I’ve avoided angry rants on this blog till now, but I have to rant about this:
Today Facebook made a change to how Applications interact with your wall. In an attempt to compete with Twitter they gave enabled wall-posting permissions for most applications, notably Twitter and Friendfeed.
The permissions added by Facebook appear to override the settings that end-users have added themselves. For instance, if you have these applications and they are set to “never publish”… guess what? They’re publishing.
I found out about this when I was informed by friends that I was “spamming” Facebook. Initially I didn’t understand—I thought it was merely a remark about how much I use Twitter. It turns out however that Facebook had been publishing both from Twitter and from FriendFeed (duplicating the Tweets) directly to my wall.
I’ve tried to change my settings back to “never publish” and it turns out my settings haven’t changed at all—I simply don’t have the ability to override the changes made by Facebook. All I’ve been able to do to stem the tide of spam is to delete the Applications entirely.
Facebook, I am appalled. When I set an Application to “never publish”, I expect that it NEVER PUBLISHES TO MY WALL. This undermines my trust in your so-called “privacy” settings.
UPDATE: 12.40PM: TechCrunch are speculating that this is a bug with the Twitter App and that Facebook have fixed it. But is it really? And how was it getting information from those who didn’t have Twitter applications installed? Or from FriendFeed for that matter? Fishy!!
UPDATE: 1:18PM: Mashable are also on the story now, reporting both the Twitter and FriendFeed apps on the fritz.
UPDATE: 8:16PM: Facebook have advised that a “small bug” caused the problem.
Earlier this evening, a small Facebook bug allowed a handful of apps to publish to the stream on behalf of users who had previously authorized the app. The situation has now been resolved, and all application settings will remain intact for users.
Facebook are scum. Except I like some things about it. Shame.
Comment by Colin Campbell — July 30, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
Oh good job Facebook. Just another reason for me to ignore your site the same as I do with MySpace.
If it’s not invasive, spyware-ridden ads, it’s invasions of privacy (Badman) like this. Ugh.
Comment by Supakitsune — July 30, 2009 @ 12:40 pm
Apparently Facebook are claiming this was a bug and that it has been fixed. But there are some things that are very fishy about it (like how it got Twitter information for those that didn’t have Twitter applications installed) and I’m not impressed.
Comment by Taryn — July 30, 2009 @ 12:43 pm
They never said the mass-posting was a bug. The TC article surmises that there *may* have been a bug in the original Twitter app that was preventing this sort of behaviour, and *that* has not been fixed. (So the original Twitter app was meant to be this spammy, etc.)
I don’t believe that, because I remember specifically choosing for the app NOT to have that behaviour on my page.
Someone, somewhere, has changed a setting, possibly to do with the new stance on privacy (we will share everything unless you tell us not to), and it’s causing a bit of a fuss.
Comment by Jessica — July 30, 2009 @ 12:50 pm
Yeah its still playing up…im pissed off cuz i just changed all my settings in both trying to fix it
Comment by Denz — July 30, 2009 @ 12:54 pm
Jessica: I don’t believe it was a Twitter app bug either. It’s not only the Twitter app that was doing it. As I said, FriendFeed was doing it too, effectively duplicating Twitter…
Comment by Taryn — July 30, 2009 @ 12:58 pm
Denz: The only way I’ve been able to stop the spam is to delete/uninstall the Applications.
Comment by Taryn — July 30, 2009 @ 1:07 pm
I came back into the office, jumped on Facebook, and realised all my Twitter updates were being posted there too. And I didn’t even have Twitter app installed on Facebook. Oh well, it’s blocked now. Time to test it out.
Comment by Adam1975 — July 30, 2009 @ 1:08 pm
Seems like it’s stopped the corss-site posting, by blocking the app. Curious to know how it got my Twitter info tho…
Comment by Adam1975 — July 30, 2009 @ 1:10 pm
I’ve just gone on a culling spree on my App page and deleted everything but the iPhone app. I’m not happy about Facebook hoarding my data, I’d be even less happy if it started ignoring the settings on all my apps and spammed my friends with all the things I was doing on the web and ever installed a facebook application for. You can do the same here: http://www.facebook.com/editapps.php
Comment by joshnunn — July 30, 2009 @ 1:18 pm
I didn’t notice the change because this is precisely the way that I had the Twitter App set up in the first place. I wanted all of my Twitter updates to be cross-posted to my Facebook status. That saves me double posting everything.
It sucks that FB have made this change without notification or permission, but I can’t say that it effects me because its doing exactly what I want it to
Comment by Tim — July 30, 2009 @ 1:20 pm
@joshnunn Yep, I went on a culling spree too. It’s ignoring the settings on my apps, it’s given me no other choice. I’m very unhappy.
Comment by Taryn — July 30, 2009 @ 1:22 pm
Its times like these that I’m glad I hardly use any apps on Facebook
Its a decision I made ages ago and its nice that its actually paying off.
Comment by Tim — July 30, 2009 @ 1:29 pm
Deleting the apps doesn’t seem to be enough. I have done this many times in the last several months, including today, and some apps never go away. I have reported this to Facebook, and to the developers.
This isn’t the first time privacy settings have changed all by themselves.
The only reason I use Facebook is to stay in contact with some old friends. Otherwise I would delete my account. But I have to wonder if it really would be deleted, given my experience with trying to delete Facebook applications.
Comment by Pam — July 30, 2009 @ 1:42 pm
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