Meta Cuts Off Third-Party Access To Facebook Groups

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The recent surprise announcement that Meta will soon be shutting down its Facebook Groups API is throwing some businesses and social media marketers into disarray. On January 23, Meta announced the release of its Facebook Graph API v19.0, which included the news that the company would be deprecating its existing Facebook Groups API. The latter, which is used by developers and businesses to schedule posts to Facebook Groups, will be removed within 90 days, Meta said. This includes all the Permissions and Reviewable Features associated with the API, it also noted.

Meta explained that a major use case for the API was a feature that allowed developers to privately reply in Facebook Groups. For example, a small business that wanted to send a single message to a person who posted on their Facebook Group or who had commented in the group could be messaged through the API. However, Meta said that another change in the new v19.0 API would enable this feature, without the need for the Groups API. But developers told TechCrunch that the shutdown of the API would cause problems for companies that offer solutions to customers who want to schedule and automate their social media posts.

What's more, developers tell us that Meta's motivation behind the API's shutdown is unclear. On the one hand, it could be that Facebook Groups don't generate ad revenue and the shutdown of the API will leave developers without a workaround. But Meta hasn't clarified if that's the case. Instead, Meta's blog post only mentioned one use case that would be addressed through the new v.19.0 API. On Meta's forum for developers, one developer says they're 'pretty shocked' by the company's announcement, noting their app relies on the Groups API and will essentially no longer work when the shutdown occurs. Others are frustrated that Meta hasn't clearly explained if posting on Groups will be done with a Page Access token going forward, as the way the announcement is worded it seems that part is only relevant for those posting private replies, not posting to the group as a whole. the whole thing could just be some messaging mistake -- like Meta perhaps forgot to include the part where it was going to note what its new solution would be. There is concern, however, that Meta is deprioritizing developers' interests having recently shut down its developer bug portal as well.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.