Facebook Privacy and Apps

October 31st, 2011
facebook, privcy
Facebook's privacy system for apps is tricky. The basic system is opt in for specific apps, and opt out for apps overall. If a specific app wants to access facebook as you, it has to ask for specific permissions:

I think they do a pretty good job with this: they force the app to specify which things it wants to do, and they explain them pretty well. I would like it if I could tell facebook "automatically accept on my behalf as long as it's not going to post or publish as me," because while I don't care about privacy I don't like apps putting spam in people's newsfeeds.

There's a lot of information that your friends have access to that the general public does not. An app approved by one of your friends can access that information. This is how my comment widget works: it runs as me, and so can see your comments. The only way to keep friends' apps from seeing your stuff is to opt out of the facebook platform. When I pull all comments on a post, I don't see comments made by users who have done this. They show up when I'm on facebook, but not through the api. This does disable facebook chat, though, so its kind of annoying.

This came up because someone was worried that my comment widget would help people connect their facebook account to their offline persona. I ended up adding their userid to an internal blocklist because they didn't want to turn off chat. If you'd like me to exclude your comments from my comments page, I could add you to the blocklist too.

Comment via: google plus, facebook, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Parenting standards and the village

Cartoons Hate Her has written about the village nobody wants. In principle, parents usually want a community to help take care of their kids: someone to bring meals when they get sick, keep an eye on their children while they play, and talk to about paren…

via Thing of Things December 19, 2025

Opinionated takes on parenting

This post is a collection of parenting takes that sometimes go through my head, based on my experience raising our two boys (5 and 2 years old). All of this is based on my experience and might not apply to others (see the law of equal and opposite advice)…

via Victoria Krakovna December 16, 2025

How to Make a Christmas Wreath

Yesterday, I made a Christmas wreath. Here's how to make one. First, find an evergreen tree near your house. Clip off a few branches from the tree. Try to have as many leaves or needles on the branches as possible. Next, bring them home. What I usu…

via Anna Wise's Blog Posts December 6, 2025

more     (via openring)