it. The author is going to make those changes. Why not just lose the page on Facebook and keep developing Social Fixer? If they threaten legal action, throw the code on Github and stop development on it under your own name. Or put it in an LLC or equivalent and just liquidate if they sue. Why does capitulation seem to be the most appealing option?

mattkruse 13y ago
I have a family and limited time. I could lay out an exact plan of how to do a lot of things, including get around all of this. But I just don't have enough time to implement it. My microwave has been broken for 4 weeks and I haven't had time to even replace it. There are only 24 hours in a day.
- alextingle 13y ago
  Would you like me to buy you a new microwave? I will if you promise to keep Social Fixer the way it is.
bambax 13y ago
Capitulation is a strong word; I empathize with the OP's concerns. However, yes, why not open source the code on Github and let others try?

yason 13y ago

This isn't a Facebook app. This isn't using Facebook API. It's effectively as if he had written a custom browser that displays the Facebook page in a way he likes: a script like that is basically a functional rather than visual stylesheet. Facebook only gets to push some HTML, CSS, and JS to its customers. If I understood that correctly then Facebook has absolutely no say about that piece of software. Because if they had, they could also tell us not to distribute a browser that displays Facebook "badly". Or an operating system that does that. Or blueprints for hardware that does that. They could forbid using such a software in the account terms for each individual user but that would be highly unenforceable (as in as soon as the data gets to my computer, I can and will mangle the bits whichever way I happen to like). What Facebook can do is to terminate the author's Facebook account: I assume he might have broken some legal terms regarding his own account. However, writing and distributing a piece of software is absolutely out of their limits. It's sad and disappointing to see Facebook use the legal card, a multibillion company threatening a one-man party with costly lawsuits.

deong 13y ago
Presumably they can terminate his account for any reason they like. There's no legal right to a Facebook account, so they don't have to hunt for any terms he might have violated. But yes, I don't see how they could expect to win in court if they decided to go further than that, but in losing they could ruin his life.
JacobJans 13y ago
> Facebook only gets to push some HTML, CSS, and JS to its customers. This is completely false. Facebook is a business. That means they have the legal right to do a lot more than transmit data. This is such a basic, obvious, fact that I find it difficult that so many people seem to not understand it. Facebook is not a data transmission service. They're a business. They have a product that they offer. If you want to use that product, they ask that you agree to a set of rules. This is very, very, normal. It is the foundation of society: The ability to make agreements. Whether or not this software violates the agreement Facebook asks of its users is another question. But, they absolutely DO have the right to do more than "push some HTML, CSS, and JS to its customers."

jrockway 13y ago

I'm not a lawyer, but the ToS says you may not interfere with the rendering of the page, but it doesn't say that you may not provide software that interferes with the rendering of the page. Anyone with a pair of scissors, a microwave oven, or black piece of paper could interfere with the rendering of Facebook for a particular user, but I doubt the ToS applies to them. Not to mention browser bugs, or OS bugs, or video driver bugs. I think this is too broad to be meaningful. I sort of get what they're getting at ("don't post broken Javascript that fucks up the page for everyone"), but it's not what they wrote. What they wrote is laughable. All I can say is: I hope you prevail in your battle. Content creators have absolutely no right to tell users how to render the HTML they deliver; the HTML is advisory, not mandatory. If you want to control rendering, buy a billboard.

JacobJans 13y ago
Actually, content creators get to ask you to agree to a "Terms of Service" that gives you access to that content. If you don't like the terms of service, you could say they are "laughable," but that doesn't mean they don't exist, or have a specific meaning. It seems very clear to me that a page that promotes the removal of Facebook ads, via its software, fits squarely in violation of the agreement. Facebook seems very reasonable in this -- they're giving him a second chance, after blatantly violating the terms of service. And yes, it is blatant. Anyone who thinks that removing Facebook's ads are compliant with the Terms of Service is living in the world they wish exists, and not the one that actually does.
- mattkruse 13y ago
  Removal of ads isn't even something I "advertise" as a feature. It's a side-effect of being able to remove anything you want from the UI. And if they have a problem with that, surely they would have sued AdBlock Plus by now. Right?
  - alextingle 13y ago
    As far as I can tell, they haven't sued you either. In fact, I don't think you've even received a letter from their lawyers. All that's happened is that someone at FB had threatened you. Personally, I think they're full of it. I'd at least wait until you get an actual letter from their lawyers before making any decisions.

bambax 13y ago

> Freedom is more important than control. ... and Facebook is about freedom... how?? I'm not on Facebook, but just this weekend I needed a Facebook account, so I tried to create a (fake) one. I entered a perfectly real (French) name (not my own but a real one) and was told it was incorrect. I was directed to this "help" page: https://www.facebook.com/help/212848065405122 https://www.facebook.com/help/212848065405122 that dares say "Make sure your name meets our name standards". "Make sure your name meets our name standards"?? What does that even mean? Is Facebook in charge of naming people? What do they know about names? (And of course I changed the fake name to another one (more fake by French standards) and they accepted it). How over 1.2 billion people accept that kind of control/arrogance/stupidity is beyond me; but if you expect Facebook to ever care about "freedom" you're delusional, at best.

venomsnake 13y ago

Here is a suggestion - above certain size - lets say 10% on NA adult population classify every social network and such as a common carrier and regulate them. Problem solved.

captainmuon 13y ago

Why not make the source available and put it in public domain?