
Ask HN: Why Facebook requires login to view public pages? - kpocza
I&#x27;m not a hardcore Facebook user. There are some pages I visit regularly without logging in just navigating there via browser and reading the posts.
Starting from today all pages require login, including many pages I tried from news sites to car manufacturers. Even facebook.com&#x2F;facebook behaves this way.
Does anyone know the reason, and whether it is a permanent or temporary change? Is the any relation with the design upgrade?
I&#x27;m from Hungary.
Thank you.
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rvz
> Does anyone know the reason, and whether it is a permanent or temporary
> change?

Because it's Facebook. They did it to Instagram because that's also Facebook.

They will do _whatever_ it takes to get 'real users' logging in and not window
shopping on their website.

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cipherzero
Any chance this change was related to the recent scraping decision from the
Supreme Court (I think) against linked in? Maybe this is to prevent people
scraping content front public pages.

That and as others have mentioned I’m sure they’d love everyone to always be
logged in for ad tracking purposes...

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Engineering-MD
Just to confirm this has also happened to me in UK overnight, so definitely a
new change and international. To echo others, I wonder what will happen to all
the businesses using facebook as their main site. I’m sure some won’t care but
others might see a gradual drop in foot fall

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kpocza
Quite interesting. I just woke up (it's 7AM here). A quick check and
everything works as before, so public pages are showing up without requiring
login and with the old design. I don't understand what kind of human
experimentation we were facing.

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4cao
The immediate reason might have something to do with the recent redesign of
the Facebook website to make it more like their apps.

But broadly it's because they can.

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CameronNemo
Because they own the network and they want to track you. Expect it to get
progressively worse before Facebook finally implodes.

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pestaa
Why do you think it has a finite lifespan?

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kleer001
Previous large social networks eroded too, no reason to think Facebook is any
different.

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robjan
Previous networks didn't absorb the majority of the interconnected world,
become one of the biggest companies in the world or have huge lobbying power.

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illuminated
[https://lmgtfy.app/?q=Why+Facebook+requires+login+to+view+pu...](https://lmgtfy.app/?q=Why+Facebook+requires+login+to+view+public+pages%3F)

See the second link shown above:
[https://www.facebook.com/help/537592652938493](https://www.facebook.com/help/537592652938493)

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Maha-pudma
First link is this thread though so probably worth a better answer.

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poormystic
I alwayd thought its because fb wants to get power over me. I don't want that.

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kevingadd
Seeing that here too. Definitely wasn't the case until recently.

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anonzzz
Because they want to own you.

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_trampeltier
That's pretty bad, I think. A lot restaurants and events (mis)used facebook as
there website. We will see what does happen with these sites ..

