Facebook Silently Removes Ability To Download Your Posts

dcollins writes "Facebook has a 'Download Info' capability that I've used regularly since 2010 to archive, backup, and search all the information that I've written and shared there (called 'wall posts'). But I've discovered that sometime in the last few months, Facebook silently removed this largest component from the Downloaded Info, locking up all of your posted information internally where it can no longer be exported or digitally searched. Will they reverse course if this is publicized and they're pressured on the matter?" It does appear that the archive of your wall posts is now only available through the not-very-useful Activity Log.

Comments

has that ever worked?

[Trepidity]

Will they reverse course if this is publicized and they're pressured on the matter?

How often has that been successful in getting Facebook to change anything?

Re:has that ever worked?

[interkin3tic]

Not because of the bad publicity, but if they take it as an indication that most people are upset about it then yeah, they might not want to annoy their user base away and fall below critical mass.

Specifically to this issue? No, it's abundantly clear that most facebookers don't care. But when it comes to trivial things like "where did the 'like' button go why did you move it all the way to the line below oh my god this is horrible" then maybe.

Re:has that ever worked?

[Little_Professor]

Facebook Beacon was the last time I remember them bowing to public pressure. Of course, since then they have instituted technologies that are far more intrusive, yet after the initial outrage over the privacy violations dies down, people just forget about it and silently accept the FBRape
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Beacon

Re:has that ever worked?

[therealkevinkretz]

It was apparently an oversight and has been fixed - I just confirmed my wall data is included in my downloaded zip file.

Malicious?

[telchine]

I don't really understand why Facebook would do this. What benefit is there for them?

Re:Malicious?

[loufoque]

Force people to use their search tools rather than your own?

Re:Malicious?

[gl4ss]

not having to fix the download info tool to work with something minor that broke it.

Re:Malicious?

[mwvdlee]

Obvious benefit is that it makes it harder for their Products to move to a possible competitor's website should they want to do so.

Re:Malicious?

[Chris Mattern]

They don't want you to able to access your stuff if you're not on Facebook. This "encourages" you to stay on Facebook.

Re:Malicious?

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Probably one person that knows how to keep it running, and they got busy with other stuff.

Though to be fair, FB has enough money to throw at a problem that it shouldn't be a real issue.

Re:Malicious?

[cervesaebraciator]

From Facebook's perspective, FTFY:

They don't want you to able to access their stuff if you're not on Facebook.

Re:Malicious?

[Sockatume]

Don't have to spend money maintaining the feature.

Re:Malicious?

[countach44]

The less features you have to maintain, the better? If they make any internal data format and/or API changes, they may have have to change something here.

Re:Malicious?

[NatasRevol]

Who the hell would want to repost all their old opinions & photos?

Re:Malicious?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get the outrage over "privacy rights" when users willingly go to and use a free platform that they should know is fully sponsored by ads and data mining.

Personal responsibility.

End of story.

Re:Malicious?

[djsmiley]

Facebook has users? or the used?

Re:Malicious?

[cervesaebraciator]

I don't get the outrage over "privacy rights" when users willingly go to and use a free platform that they should know is fully sponsored by ads and data mining.
Personal responsibility.
End of story.

If the way you're speaking here is any indication, is not surprising that you do not get it. Expressing ignorance of other people's views and subsequently declaring that your simplistic response is the end of the discussion indicates that you're not interested in understanding the views of others. Yet in the ever optimistic hope that I've misunderstood you, and that you ask because you wish to understand, allow me to offer a few thoughts.

Those in favor of information freedom and privacy rights understand the problem differently from the way you do. Your proposed solution indicates an atomized view of human action and choice-making. An individual chooses this or that option and is responsible for the consequences of those choices. That is all well and good, as far as it goes. But that an individual can act thus in a vacuum, freely choosing from a free market of options, is a myth--perhaps even the founding myth of Western liberal capitalist civilization. The problem those for information freedom and privacy rights (IFPR, hereafter) have in mind is not individual, but structural.

An individual's choices are constrained by the structures of his environment. This is true online, but it can sometimes be easier to see in the physical world. When and where I grew up, there tended to be numerous small towns, each having small shops, grocers, banks, etc. The available items for consumption were fewer, but whom one chose to purchase from was more diverse. Over the years I've seen people gravitate ever closer to the cities, while retail in the smaller towns has increasingly been dominated by big-box stores like Walmart. In some ways people now have more choices--e.g. one can get at a Walmart today what he once would have had to special order. In some ways there are fewer choices--e.g. one can only get anything at the Walmart and even if he moves to another town he'll still find little more than a dead Main Street and a bypass dominated by another Walmart. It's a mixed blessing and curse, but regardless the choices one can make in the new environment verses the old one are different not because of the decisions an individual can make (i.e. not because of 'personal responsibility') but because of larger changes in the environment.

The concern for IFPR is not that a few people might choose to surrender their privacy or that someone might lose track of every post he's ever made on a social network. The concern is that the web might cease to be an open platform, that it might be changed structurally to the benefit of a few corporations and for easier exploitation by governments. If this latter happens, the web could become the antithesis of individual choice--or personal responsibility--as available options are restricted to a few approved items. IFPR advocates wish to encourage corporations like Facebook to be allies of a free and open internet, but this is only possible if people can migrate from platform to platform, retaining their own data. Sure, that may make it easier for users to leave but if they provide a superior product then they needn't worry about that, do they?

And lest you think IFPR is only a concern for Facebook users (which, as an aside, I am not and never have been), you should know that they track non-users all over the net as well. If we really want individual choice, we must do what we can to resist the balkanization that threatens to undermine the freedom and diversity of the web.

Re:Malicious?

[ganjadude]

I am sure there are people who dont understand why we use slashdot either...

Re:Malicious?

[AnalogDiehard]

They don't want you to able to access your stuff if you're not on Facebook. This "encourages" you to stay on Facebook.

Deja Vu... AOL tried the same tactic with their "walled garden" in which they did everything possible to keep you inside AOL - news, purchases, chats, everything was done inside AOL. And like FB, these tactics gradually appeared due to shareholder pressure after they went public.

Re:Malicious?

[kermidge]

One might want a copy of their stuff on their own storage media for reference or safe-keeping. For instance.

Re:Malicious?

[NatasRevol]

That wasn't the point I was arguing against.

Re:Malicious?

[Stormthirst]

Old opinions - no

Photos - much more likely

Re:Malicious?

[rwa2]

I do all of my posts to Facebook via Twitter. That means the Library of Congress has all my content archived.

Also, it means I don't have to run the Facebook app on my Android device to post. Double win!

Re:Malicious?

[hobarrera]

Do you realize the thousands (probably millons) of morons upload photos to facebook and then delete them. Facebook isn't their backup, it's their only copy of everything. Because they assume facebook will always be there.
The dissapearance of this button has locked them in a great deal more!

Re:Malicious?

[exomondo]

One might want a copy of their stuff on their own storage media for reference or safe-keeping. For instance.

So save a copy of it when you post it. If i send off any documentation or anything like that I always make a copy for myself for my own records, I don't expect the company or government department I'm sending it to to make it available for me to then retrieve from them later.

Re:Malicious?

[kermidge]

Ah. Well, my bad; gimme a whoosh, then. I could well be still missing the point; it's a talent I don't ask for.

Still, if one was moving from FB to a FB clone, it'd stand to reason they might want to re-create in part or whole what they had. I'd guess doing so would only have to make sense to them and no one else, but it might be as simple as being able to continue from where they'd left off and doing so from a familiar, comfortable, pleasing arrangement of stuff and history.

Well. That's really not the issue anyway. Being able to get one's online stuff is. I mean, I've read the fine print yadda yadda crap on a number of sites but whatever the terms, in the mind of the average user, I think the feeling is that "If I post it, it's mine." and not being able to take at least a copy seems wrong to them. Now I think on it, does to me also. Even if the comeback is that if one wanted the stuff a copy should have been made at the time of posting. It's a cold world, true, but how many really like being told, "You should have thought of that beforehand." Or worse, "Hey, the TOS says you post it, we own it."

Re:Malicious?

[kermidge]

True. Covered in another response nearby. I expect some people think sending a letter or form to the IRS somewhat different to posting a comment or picture on a social site. I'm only guessing, of course, based on what little I see of some of the people that I know who use FB or similar. It's hard to fathom, but seems to me the average Jane or Joe simply doesn't think about things with as much sophistication or forethought that many here seem to do.

Re:Malicious?

[lxs]

Facebook has users in the same way as heroin has users.

Re:Malicious?

[kermidge]

Nope, gotcha, thanks, for your courtesy and patience as well.

Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook removes a little-known, little-used feature that they no longer want to spend money supporting. The feature can be replaced on the user end with screen scraping. "News" at 11.

Get a court order.

[rodrigoandrade]

If retrieving your posts is that important to you, get a court order, so Facebook must give you access to download them.

Re:Get a court order.

[Rob the Bold]

If retrieving your posts is that important to you, get a court order, so Facebook must give you access to download them.

If the government's archiving all digital communications, who needs a court order? Just file a FOIA for your old stuff.

Re:Get a court order.

[c]

If retrieving your posts is that important to you, get a court order, so Facebook must give you access to download them.

If the government's archiving all digital communications, who needs a court order? Just file a FOIA for your old stuff.

That could work, but you risk having them black out the parts you're interested in.

Re:Get a court order.

[JJJJust]

US centric: The Freedom of Information Act is designed to get information on other subjects. The Privacy Act is what you cite and a far better tool to get information on yourself.

Re:Get a court order.

[dywolf]

it would violate your privacy for the gov to tell you what they know about you

Re:Get a court order.

[Y-Crate]

If retrieving your posts is that important to you, get a court order, so Facebook must give you access to download them.

If the government's archiving all digital communications, who needs a court order? Just file a FOIA for your old stuff.

I wouldn't trust the government to provide the accurate number of "likes" the post received. ;)

Re:Get a court order.

[kybur]

Access is still provided via the API. Just because they got rid of a button in their GUI doesn't mean they are denying you access. They are probably just trying to clean up their interface by removing extra features that no one uses.

Data protection request

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Depending on where you are, you might be able to send them a Subject Access Request or your local equivalent, forcing them to provide you with all the personal data they hold about you, give or take a bit of wriggling on their part, for a token amount of money.

Re:Data protection request

[Xest]

I was under the impression this is why Facebook implemented this feature in the first place, to try and ward off some of the people who were doing exactly that.

Perhaps now the whole "contact Facebook to get all personal data held on you on a CD" thing has calmed down they think they can backtrack on that. Maybe they need a reminder, maybe it's time to start requesting data again as you say?

Why bother?

[intermodal]

I usually just go delete everything I've ever post and then contemplate whether deleting the account is worth never hearing from several cousins again unless they figure out that I left Facebook and seek me out. I don't even know how many relatives even have my contact info anymore outside of Facebook...

Re:Why bother?

[cdrudge]

Do you really think that when you delete it that it actually deletes it? It's been standard operating procedure for years where I've worked that things appear deleted as far as the end user sees, but it's still there in the database just flagged "deleted".

Doing this makes it far easier to "undelete" something when it was inadvertently deleted, investigate something that a user was trying to cover up, or just keep a record for our own data mining purposes that's separate to the end user's use of the data.

Re:Why bother?

[intermodal]

Deleted the account? Never. Deleted all my posts and uploads? More times than I can quantify off the top of my head. My account presently consists of a picture of a stormtrooper, a couple private messages, and a few posts on relatives' statuses.

Re:Why bother?

[intermodal]

Of course I don't think it deletes it. but at least it's less visible than otherwise.

Reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Buzz. You're talking about them. Free Advertisements rule!
2) Trial balloon. Did anyone notice? A little. Oh well, we'll dial it back a bit. Maybe you can only download the last few days' worth.
3) All your data are belong to ... Zuckerberg.

Re:Reasons

[bobbied]

3) All your data are belong to ... Zuckerberg.

An excellent reason to NOT post personal information on ANY site, your data becomes another's property. Sites like Facebook collect an astounding amount of information from your activity, more than you likely suspect.

I know of multiple births which where announced on Facebook. Birth announcements only gave the full name and date of the birth but one could deduce a lot more from Facebook. One parent posts the announcement of full name and date. You got the proud parent's name who has a spouse relationship so you now have both parents' names. You look at the mother who has her mother shown and volia, mother's maiden name. Births are recorded in the county records, so you look for what counties are close to their home address. You can usually weed that down to one or two. Now we have Father's name, Mother's name, Mother's maiden name, date of birth and county of birth which is more than enough information to take over somebodies identity. Poor kids...Don't even know how much trouble their parents may have caused them, even before they get out of the hospital for the first time.

Seriously, if you find the need to download all your posts from Facebook and filter though them, you have a problem...

Re:Reasons

[ron_ivi]

"Don't give personal info to strangers" should be a basic safety lesson all parents teach their kids.

It applies equally much if the stranger's handing out free candy from a windowless van in a city park, or handing out free web services online. And remember that to you Sergei, Zuckerberg, and MySpace Tom are strangers no matter how much they claim to be "friends" who "don't be evil".

Even Fox News tells you to not give facebook honest information (perhaps encouraging you to violate Facebook's terms of use).

Personally I encourage everyone who needs to use Facebook to do it with entirely fictitious data. It's more fun. Your actual friends will know what your aliases are; and you probably don't want your non-actual-friends spying on you anyway.

Re:Reasons

[devent]

But the problem is, that nobody thinks "I give my data to Facebook". The users think "I announce the birth to my friends and family".

That is why in the EU we have strong privacy laws, and that laws should be expanded. At some point Facebook becomes a carrier like the telephone company or postal office. But Facebook is not transferring telephone calls or letters, but digital mails and pictures.

Good luck try and explain that your baby pictures you post are going not to your friends and family but to Facebook, and that Facebook is just friendly enough to let your friends and family see that pictures.

Re:Reasons

[AnalogDiehard]

Sites like Facebook collect an astounding amount of information from your activity, more than you likely suspect.

A friend just had a baby, he refused to use the FB birth announcement for the same reasons.

When I signed up on FB this past fall, I purposely left few personal details in my profile. Having been a victim of identity theft, I am militant about protecting my privacy. I also despise advertising and am well aware of FB using personal profiles for advertising, and I do not want ads targetted to me based on where I live, where I work, my interests, etc. I take the usual precautions such as no discussion of vacation or business travel until after I return, etc.

Yet FB has a system that can "guess" details like where you live and your interests based on what FB sites you "like". Every time I log onto FB, the top of my newsfeed nags me to complete my profile including its "guesses" where I live. One of my friends remotely filled in my hometown thinking she was doing me a favor, which I quickly removed and took her off my newsfeed. I work for a company with valuable IP and am well aware that listing my workplace on FB would draw malware hackers to me like flies to honey. I make a habit of hiding ads and citing "offensive" as the reason I am hiding them.

Not surprisingly there's no option to tell the system turn off the nagging and I am not completing my personal profile.

Re:Reasons

[tibit]

At least in the U.S., if you've ever had a ticket, or was a plaintiff or defendant in a court case, or own real estate, or have liens on your property - you're out there already. The system that stole your identity was most likely automated malware that you had on your PC. That's how identities get typically stolen. No one has the time to give you personal attention, let's not be deluded about that. Identity theft by and large is an entirely automated process. What you do on Facebook is pretty much irrelevant.

Re:Reasons

[bobbied]

Public records are bad for identity theft, to be sure. It used to be worse, but now some places are tightening up access to this information and redacting some of the more sensitive data.

I'm just trying to make folks aware of how trivial it is to piece together information when you decide to give Facebook information like your birthday, family relationships and such. I've seen nutty folks posting "Wish you where here!" photo galleries while on vacation, not realizing that they pretty much just said "My house is unoccupied for the week, come rob me." You can't fix stupid I guess, but we all need to stop and think a little bit about what we post on Facebook (Or SlashDot for that matter).

Websites routinely keep such content literally for ever. There are things I posted 15 years ago that you can still find though Google or Yahoo. Data mining of large data sets is lucrative business, so I'm sure the criminal element is heavily invested in the techniques. You simply don't want to make it easy for them.

Re:Reasons

[MiG82au]

"Can't fix stupid".
FFS, get out and live more. Perhaps you don't see the benefit, but for most people that "wish you were here" post is more beneficial than the remote chance that one of their friends will assist in their house getting broken into.
You need to stop and think about the big picture, and not get bogged down by tin foil fantasies (going by probability).

Re:Reasons

[bobbied]

Who says I don't participate? It's just in my case I post such stuff AFTER I get home. It's VACATION time, who in their right mind is playing with their smart phone on Facebook on Vacation? Get out there and DO something other than keeping your Facebook status up to date or snapping a picture of your lunch for all to see.

Besides, it's NOT just your friends that may see that vacation picture. You simply do not know.

Captive audience

[ultranova]

I don't really understand why Facebook would do this. What benefit is there for them?

The harder it is for you to download your data, the harder it is for you to leave.

Re:Captive audience

[Tharkkun]

I don't really understand why Facebook would do this. What benefit is there for them?

The harder it is for you to download your data, the harder it is for you to leave.

It's also harder for someone to steal your history, personal information and pictures with 1 click when your Facebook password has been compromised. Ever think this was more to protect you? Facebook could easily put a ticketing system in allowing users to request access to this info and provide it via a random, expiring url. People would still bitch and cry about waiting a few hours or days before it was available even though they haven't provided a single penny to FB.

Re:Captive audience

[aflag]

They'd need to steal your email too, because the download links come by e-mail. If they have your email and facebook accounts, I don't think being able to download your wall posts is the biggest issue. Moreover, they could still download your messages, which probably contain more sensitive information, since it's private as opposed to wall, which is more or less public.

Re:Captive audience

[Yer Mom]

Actually, the download link is just the URL of the "please wait" page â" if you reload it after you get the email, there's the download button.

So all an attacker would have to do is not navigate away from the page and reload it every 10 minutes until the download's ready.

If you can view it you can download it.

[h4rr4r]

If you can still view the posts you can download them yourself. Look at this as a chance to learn about some scripting language a little more. You might even be able to publish this work for fame or money.

Re:If you can view it you can download it.

[h4rr4r]

And they enforce that how exactly?
That says users, not your own. So my assumption would be you are fine as long as you only run it against your own account.

Re:If you can view it you can download it.

[ganjadude]

true but i am sure that facebook will not look at it as accessing your account but rather accessing "user account 1234"

I still see it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the "Download a copy of your Facebook data" on my Account Settings page. Maybe this was selectively removed from some accounts only?

Re:I still see it.

[tepples]

When you ran "Download a copy of your Facebook data", did the resulting archive contain your wall posts? The complaint is that the wall posts and only the wall posts were removed from the archive.

or if

[TitusGroan8856]

or if you're in the UK serve them with a Data Protection Act Subject Access Request for all of your information, don't forget to ask for details of all those with whom your data has been shared.The most they can charge you for this is £10 and when they fail to comply you report them to the Office of the Information Commissioner who will ream their ass with a big fat fine. Similar legislation exists throughout the EU.

Re:or if

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not bound by the UK Data Protection Act.

In the EU, Facebook Ireland is bound by the Irish Data Protection Act. There's a blog of people who are trying to use it: http://europe-v-facebook.org/

Re:or if

[TitusGroan8856]

Facebook is based in Ireland but operates in the UK, as the consumer (me) lives in the UK then the legal jurisdiction for litigation is the UK. This point is covered in both the civil jurisdiction and judgments act 1982 and the supply of goods and services act (also 1982).

Down the memory hole

[mkro]

On Sunday or Monday, I shared a "What is happening in Turkey" post, in English, from a Turkish friend's wall to my own. It was shared to "Friends except acquaintances" and got a few likes and comments. This morning I noticed it was gone from my wall. It is not to be found in my activity log, and the notifications of that it had been commented on were also gone.

I was starting to doubt I had posted it at all, when I remembered to check Google Reader (Yep, still running), as I ages ago had set up a RSS feed with my notifications there. There it was, "[Friend's name] likes your link", with a clickable link to facebook.com/my name/posts/ followed by a numerical value. However clicking on it gave this message: "This content is currently unavailable. The page you requested cannot be displayed right now. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may have expired, or you may not have permission to view this page". Other posts in my RSS feed works fine, so it was just this particular one.

If it wasn't for the RSS feed, I probably would have shrugged it off and thought no more of it, so I guess the RSS feature will be gone soon too.

Re:Down the memory hole

[c0d3g33k]

Down the *censorship* hole, more accurately.

Re:Down the memory hole

[i kan reed]

Have you read 1984? That's what a memory hole was.

Re:Down the memory hole

[Anonymous Coward]

Or your friend took down his post. When someone deletes their post, I think it cascade deletes the sharing of that post.

Re:Down the memory hole

[BorisSkratchunkov]

I've had posts disappear too, but I don't believe it to always be a matter of censorship. From what I understand, all of Facebook's user data is stored in a SQL database of some flavour (or several databases); it's possible (nay, even probable) that between the Facebook frontend and their database(s), some wonky software component refuses to forward post data to the frontend. FWIW, one of my disappeared posts was a video of me drinking O'Doul's (you know, the non-alcoholic beer- the one that you drink when you want to be drinking beer but can't). It was a fairly innocuous inside joke, and I'm sad that I now have to admit on Slashdot to having drunk that crap in order to make a point.

Re:Down the memory hole

[BorisSkratchunkov]

Put more succinctly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
Also, for our edification and amusement: http://www.infoworld.com/t/sql/mr-sulu-steers-facebook-mysql-solution-188269

Re:Down the memory hole

[lgw]

Facebook uses MySQL with a bunch of their own sharding stuff on top. It's possible they just had a server fail, so some small groups of users' data just fail back to an earlier copy. However, losing a day's data that way seems unlikely.

Re:Down the memory hole

[Y-Crate]

I've had this happen multiple times on very non-provocative posts. They usually come back after a while.

Hotel California

[istartedi]

I don't really understand why Facebook would do this. What benefit is there for them?

You can check out any time you like; but you can never leave... with your data, at least not easily.

Re:Hotel California

[Grishnakh]

You can check out any time you like; but you can never leave... with your data, at least not easily.

You mean "their data". It's not your data when you post it to Facebook, it's theirs, you've given it to them.

Re:Hotel California

[snd_chaser]

Whoosh

Re:Hotel California

[mooingyak]

Man, you just literally kicked his ass!

Re:Hotel California

[Silvrmane]

Now you're just trying to make me cry. :P

Re:Hotel California

[ArsonSmith]

It's a copy of data, data doesn't have ownership, it just is. They have a copy of it, if you deleted your copy then you no longer have a copy of it.

Re:Hotel California

[ArsonSmith]

Sorry, but the language doesn't get mangled, it evolves. You may not like the direction and may even call it "stupid" but it will either catch on and become the next norm that some pedantic prick can complain about in the future, or it will fall to the wayside.

Re:Hotel California

[mooingyak]

I think I could of done better.

Re:Hotel California

[Minwee]

Sorry, but the language doesn't get mangled, it evolves.

And your car wasn't "totalled" by a collision with a tractor trailer, it just "evolved".

Re:Hotel California

[DaTrueDave]

Don't worry, I'm sure their will be another opportunity to kick they're butt.

Re:Hotel California

[exomondo]

You can check out any time you like; but you can never leave... with your data, at least not easily.

You mean "their data". It's not your data when you post it to Facebook, it's theirs, you've given it to them.

It's their copy, yes, I gave it to them and they can do whatever they want with it. I can of course leave - with my copies of the data - whenever I want.

Re:Hotel California

[ArsonSmith]

Yea, just like how the word "totalled" evolved to mean a destroyed item. Initially being short hand slang for, "the total damages over value the cost of the item."

Re:Hotel California

[Minwee]

Knock yourself a pro slick. Gray matter back got perform' us' down I take TCBin, man.

Re:Some whine with that cheese?

[LMariachi]

By your logic, you couldn’t complain if I offered you a ride to the airport and then kicked you out of the car on the side of the freeway halfway there.

All your posts...

[JavaBear]

Are belong to facebook...

Re:Some whine with that cheese?

[Sockatume]

Based on the ad revenue generated per user, a bit more than four dollars per year. Maybe as much as five.

Get off Facebook

[scuzzlebutt]

Moral of the story: don't use Facebook.

How do I download my Slashdot posts?

[MobyDisk]

How do I download my Slashdot posts? I've wanted to do that for years.

It's still there

[amiga3D]

The capability is still there it's just available under the "police" menu.

is this simply the anti google measure?

[goffster]

Allow Bing access to internal posts, but shut out google?

Still not funny

[rcharbon]

Facebook Search has always been a bad joke. The only fix that might work? Let Google run it.

Oh, wait. Google+.

FWIW

[Roderic9]

I have occassionally downloaded my info and noticed on April 14th that the wall posts were missing.

Re:only post links

[bill_mcgonigle]

FWIW, last time I tried to set this up, a FB rep asked for an admin login to my Wordpress to 'verify the setup' (you have to apply for an 'app' to do the link). I just ignored it, not being worth the tradeoff to me and moved on.

Then a few weeks ago, my blog posts started showing up on my Timeline. Which is fine - since I kicked the habit a while ago, I'm very rarely on there anymore. But I was surprised they approved the app.

BTW, if there are any religious facebookers here: try quitting for a week and see how much happier you are. If you have a real life too, it'll be much more rewarding.

Re:I would ahve got a frosty

[larry bagina]

good point. Where is the link on slashdot to download all my comments?

Re:Some whine with that cheese?

[aicrules]

every time you use facebook with ads, you're generating money for them :) that's how it is "free". However, I still agree...cry more noobs.

Doesn't anybody get it.

[houbou]

Nothing is free. As far as I'm concerned, I would rather pay for a social media network, if, they operated in good faith and ensured that I could control the levels of access to my information as I see fit. You won't get that from Facebook.

Idiots!! The feature has NOT been removed.

[Anonymous Coward]

The feature has NOT been removed. It is right here:

https://www.facebook.com/settings

Simply click "Download a copy of your Facebook data."

Re:Idiots!! The feature has NOT been removed.

[dcollins]

That's actually the point of the article. The fact that they didn't change the download button will trick people into not knowing that the contents have changed. Namely: a bunch of trivial stuff, but no wall post content.

Did it ever occur to anyone

[kaizendojo]

that they may be simply working on the site and temporarily disabled the link while they work behind the scenes? Anyone bother to contact their support to find out what was going on? No, let's all just start rumors and have the media pick it up as a 'news' story.

Re:Did it ever occur to anyone

[jasper160]

Try recreating your account with the same name and email. A coworker deleted her fb and then a few months later when she was having a lack of attention attack she went to create her account with the same info and it restored her old account with the old posts and pictures.

Re:I would ahve got a frosty

[Aaron B Lingwood]

Where is the link on slashdot to download all my comments?

Here!

I still have the option to download everything...

[AcquaCow]

The link is here in your settings: https://www.facebook.com/settings

Link is at the bottom... "Download a copy of your Facebook data."

-- Dave

Re:I still have the option to download everything.

[GrahamJ]

Yep, works for me.

Why the fuck does anyone use FB?

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Really? Because of network effects. That's it. Everyone else is communicating on it.

It's purely a predatory play- they capture people who are at a time in their lives when they're well known to be indiscreet. They then record all that indiscretion. Then they monetize it.

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg is taking the results of that monetization and campaigning -hard - for XL Keystone pipeline.

http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_23151754/keystone-xl-foes-rally-front-facebook-protest-zuckerbergs

a fact he's aggressively trying to lie about:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/04/30/1943091/facebook-rejects-ad-highlighting-zuckerberg-groups-support-for-keystone-xl/

because like all other deniers,. he's first and foremost a narcissist:

http://www.afterpsychotherapy.com/narcissistic-personality-disorder/

who relishes the idea that he's smarter and more knowledgeable across a highly technical domain than are the the world's scientists who have spent their lives disciplined in and mastering that domain.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm

But one thing he doesn't have in common with other deniers

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

is he's going to be around long enough to be forced by society to bear, without reserve, the consequences of his actions today, which depending on how bad things get, could range anywhere from total dissolution of his personal wealth to fund emergency, remedial action against global warming - an outcome that is now a virtually certainty- to extended torture at the hands of enraged mobs / quasi-civilization, should we reach five degrees of warming and real civilization just breaks down.:

http://globalwarming.berrens.nl/globalwarming.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nRf2RTqANg

Easy...

[J Mack Daddy]

Don't use facebook. Problem solved.

It has, indeed, been removed

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA. You can download an archive of some of your data. While that archive used to include your wall posts (a substantial portion of the content you generate on Facebook), that content is no longer included. I have tried and verified this.

Re:It has, indeed, been removed

[DaTrueDave]

I just did it and my wall posts were included in the downloaded archive. Strange that it works for some, but not for others.

Re:It has, indeed, been removed

[ArsonSmith]

then they haven't updated their what's in doc:

What's in your archive?

        Photos or videos you've shared on Facebook
        Your Wall posts, messages and chat conversations
        Your friends' names and some of their email addresses

(Note: We'll only include email addresses for friends who've allowed this in their account settings.)
What's not in your archive?

        Your friends' photos and status updates
        Other people's personal info
        Comments you've made on other people's posts

Re:It has, indeed, been removed

[dcollins]

That's contradicted both by (1) the "Accessing Your Facebook Info" page that currently says Your Posts are only available online and not in the Downloaded Info, and (2) the fact that the downloaded archive really doesn't include them anymore (see linked article on both points).

Re:It has, indeed, been removed

[Minwee]

That's standard operating procedure for Facebook. They don't just have a single server that everybody in the world logs in to, and they don't update everything at the same time.

Whenever new code is deployed, it is sent to a small group of servers, tested on the group of users there, and then finally pushed out to the rest. If something is broken by a new release then Facebook's Reverting is for losers! policy applies, and anyone affected by the bug just gets to live with it until it is fixed.

Don't be surprised if it looks like you are logging into a completely different facebook.com from everybody else you know, because there's a good chance that you are.

Re:It has, indeed, been removed

[ArsonSmith]

This was cut and pasted from today about 30 seconds before the previous post. Not saying the article is wrong just that one of the two is wrong.

Fakeblock

[codepigeon]

I heard there is a new app coming out called Fakeblock. It should help with this.

George Maharris is going to be the next Zuckerberg.

Your mistaken terminology is the key here....

[MikeLip]

You are saying YOUR posts. YOUR data. They aren't. You post it on Facebook, it's theirs. They can do as they please with it, including take it away from you. They SAY you own it, but read their terms. They can use it as they please until you delete it. Then even if you delete something, if someone has reposted it or shared it, it stays in Facebooks domain. So despite the soothing words you are in essence giving it to them. If there is something you want guaranteed access to and control over, do not put it on Facebook. Period.

Re:Your mistaken terminology is the key here....

[Overzeetop]

It's still yours. In return for their hosting you provide them a non-exlusive license for use. Facebook is not an archive system for you, though - you should always have backups or - in this case - masters somewhere else. Really, it's not meant to be your personal blog, it's an ephemeral communication tool. I'm not quite sure why people keep thinking it's some kind of social Evernote.

Re:I would ahve got a frosty

[pthisis]

That page only has comments going back to December for me. My complete posting history goes back over a decade.

Re:I still have the option to download everything.

[lgw]

TFA says that no longer includes wall posts. Several /. posters have confirmed the change. Couldn't say, myself, but have you tried it today and seen whether everything is still there?

Who cares?

[AndyKron]

Who cares? Facebook shouldn't be used anyway. Nothing is free.

Um.

[AtomicDevice]

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/search/
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/post/

Maybe they just replaced it with something better? Maybe learn how to use google for even a single moment? I don't recall facebook ever promising to me that they would meet my every data need if I signed up for their free ad-supported service.

Maybe build a tron canoe to ride on your river of digital tears?

Re:I still have the option to download everything.

[ArsonSmith]

The download page still says it includes wall posts. I have yet to verify:

What's in your archive?

        Photos or videos you've shared on Facebook
        Your Wall posts, messages and chat conversations
        Your friends' names and some of their email addresses

(Note: We'll only include email addresses for friends who've allowed this in their account settings.)
What's not in your archive?

        Your friends' photos and status updates
        Other people's personal info
        Comments you've made on other people's posts

meh. so what?

[shadowrat]

If you are expecting any control over anything you post to facebook, you are sorely misguided.

Greasemonkey could solve this

[Billy the Mountain]

If it was that important, you could probably solve it with Greasemonkey.

Chocolate rations are up

[Overzeetop]

On the plus side, chocolate rations are scheduled to increase soon!

Re:IFTTT.com

[Overzeetop]

Brilliant, though I'm not sure I ever post anything worth searching for again on FB. It is, after all, FB.

Its also available via the API

[Maudib]

So who cares?

The link is still there

[TheGoodNamesWereGone]

I just sent a request to download my own expanded archive. Whether the request is completed or not, we'll see. But the link is still there.

Re:The link is still there

[TheGoodNamesWereGone]

The email arrived from Facebook; I downloaded my data. Far be it from me to defend Facebook, but the OP is mistaken.

For those living in the Free-only ghetto

[tepples]

Orwell's 1984 will be published in most of the world in 2021 and in the United States in 2045.

Re:I would ahve got a frosty

[Opie812]

You gots to pay for that privilege. (IIRC)

Re:I would ahve got a frosty

[kermidge]

I got tired of clicking "older" and hadn't even gotten past February. Nowhere did I see a link or button to d/l all one's posts. Also found a slew of topic posts mixed in for unknown reasons.

So unless someone has "the key", getting your posts - however far back they may go - off /. is a non-trivial exercise.

Re:I still have the option to download everything.

[dcollins]

As I wrote above: That's actually the point of the article. The fact that they didn't change the download button will trick people into not knowing that the contents have changed. Namely: a bunch of trivial account details, but no wall post content.

Re:I would ahve got a frosty

[Aaron B Lingwood]

That page only has comments going back to December for me. My complete posting history goes back over a decade.

This is slashdot. News for Nerds.

The Slashdot search function goes something like this:

wget -U “Lynx/3.0 http://www.google.com/search?&start=1\&num=100\&q=27352+site:slashdot.org -O Search01.html
wget -U “Lynx/3.0 http://www.google.com/search?&start=101\&num=200\&q=27352+site:slashdot.org -O Search02.html
wget -U “Lynx/3.0 http://www.google.com/search?&start=201\&num=300\&q=27352+site:slashdot.org -O Search03.html

Then

lynx -dump -listonly Search01.html >> URL_list.ascii
lynx -dump -listonly Search02.html >> URL_list.ascii
lynx -dump -listonly Search03.html >> URL_list.ascii

Then grep out the webcache and google URLs and trim off anything that prepends the URL you want with a Perl substitution

s/(https?\:\/\/)(\w*\.)?(slashdot\.org\/.*)/$1$2$3/

And finally, wget again

wget -U "Lynx/22.0" -i ./URL_list.ascii

It is at this stage you realize that you have just downloaded 200MB of javascript and are found 2 days later sitting under a cold shower in the foetal position

gamed out annoyance

[globaljustin]

Facebook is an exercise in finding that 99% tolerance mark on user abuse.

This.

facebook's entire business model is based on abusing the user...using personal data as a commodity to trade for a free internet service is, in theory, acceptable within bounds.

facebook does that, but to the absolute maximum as a matter of defined business. It's in their IPO filing, under threats to profits...legislation that protects user's data and gives them control. End of story.

facebook is legally defined as a business that profits from selling your personal information and with, with mathematical certainty, abuse its users indefinitely

Re:gamed out annoyance

[exomondo]

How does it 'abuse' its users? You mean because it sells information?

easy target

[globaljustin]

harder for their Products to move to a possible competitor's website

this should scare the siht out of every facebook employee and shareholder....

facebook.com is **easy** to compete against...google, yahoo, amazon...any of them could **take facebook down** with a non-abusive, non-user alienating 'social networking' site.

your cost is hosting, storage and retreival...throw out all the 'U/X' bullshit and facebook.com is **very simple**...it's text and pictures.

it's just **text and pictures**

the thing that keeps it from happening? it's twofold:

1. 'Tech entrepreneur' people **still** don't exactly understand business. Tech investors are idiots (funding a company that makes zero profit?!?) and the engineers and developers have to follow the money. Investors throw money at any project or app getting hype...it's the shotgun method, that's how the industry's funding pipeline works. It is *not* closely tied to quality of product.

Even Page and Brin make this mistake...ex: google+

2. Repsecting user privacy requires too much discipline. You can shear a sheep many times but skin them only once, as they say...tech companies are skinning more than shearing.

Millions of users are *easy pickings* and you have to WANT to respect them as humans and not game out their behavior to the Nth degree.

competitors who try to subvert facebook fall flat immediately after launch b/c users are savvy enough to see that the competing service aren't commited to their 'we like our users' rhetoric.

Re:I still have the option to download everything.

[aflag]

I downloaded the archive, but my wall posts were not there either.

the text of the links at least

[globaljustin]

That means the Library of Congress has all my content archived.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the LoC is only storing the text characters in a Tweet. That means the photo is stored as a link to a file on Twitter's servers.

I'm not a hosting expert but I figure there's a way to 'mirror' the actual image files on your own server.

But really, the links should be fine...safer than a photo album. If Twitter was gone for some reason it's highly probable that other options would be limited as well given the circumstances it would require.

This is a defensive move...

[betterprimate]

Facebook's future is threatened. Twitter likewise. There have been a few emerging social apis that give the developer and the user full control of their content. App.net is one such company.

Re:I would ahve got a frosty

[saodesign]

If you were the inventors of the facebook comment download button you would have invented the facebook comment download button!

Hands up if you used it

[quantaman]

Has anyone actually ever used the functionality? I haven't and I can't see myself changing. It could be they removed it with some malicious intent, or it could be someone said 'why are we supporting feature X that no body ever uses'. If I posted a lot I could see myself downloading an archive and doing some analysis of the content for fun, but for the most part the only people I see wanting an archive is people who use it as a micro-blogging service. On principal I like the idea of having it, I'm just curious if anyone here has ever used it.

Re:You had me

[WOOFYGOOFY]

You just haven't lived until an AC has called you a fag on /.

Re:only post links

[painandgreed]

BTW, if there are any religious facebookers here: try quitting for a week and see how much happier you are. If you have a real life too, it'll be much more rewarding.

How am I supposed to continue to have a real life when all the event invites, planning, and communication happen in Facebook? I suppose I could just smoke some weed and watch some movies instead of meeting with friends and doing things.

Re:only post links

[bill_mcgonigle]

How am I supposed to continue to have a real life when all the event invites, planning, and communication happen in Facebook?

Checking in once or twice a week for event notifications isn't "religious facebooking".

Re:only post links

[bill_mcgonigle]

dammit, spazed the 'Submit'. .... but an even better option is to subscribe to the iCal feed for your Facebook account and you'll see events without having to log in. You'll still need to follow the link in the event to RSVP.

Broken since last Fall at least.

[rnturn]

I tried that function back then and all it did was tie up a browser tab until I closed it down. Did it ever work?

lowest expectations...

[globaljustin]

How does it 'abuse' its users? You mean because it sells information?

I laid it out in my post, directly after the sentence where I typed the portion you mention...

But I understand that you might genuinely be confused, because we have been conditioned to have such ridiculously low expectations from online services like facebook.com

it's not your fault you don't understand...

See, facebook.com could make a tidy profit *and* give users compete control over the interface (stupid news feed and other U/X bullshit), *not* design their privacy controls like a Casino...etc...but they chose not to...because people like you don't even know how fully your life choices are gamed out as a business model...

There's a better way to do all of this...

Re:lowest expectations...

[exomondo]

I laid it out in my post, directly after the sentence where I typed the portion you mention...

You mean the line:
using personal data as a commodity to trade for a free internet service
The reason I questioned it is because that isn't an abuse of users, I have no problem with them doing whatever they wish with the copy of the information I gave them, I shared that information and I have no expectation that the people I shared it with won't share (or even sell) that information, that's what comes from freedom of information.

because people like you don't even know how fully your life choices are gamed out as a business model...

Then instead of just posting bullshit meaningless rhetoric how about you explain to me how my life choices are gamed out as a business model and how this of 'abusing' me.

Re:lowest expectations...

[globaljustin]

see, you're proving my point here f/b employee with cognative dissonance:

that's what comes from freedom of information.

**it does not have to**

you didn't disprove my point, or offer any argument...you restated your unfounded contention...you're almost *worse* than Zuck...you're the dupe...

facebook could:

1. give the user control 100% control of interface, no bullshit U/X

2. have simple (not intentionally dense and complex) privacy controls for all data posted,

3. allow users to download and retain all data (the point of this whole discussion)

4. be a 'tech innovation giant' and make billions

the whole concept that companies must treat you like a data pig in a farm is ridiculous and you're a piece of crap for buying into it

if you want you can try to counter my contentions, but I wont' respond unless you address all 4 of my points and the great point they all make (f/b is abusing users pointlessly and dumbly)

Re:lowest expectations...

[exomondo]

Your contentions are nothing, I don't have to counter them because they are just baseless contentions with no facts. If you want to give them some basis then - assuming your point is indeed invalid - I will counter them but all you've said is they could do XYZ without explaining how you believe they can accomplish it.

You may be 100% right that all 4 of those can be done, but only an ignorant fool would believe you without having you detail how you think they could be done. And if it can be done and it's of such great benefit to the user then why haven't you done it?

here ya go, f/b bro

[globaljustin]

but the fact is it isn't abusive at all, if people considered it abusive they could switch to an alternative or not use social networking at all

millions of users disagree...and I think you know it...are you a paid commenter or f/b employee who can't handle the truth?

many posters (myself included) have laid out how facebook.com treats users like cattle in a casino and is legally defined as a business whose profits are threatened when governments give users rights over their data...

it's all right there...I explained in my original post...read this if you genuinely want to know more: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3825581&cid=43922021

Re:Some whine with that cheese?

[LMariachi]

Promissory estoppel.

AY: Can you even search your own posts?

[matcheydj]

It could be privacy related, ensuring people don't have their entire lives downloaded if their account is compromised? I would assume -- or hope, rather -- they're moving toward something more functional, like the ability to search all of your posts instead of having them locked in an endless scroll or dynamic menu format.

That's what I'd really like to see them incorporate into this 'graph search' that I still don't have access to, is the ability to at least view all of my posts in some clever format, e.g. by association, or the type of post it was (if I shared a link with video vs a normal link of x type).

It could also just be the hassle of people doing it too frequently, wasting server time on zipping up large directories and using up bandwidth(?). Facebook tends to want to have people use their service the Facebook way, whatever that is.

Umm, just save the current web page?

[bbsalem]

I never knew about the ability to download your FB posts, so I have just done save the entire page with the browser. For the past couple of years If I thought that I wanted to save anything significant I just saved the page with a unique name, like the date + some title or just "Facebook". It never dawned on me that FB might have supported an archiving feature that they have just disabled.

I did notice that I could not really page back far through time and see comments I had made to others, which you might want to save. On the Time Line topics you originate with other's' comments are preserved. I have no doubt that FB has everything ever posted to it, somewhere, on heierarchical storage. I am sure that Law Enforcement could execute a warrent and get to anything. The reason why FB would turn off the feature has been discussed pretty well, in fact what you say there belongs to them, unless governments can intervene and define who authors are and what rights they have over the owners of media it is on. Considering the difficulties of copyright on the Internet, there appears to be a double standard there defined by who wants to pay.

I think that FB's days are numbered; people seem pretty pissed of with the crap they have been pulling, with the lousy UI and the privacy abuses, and the time is ripe for an alternative. I fact I have been writing for some time about an alternative: unbundle the UI from the CMS from the global list of friends. A de-funded FB or its replacement could be the clearinghouse for friend's lists, only. The CMS could be distributed to where it is needed; it doesn't have to be under the control of one company and its business partners. If the economic justification for FB was the centrally controlled CMS and the mining by advertisers, that can be done away with and the costs of the CMSs distributed. We don't need a CMS for 1 billion users when we only have about 100 friends on average. FB is then just a marketing scam in which the blogging feature is a sideline and badily donw. Slashdot is a better design, and there are better designs that have a far greater antiquity than that.

No matter what the outcome of FB is; we could agitate to have them restore the ability to archive, demand that they offer us archives of our comments in context, or if they go out of business that the data they have collected must be made available in a dissolution agreement.

Re:Umm, just save the current web page?

[RockDoctor]

I think that FB's days are numbered; people seem pretty pissed of with the crap they have been pulling, with the lousy UI and the privacy abuses,

Agreed. So I've stopped using it. Haven't deleted the account, yet, but I have stopped logging in.

and the time is ripe for an alternative

IF, and only if, you want to have all your personal information in one easy-to-access place, where pretty much anyone can get hold of it. Which I don't particularly want to do. So I don't think that I will.

Still there for Canadians

[_BrianMahoney]

The key words here might be 'using regularly sine 2010'. How often does anyone download their own data? Once a week, once a month or once in a while? Once a year might be average and sustainable by Facebook. My suspicion is that Facebook 'silently' removed that option from your account. Some people use it, some people abuse it, same as anything else. On the other hand, maybe you don't live in Europe or Canada and maybe, just maybe, there's something going on behind the scenes regarding your privacy and whether you can protect it or not. If you live in the U.S. well, that can't happen, right? Land of the Free? Hmmmm....

RE: repost all their old opinions & photos?

[az1324]

The catholic church?

apology accepted...

[globaljustin]

You may be 100% right that all 4 of those can be done

you're welcome.

but only an ignorant fool would believe you without having you detail how you think they could be done.

images, text, profile logins, servers to store data, developers and it engineers to manage it...see, you're question is actually really dumb, because anyone with basic knowledge of web browsing can understand the concept...and most tech workers would assume the level of knowledge I exhibited in the first sentence of this paragraph...

you're playing dumb, and asking for 'specifics' ad infinitum...that's trolling...you're a troll officially now

And if it can be done and it's of such great benefit to the user then why haven't you done it?

full trollface...

also, hilariously, you **definitely** work at facebook....it's obvious by how reactionary you are, yet your posts show some forethought...

just be good at your job and save your money...if you are a good developer maybe I'll hire you when I go into phase 2 of my business...

you f/b'ers would actually be a great source of funding for a facebook destroyer...your trolling has given me an idea...

Re:apology accepted...

[exomondo]

You may be 100% right that all 4 of those can be done

you're welcome.

Reading comprehension fail, see 'may'.

images, text, profile logins, servers to store data, developers and it engineers to manage it...

And that's what facebook has, what do you propose should be different?

you're playing dumb, and asking for 'specifics' ad infinitum...that's trolling...you're a troll officially now

No i'm demonstrating with great success that you have no idea what you're talking about. If *you* actually believed I were a troll (which you don't) then you wouldn't reply at all, however given that you did reply and will continue to do so you demonstrate that you are either a person of seriously sub-par intelligence or you *know* i'm not a troll and just want to deflect away from the fact you have no idea what you're proposing at all.

Re:apology accepted...

[globaljustin]

And that's what facebook has, what do you propose should be different?

this...might look familiar:

1. give the user control 100% control of interface, no bullshit U/X

2. have simple (not intentionally dense and complex) privacy controls for all data posted,

3. allow users to download and retain all data (the point of this whole discussion)

that's it, it's circled around and you're done

fyi, I keep posting to you b/c it gives me some bit of gratification to so easily take down a troll like you...but the greater point is YOU...

I *actually* want to enlighten you and turn you on to how to really see past all the tech hype and see what services these companies *actually* provide...it's freeing and gives you permission to try *anything*

I am working on a 'tech startup' and it WILL be better than facebook if I go according to my plan...the funding is there...I can get it...it's people like YOU

people who are so duped into buying into a reductive vision of what the internet can do...

submit a bug report

[WhiteDragon]

I have heard that facebook developers are generally responsive to bug reports, so just file one.