
Show HN: Facebook Unlike - suckaplease
http://www.publikdemand.com/unlike/
======
csallen
Why do people make sites like this where you're required to give them access
to tons of your information before they even tell you what they do? The home
page does a poor job explaining why I should use this to unlike pages over,
say, logging into Facebook and unliking pages on my own.

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tchae
you're not required to sign up?? it's just iframe like buttons... and have you
ever tried unliking pages in mass on FB itself?

~~~
sumzup
It's pretty easy to do with Graph Search, for what it's worth (yes, I realize
most people don't have it yet). Just search for "Pages I have liked".

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mmanfrin
You should add a like button to this page, for mega meta irony points.

~~~
Sirupsen
It seems there already is one when you connect with Facebook.

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jaredsohn
Which likes is it supposed to show? It only showed 24 likes for me and I'm
aware of many more things that I've liked that weren't shown there.

Edit: If you go here <http://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer/> and add
'likes' to the FQL query, you can see many more via the API.

~~~
bpatrianakos
Same here. I've never worked with the Facebook API but I'm guessing there's
some sort of limiting going on somehwere that won't let the app pull every
like. That or the amount of JavaScript that needs to run to load some people's
likes would kill everone's browser. Or maybe some combination of the two.

For what it's worth, most of my likes I was okay with but after disliking a
few and refreshing I got a couple that didn't show up the first time.

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courtneypowell
Search for "Nick Bergus" and "55-gallon drum of lubricant" to see why you
don't want to end up in a sponsored ad.

~~~
gregpilling
Do you mean this link? [http://nbergus.com/2012/02/how-i-became-amazons-
pitchman-for...](http://nbergus.com/2012/02/how-i-became-amazons-pitchman-
for-a-55-gallon-drum-of-personal-lubricant-on-facebook/)

~~~
courtneypowell
Yes! Crazy story.

~~~
gregpilling
but what kind of SXSW party could you throw with that much lube?

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rcush
I like the idea. I'm not sure how long Facebook will allow it to operate for,
but it's a good tool for those of us conscious about the amount of data shared
on social networks.

However, I have two issues:

The site is claiming that the likes are used to populate advertising on
Facebook. Surely a better way to prevent that is through
[http://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads&section=social&...](http://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads&section=social&view)
rather than removing likes? Perhaps I'm being misled by Facebook, but I have
presumed that by toggling the option on the linked page to "no one" I would
not have my data used to populate advertising in that way.

A second issue is the access the site is asking for; it is _significantly_ too
much. Again, I'm not overly familiar with Facebook so perhaps I'm incorrect
here, but surely the site only needs fairly restricted access? Maybe the API
doesn't allow such fine-tuning, but being allowed to post on my timeline seems
excessive.

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dmor
Interesting, I went through my likes and I don't really have a problem with
any of these pages/brands. I guess I don't "like" a ton of stuff (maybe 30
pages, no major brands) so maybe it's not an issue for me but is for other
people.

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mccolin
Usage of your image in this fashion can be blocked via a setting on Facebook
that is very easy to find:
[https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads&view](https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads&view)

No need to go through and unlike things for the purpose of hiding your
endorsement of it.

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pgrote
Can you explain why and what the app will post on the timeline? I didn't see
an example on the site. thanks.

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geuis
__I HIGHLY recommend no one else use this site without more followup from the
developer __

I don't like this. Not for what it claims to do, but because it doesn't
clearly say what it _does_ do.

"Facebook Unlike". I get that, good name. When I go to the site, I understand
I have to sign in with Facebook. That's fine.

Problems:

1) Why does your app require permission to write to my page? You only need
permissions to read all the pages that I have liked, nothing more.

2) It is not clear where these FB pages are coming from. I am presented with a
handful of FB pages. Now some of them I have Liked and will continue to do so
like Photopic Sky Survey. But I am also presented with things like "omg! from
Yahoo" and "omg! Insider", but of which I have never and would never like.

3) The term "Unlike" indicates there should be buttons or toggles called
"Unlike". At a minimum, hitting "Like" on something I've already clicked
should "unlike" it. However, I'm seeing a mix of pages that I definitely have
liked and other ones like "omg!" that I did not like. The "Like" button is
available on this. If I hit that, am I liking or unliking that page? Its a
visual double negative.

4) Once you hit Like, there's no way toggle the button state again. It just
turns to Like and stays there.

~~~
bpatrianakos
Actually some of what you said is incorrect.

1) You're probably right

2) Me and others I know have used this and recognize all our likes. There are
cases where you accidentally or unknowingly like something which may explain
the Likes you claim to never have liked. I've had my FB account since 2006. I
don't know about you or others but there's bound to be some likes you don't
remember if you've been a member long enough.

3) I agree - I was a little misled at first thinking there would be buttons to
unlike pages. That said, and correct me if I'm wrong, there actually is no way
to unlike a Facebook page apart from visiting the original page or clicking
the embedded Like button you originally clicked to Like it a second time. I
don't think this is the developer's fault. This is a Facebook issue and the
developer seems to be working around the limitations of "Unlikes".

4) This is incorrect. If you hover over the grayed out checkmark you can click
again to unlike. By default all of them should be grayed out and checked
anyway since you've already liked them. Hovering over the check mark will show
an X. You click the X and it's unliked. It is hard to understand and not
intuitive on a number of levels but again, this is something out of the
developer's control.

I understand your concern that we should be wary of random sites that ask us
to log in with Facebook and you're justified in having reservations but in
this case a lot of your concerns are easily explained by the Facebook API
itself. This looks far more legit than not. The only sketchy part about it was
the "Log in with Facebook" request - but once you get past that you see it's
legit.

~~~
suckaplease
1) The social auth tool we're using only allows you to have one set of
permissions, so we're using the default set for our overall application. If
you see my earlier comment I did update it to be a little less ambitious on
the permissions.

2) The list of likes comes directly from FB

3) There is an endpoint provided by the Facebook Open Graph to delete a like.
However, you have to be whitelisted by FB in order to call that endpoint.

4) Yeah, the thought was that you'd come here to unlike pages. If you made a
mistake in unliking a page that you want to continue supporting you can go
back there on FB and re-like it. The reason we removed the button after the
action is that it's crazy confusing to explain to someone how to unlike a page
using the default FB like implementation (the only implementation) and I'm
sure that's by design. If the button stuck around after the action, I'm sure
that there would be a lot of unintended re-likes.

Thanks, we're trying! Our goal is to help consumers voice their complaints to
large companies (that aren't always listening too well). Please give us more
feedback!

Thanks!

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codva
I was pleasantly surprised that I only have about 40 likes, most of them small
local businesses or projects friends are connected to somehow. Didn't feel the
need to unlike anything. Cool idea though.

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cedricd
How long is this supposed to take? It's just showing a spinner for me.

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zbowling
.... and facebook banned it.

Login is dead.

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leviathan
Why does the app need all these permissions to access my likes?

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pan69
Exactly. Looks like someone is collecting Facebook data on Facebook Connect.
Devious....

~~~
suckaplease
Out login system only supports one set of permissions and we're using the
default set for our primary application.

However, I hear what you're saying and I'm deploying a reduced set now.

Thanks!

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TheBurningOr
Needs to have a more prominent share button so I can send this to my friends
who have so helpfully 'liked' products that I'm now spammed with.

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SparksZilla
It took me a second to get what this was, but after I logged in with FB I
definitely found some pages I needed to unlike. Great idea.

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devindotcom
Yesss! As expected, there is only one like on mine: "Saying 'hella'."

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ForFreedom
How did this ever reach the top on HN?

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webwanderings
Probably good for those who don't know what they're doing on the Internet.

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davidkatz
doesn't work for me, i get a login error. too bad.

