
Instagram deprecates majority of their API - reimertz
https://www.instagram.com/developer/changelog/
======
bkanber
The important thing to note here is that these endpoints were scheduled for
retirement at future dates; some in July 2018, some in Dec 2018. Today, with
no prior announcement, these endpoints were abruptly retired.

Instagram had previously published a deprecation schedule for these endpoints,
and threw that schedule out the window without notifying even Instagram
Partners.

Edit to add: these endpoints are all related to the profile data and behaviors
of non-oauthed users. This is the exact data that ML researchers (myself
included) would normally use to analyze social graph behavior, interests, and
audiences of Instagram users, and also is exactly the type of processing
activity that GDPR restricts by requiring explicit and revocable consent. I
see the abrupt retirement of these endpoints as a reaction to the pressure FB
is facing as of late. This is a positive for personal privacy and will reduce
the potential for abuse, however many types of legitimate and responsible
businesses will be affected as well.

~~~
slowmovintarget
Good grief. When did we forget the meaning of "deprecate"? Deprecation and
retirement are two drastically different things.

Their change log reads "deprecated immediately" which is silly, but should be
read as "we don't know what 'deprecated' means and are retiring these APIs
immediately."

~~~
bkanber
Yes -- the headline of this post does not accurately convey how extreme this
move was. It should have read "abruptly shut down".

------
auntad
I find it concerning that Facebook now has an excuse to lock in their data
monopoly by effectively refusing to give up their users' data about
themselves. For example, it appears it would now be impossible to build an IG
alternative platform that piggybacks off of your existing follow graph. So
switching costs to a competitor suddenly skyrocket when there's no possibility
of an "import" feature.

So basically Facebook's data monopoly just got stronger. Am I missing
something?

~~~
samfisher83
If they give their data to other people, people will complain. If they don't
people will complain. It seems like no matter what they do someone will be
mad.

~~~
jameslevy
The solution is obvious. Allow people to export their data at least in a bulk
snapshot, for the purpose of data portability.

However, make it somewhat difficult/scary to do this, so that a personality
quiz app won't be able to successfully trick you into agreeing to it.

~~~
samfisher83
You can export your data. They even list what you can export:

[https://www.facebook.com/help/405183566203254?helpref=page_c...](https://www.facebook.com/help/405183566203254?helpref=page_content)

~~~
nugi
'What you can export' is not the totality of data provided by, or collected
about you. Only what they choose, or are compelled, to reveal.

~~~
hyfen
It also doesn't include any Instagram data

------
dvt
Everyone knew this was going to happen, it's under the "Graph API" umbrella
now: [https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-
api/overview/](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-api/overview/)

(Not sure if this is related to the Cambridge Analytica situation. Maybe the
timeline was sped up, but IG's APIs have been deprecating for the past 2-3
years now.)

~~~
bkanber
The problem is that they threw out the deprecation schedule that they
originally published and immediately retired/shutdown many endpoints with no
prior announcements. Not even Instagram Partners were notified.

For those reasons, I absolutely believe it was related to the Cambridge
Analytica situation.

~~~
dvt
Gotcha, I do remember seeing the deprecation schedule (some stuff was late
2018), so it was definitely sped up.

------
Eyas
Also important to see this in the context of the Cambridge Analytica story.
Giving out user data about all of the followers / followings of a user, etc.,
including simple things like bios, hashtags, etc., is how these databases of
user info get seeded.

------
rokhayakebe
I don't understand.

Instagram == Facebook.

Facebook is being hit left and right for giving away too much user data (which
I agree with).

Facebook takes steps and decides to close its data doors immediately.

People complaint about the doors being closed.

~~~
Shish2k
Different people in each case -

Facebook have an API to export data - team privacy are loudly outraged, team
data-portability are quietly happy.

Facebook lock down their APIs - team privacy are quietly happy, team data-
portability are loudly outraged.

The end result being that no matter what happens, there will be a fairly
consistent supply of outrage - the only question is do you want it from one
side, the other side, or a bit of both?

------
balls187
Wow.

Were developers notified at all this was going to happen?

Purely speculating--but I bet they discovered that their APIs were open for
privacy abuse, and rather than just disable the abusing accounts, they shut
down the APIs until they can be fixed.

~~~
achairapart
They already closed down everything in 2015 setting up a permission review
system with very silly criteria.

~~~
Naomarik
Silly indeed. I applied for it twice, having submitted a screen recording
explaining what I was using it for. They gave me partial API access, pretty
useless functionality. Not what I needed which was clearly explained in the
second video.

The application felt like I was begging. Not something I'd ever do again.

------
rokhayakebe
Please take note: never build a business which depends majorly on someone's
else platform be that free or paid.

~~~
siquick
I never understood how this logic became so trendy.

\- All software above the OS layer is built on someone else's platform.

\- All websites unless hosted on your own servers are built on someone elses
platform, most likely using libraries built by someone else, on someone elses
platform.

\- All websites run in a browser which you don't own.

~~~
brianwawok
This logic is worse than strawman.

You build a business that 100% depends on facebook. Facebook is a commercial
company. At any point they can shut it down, and you are back to 0. Bad.

You build a website that depends on "a browser". There are at least 4 popular
browsers desktop browsers, with several variations on mobile and more exotic
browsers. All 4 are run by different companies. For most websites you would
still function if even 3 of the 4 major browsers were shut down. Furthermore,
desktop software is downloaded and cannot just vanish (let's ignore app store
and that kind of magic, as not all browsers come in like that).

So I think you just proved the point on writing a "website" is a safer bet
then writing a "tool for facebook"

------
slaymaker1907
With all these lock downs, it looks like we are back to the great cat and
mouse game of web scraping.

------
seanca
Not surprising - as someone who has worked in the Facebook APIs for going on
three years, the amount of undocumented breaking changes or abrupt API
retirements is insane. Their overarching principle here has been "we're doing
it now so you figure it out."

------
tokyohans
Got that notice too. Indeed, deprecated isn't "we're in panic mode and gotta
act erratically to show those poor souls who have actually never read the T&C
that we care". We invested $50k in analytics and client experience. Going to
the trash can.

Agree with quite a few comments here. The most profound one was an observation
I made too: FB is effectively strengthening its monopoly by using the
Cambridge debacle. Feels very much like post financial crisis behavior of the
too big to fail banks (I worked for one).

But perhaps more importantly: Are "Instagram" partners actually affected?
Beasts like Salesforce.com and Oracle consume huge amounts of data. There are
dozens that consume audience data etc. Pretty sure that they are paying
license fees to continue to operate with much more sensible API permissions
and limits. Thoughts?

------
hw
Does anyone know if their private API is still accessible?

[https://github.com/mgp25/Instagram-API](https://github.com/mgp25/Instagram-
API)

~~~
chatmasta
It still works in the sense that their app needs to use it. But AFAIK
Instagram stepped up server side security a few months ago, and it’s now
nearly impossible to use that API from a data center IP. There’s a big thread
on it in the issues of that repo you linked, but I’m on mobile atm can’t find
it.

------
kylehotchkiss
Does instagram have a data export option now?

~~~
charlieegan3
It does not. I've asked support about it but there isn't even one hidden away
at the moment.

I suspect with GDPR coming one might show up sometime soon though.

In the meantime I've been using instalooter
([https://github.com/althonos/InstaLooter](https://github.com/althonos/InstaLooter))
along with some of my own scripts.

~~~
kylehotchkiss
Thanks Charlie, I'm trying to get an export of old messages from Instagram.
Scrolling up takes ages and I met my SO there, I'm hoping to get access to
those first messages again one day!

~~~
charlieegan3
No probs. I spent quite a long time experimenting and instaLooter was the best
I could find.

Instagram's gone from a place where I posted the odd picture to a serious
attempt to document my life (mostly to be consumed by myself). Throughout last
year I became increasingly nervous about not having access to all the data!

------
alexharrisnyc
Missing from their changelog is the most basic endpoint which has been
retired. /media/ which now returns {"meta": {"code": 400, "error_type":
"APINotAllowedError", "error_message": "This endpoint has been retired"}}.

------
kchoudhu
Looks like it's being brought in line with data practices at Facebook.

This isn't an entirely bad thing.

------
vevis
To think the modified rate limit with no announcement was a critical issue--
the effect of this shutdown will be seriously widespread. Despite the
deprecation schedule, this seems drastic.

Considering the number of fires this is going to cause, application-
wise...yikes.

------
eosophos
Why would this be happening? This seems to make their platform even more
useless.

~~~
thephyber
> Why would this be happening?

Facebook owns Instagram.

Have you heard about Facebook's issues in the national news recently?

------
Latteland
So they are blocking what looks like a friend graph. Reaction to CA I guess.

------
idax
Sooo, can I still cross reference customers from my database to see if they
are influenecers on instagram or does GET /users/{user-id} and GET
/users/self/followed-by ruin that?

------
mbesto
@dang

I'd suggest changing the name of this submission to:

Instagram abruptly deprecates a majority of its API before plan

As this is the real story. The current title is a bit misleading. Good
discussion none the less.

~~~
saagarjha
This isn't even deprecation. This is shutting down the API endpoints.

~~~
mbesto
Hence why it reads "abruptly deprecates a majority of it's API before plan"
and not "abruptly eliminates a majority of its API endpoints before plan"

~~~
kelnos
But they _have_ abruptly eliminated those API endpoints before plan.

"Deprecate" means that you've marked something for removal at some point in
the future. From the other comments here, it seems that the endpoints have
been abruptly shut down, effective immediately.

------
cvaidya1986
This is always the risk with trying to run a business or develop an app on
someone else’s platform.

------
matte_black
I’ve always just used their private APIs, has that been broken now??

------
Yhippa
Talk about "open/closed principle".

