pablobarbera/Rfacebook

So API 3.0 and rFacebook

Opened this issue · 7 comments

lucsulla commented

  1. Has anyone successfully either:

    A. Figured out how to get his or her app approved or
    B. Figured out how to use rFacebook without app approval?

Doing a screen cap video of how a user will log into an app that I never intend on sharing in the first place is too great a hill for me, helped in no small part by my feeling it's absurd. I've no idea what I would even document.

  1. If the above is a no, is this package (and any other accessing Facebook through the API) pretty much dead for now?

I hope not, but I have to admit feeling rather pessimistic at the moment.

nlch commented

I haven't been able to use it as before without App approval. But for one case where I have a page token the package works as it did before all the changes (likes info, commenters names, etc). Granted, it only works for a very specific case...

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lucsulla commented

I've previously been using it to teach web content analysis, but I can no longer scrape anything from a public page using it. It seems ridiculous to embargo searches for information via R that a person on the internet can see without even having a Facebook account, but then I recognize I am also basically yelling at a fence post about it as far as approaching FB.

CZARKING commented

All of these developments have been very frustrating. Anyone know how we might go about approaching someone at Facebook? Perhaps as a collective we might effect change.

I recognize the difficulty of the situation (from Facebook's perceptive as well), but the scientific community needs to start trying to create a dialogue with Facebook. How else are things ever going to get better?

lucsulla commented

I don't even know where to start. Facebook does an excellent job at being a social media platform that is nigh on impossible to contact, at least insofar as contacting anyone who might actually have anything to do with the issue.

naikabhilash commented

Has anyone found any solution yet?

CZARKING commented

No solutions that I know of.

Thx. Already following them.

Related, Facebook appears to be receptive to change and feedback (even if only from a select few). There was a recent article in the Chronicle that you might find interesting: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Facebook-Says-It-Will-Help/243126

I also read King and Persily's paper. Unfortunately, I don't think what they propose will trickle down to the R community. Looks like the fight for a better public Graph API will be a long one.

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