

Facebook Requires Social Fixer Browser Extension to Remove Features - selmnoo
http://socialfixer.com/blog/2013/10/05/facebook-requires-social-fixer-browser-extension-to-remove-key-features?r

======
yason
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.

~~~
JacobJans
> 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."

~~~
Dylan16807
The agreement applies to the users, not to the person coding the browser. The
fact that he happens to have a personal page is unrelated, and facebook would
probably threaten legal action even if he didn't have one.

On top of that, there is a reason contracts of adhesion are treated specially.
An agreement between a billion dollar corporation and someone that wants to
post cat photos isn't a true meeting of the minds. It can only make demands
that are sufficiently ordinary* Requiring a website to be browsed in a
specific way is rather out of the ordinary.

* As defined by libraryfulls of precedent.

------
babs474
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.

~~~
SquareWheel
The admins asked you to remove unedditreddit years ago[1]. And for good
reason. It was disrespectful to bring the tool back online after saying you'd
disable it, especially when you started charging for it.

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/etd52/lets_have_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/etd52/lets_have_a_discussion_about_deleted_comments/c1as392)

~~~
babs474
1\. It wasn't disrespectful. The previous version which you refer to directly
interacted with reddit servers. I said I would no longer crawl reddit and I do
not.

2\. There is nothing wrong with charging for something you have built, but you
can check out a free version of similar tool here
[http://uneddit.com/faq.php](http://uneddit.com/faq.php) it also does a good
job of raising some points from my line of thinking.

------
bambax
> _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.

------
shaggyfrog
> 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_.

------
casca
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
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
Would you like me to buy you a new microwave? I will if you promise to keep
Social Fixer the way it is.

------
pdonis
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
> 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
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?

~~~
michaelt
Matthew Yglesias described Amazon as "a charitable organization being run by
elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers." [1]

There are many things Amazon could do to transfer cash from their customers to
their shareholders. Bezos justifies not doing these things because he claims
there is more value in long term customer loyalty and trust. Because it's a
good faith business decision, I don't see Bezos being ousted or sued by
shareholders.

Likewise, it would be easy for Facebook to say "we think there's long term
value in delivering the best possible experience to users, and if for some
users that means using an extension that's fine with us" \- it's a good faith
business decision, why would they get ousted or sued where Bezos hasn't?

[1]
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/01/29/amazon_q4_pro...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/01/29/amazon_q4_profits_fall_45_percent.html)

~~~
pdonis
_it would be easy for Facebook to say "we think there's long term value in
delivering the best possible experience to users, and if for some users that
means using an extension that's fine with us"_

It would be easy for them to say it, but first they would have to believe it,
and second they would have to believe they could convince investors of it.

 _it 's a good faith business decision, why would they get ousted or sued
where Bezos hasn't?_

It's not a question of being sued, it's a question of having the stock price
go down. Investors don't have to sue to do that; they just have to sell.

~~~
magicalist
> _It would be easy for them to say it, but first they would have to believe
> it, and second they would have to believe they could convince investors of
> it_

You're moving goalposts. That's a completely different statement. Whatever it
is they truly believe is totally different than "they _have_ to make decisions
that benefit their stockholders or they will go bankrupt".

> _It 's not a question of being sued, it's a question of having the stock
> price go down. Investors don't have to sue to do that; they just have to
> sell._

Again, this has nothing to do with fiduciary duty, which was the topic that
the original comment was responding to. The fact remains that for-profit
companies do not have some kind of Sword of Damocles hanging over them,
waiting for them to make a decision that costs stockholders value.

~~~
pdonis
_Whatever it is they truly believe is totally different than "they have to
make decisions that benefit their stockholders or they will go bankrupt"._

How is this relevant to what I said in the particular statement you were
responding to here? I wasn't saying anything in that statement about what FB
_does_ believe; all I was saying is that, judging by their behavior, they _don
't_ believe that "there's long term value in delivering the best possible
experience to users, and if for some users that means using an extension
that's fine with us".

As for what I think they do believe, see below.

 _this has nothing to do with fiduciary duty_

Which was exactly my point: saying that FB won't get sued if it lets third-
party developers change its UI is not at all the same as saying that FB thinks
its stockholders will benefit if it lets third-party developers change its UI.

 _for-profit companies do not have some kind of Sword of Damocles hanging over
them, waiting for them to make a decision that costs stockholders value._

I wasn't saying they do; nothing in what I said requires that a single
decision is all it takes. I didn't specify any time frame in which FB has to
benefit stockholders or go bankrupt. If you read other posts of mine in this
sub-thread, you'll see that the strategy I think FB is following is not one
aimed at maximizing short-term return on capital, but that doesn't change the
fact that they have to benefit stockholders on some time horizon that is
relevant for the stockholders.

------
javajosh
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

~~~
tedunangst
Doesn't Facebook have some right to choose what type of content they want to
host? The only thing that's happened is Facebook has decided they don't want
to host his page.

[Er, oops. Ignore this part. Reading fail] I mean, seriously. FBI? What do
they have to do with this?

~~~
md224
> I mean, seriously. FBI? What do they have to do with this?

I think you might've misread "FB"...

~~~
tedunangst
Yeah. Enough people start thinking the FBI is out to get them, and then I
start thinking everybody thinks the FBI is out to get them.

------
jrockway
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
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
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
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.

------
tmister
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
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
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
How is "we can force you into bankruptcy by suing you" all that less forcible
than "the government will fine you"?

~~~
tedunangst
Is Facebook suing him?

~~~
ceejayoz
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.

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

~~~
walid
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
I haven't had an account in years. I stopped when they started playing games
with their privacy settings.

~~~
brymaster
Good man. They have a long history of not giving a damn about privacy:
[http://pleasedeletefacebook.com](http://pleasedeletefacebook.com)

------
mcintyre1994
"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
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.

------
blibble
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
How so?

~~~
blibble
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
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
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

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

