Social Fixer Falls Victim To Facebook Legal Threats

rueger writes "The author of the very excellent Social Fixer browser plug-in is bowing to legal threats from Facebook and removing the core functionality that made his tool so great. I like Social Fixer a lot. It makes Facebook at least three or four times more usable. The author, Matt Kruse, says 'Any threat of legal action is a big deal. I am a one-man operation. If I were sued for whatever reason, I would find it very difficult to defend myself, even if it was without merit. I would be risking my personal life to maintain a tabbed news feed for users. As much as I'd like to be your Robin Hood, I just can't do that to my family.' Bizarrely, when he asked Facebook why they don't also threaten Ad-Block, the Facebook rep claimed to have never heard of it." Kruse has some surprisingly nice things to say about his interaction with Facebook, too. Reader Daniel Dvorkin points out this commentary at BuzzFeed which points out Twitter's similar policies.

Comments

Open Source the Tab Code

[Jonah Hex]

It started as a GreaseMonkey script, why can't that particular functionality be open sourced? The few times a month I'm forced to go on Facebook I make sure my Social Fixer is up to date, especially since I want to be signed out of chat automatically. Having all the games and apps on a separate tab is nice too. - HEX

Re:Open Source the Tab Code

[bmo]

Sure, open source fixes everything. Except, you know, legal threats.

Legal threats only work where there is some way to get them enforced. If someone picks this up in a country where legal threats from Facebook means bupkis, then yes, Open Source does fix this.

--
BMO

Re:Open Source the Tab Code

[Anonymous Coward]

It started as a GreaseMonkey script, why can't that particular functionality be open sourced? The few times a month I'm forced to go on Facebook I make sure my Social Fixer is up to date, especially since I want to be signed out of chat automatically. Having all the games and apps on a separate tab is nice too. - HEX

Sure, open source fixes everything. Except, you know, legal threats.

The threats have nothing to do with the browser extension itself, which Facebook cannot control any more than they can control Firefox or Chrome. They can only control a web page on Facebook about the extension. Apparently, the author of the extension wants to have that page so badly, he's willing to cripple the extension. I don't someone that weak-willed deserves much sympathy.

Re:Open Source the Tab Code

[Jonah Hex]

Option C (what you are suggesting): - Open Source it. Matt won't get any donations anymore, Facebook can still block him, keep his fan page removed. Matt also mentioned that Facebook has added FBPurity and other projects to a list of URLs that can not be shared on Facebook -- so they could do that too with a open source project.

The Tab code could be spun off as a separate open source project, which is what I suggested, not that he open source the entire thing.

Additionally who says open source can't get donations anymore? He can get donations for his complying software and donations for the open source script separately.

As for adding his URL to a blacklist, why would they add the complying Social Fixer to the blacklist if the Tab code is a separate open source script? We all know how fast the Streisand Effect spreads news in the tech world, those who want the extra functionality will spread the news even if Facebook demands he not link to the open source Tab program/script.

Re:Open Source the Tab Code

[icebike]

So he open sources the plugin, publishes it somewhere else for free.

They can't sue the totality of git-hub or Source Forge.

As long as he puts nothing on Facebook's website they can't touch him.

I'm sure there are several dozen sites in the EU that would host his project for free.
Facebook's legal department would know better than to try. Most lawyers have heard of the Streisand effect.

Re:Open Source the Tab Code

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you, but as long as Matt is contributing code to the project, he's a target for Facebook. If he retires, open-sources it, and lets the community take over development, he's personally off the hook and the project will most undoubtedly continue.

Personally I want to see the EFF agree to become his legal representation and Matt agree to keep the extension intact in the face of Facebook's threats.

Re:Open Source the Tab Code

[ArcadeMan]

A list of URLs that cannot be shared on Facebook? Are they blocking all the URL shorteners?

Re:Open Source the Tab Code

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the article. He says that if it was just losing the page he would continue, even though he hates that. The point is they have threatened him with legal action if he continues. Specifically, they've threatened to involve the legal department (but it's possible that once involved, the legal department would choose to do nothing).

Re: Open Source the Tab Code

[corychristison]

No but facebook (and twitter I think) resolve the short link, check for HTTP forwards, and check the forward URL against the block list.

I don't know if they check recursively or not, however.

Re:Open Source the Tab Code

[icebike]

How could anyone capable of writing code be incapable incapable of using Google or Bing or Yandex?

Re:Open Source the Tab Code

[Hamsterdan]

Unless US goes after people in other countries, like someone running MEGA something, or someone named Julian, or I dunno, spying on other countries and their diplomats?

Re:Open Source the Tab Code

[hairyfeet]

And this country would be....where exactly? The USA has a pretty damned long reach, ask Kim Dotcom about that. Also that person/persons would have to be prepared to NEVER set foot into any country which has ties and extradition to the USA which again is a pretty damned long list.

So I'm sorry but as long as USA "justice" is by the corp, of the corp, and for the corp you can give it up, all it takes is a big enough player to crush you like a bug.

Re:Open Source the Tab Code

[gsgriffin]

The US Gov doesn't give rip about this. If Facebook wants to spend their money to go after them someone, they are welcome to. The others than get private information and make it public (from Gov to everyone) is very similar to the issues that everyone is complaining about in personal data becoming public. If Gov has to be completely exposed all the time, then perhaps we need to as well?

LLC

[msauve]

It cost less than $50 to form an LLC in my state, which insulates your personal assets from business ones.

Re:LLC

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

That's a great theory, which will survive about 5 seconds when an army of corporate lawyers come after you under the United States' legal system. Corporate shields are good for some things, but they are not completely judgement-proof, and the US does not have a general loser-pays policy to guard against bringing cases of questionable merit against people without the resources to defend themselves effectively.

Re:LLC

[HiThere]

The problem with "loser pays" is that if they are "bringing cases of questionable merit against people without the resources to defend themselves effectivelly", and they have a strong legal department, they will likely be able to outlast the party they are attacking, and thus win by default. So you will be required to pay their expenses.

IOW, it's not a solution. A solution might be to limit the amount each side can pay to a mutually agreed limit...but I can't imagine the corporations agreeing to that, as some people would choose to be their own lawyer...and nobody (just about nobody?) works for a corporation for free.

Re:LLC

[ThatAblaze]

You could call it rarely, but when you look at the subset of "low grossing individuals who starts an LLC in order to shield himself from this sort of attack" rarely becomes often.

THE Matt Kruse!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa, that name was oddly familiar, and then it hit me - he ran the first ray-tracing competition, back in the great POV-Ray era.

http://www.mattkruse.com/raytracing/?bwf0d=12778

The first rule of AdBlock...

[Overzeetop]

If they don't know what AdBlock is...wow, that's just sad.

Re:The first rule of AdBlock...

[Samantha Wright]

Facebook makes about $16/year/user in English-speaking North America—and it's believed that about 10% of all web traffic is ad-blocked. I'm guessing there are some other people at Facebook who are aware of this situation!

Re:The first rule of AdBlock...

[greg1104]

I use Facebook and Adblock and block almost every ad they carry. Right now, that nukes the entire set from the right hand bar. Facebook knows perfectly well how many people block those easy to filter right hand side ads. It's low enough that they don't care, because they have a few ways to give you internal ads instead.

What they are doing now is putting more and more ads in the main section instead. If for example I click to "Like" a post from a group, the minute I do that it rewrites the page to add an inline "If you like that you might also like..." set of ads. These aren't blocked by Adblock because they're all internal links toward other pages on Facebook. As they get more an more infrastructure for that sort of thing, they don't have to leave their regular content to serve you an ad. That makes eliminating ads an increasingly tricky game of detection and rewriting the middle of the main page. And that's exactly the thing that Social Fixer did that Adblock doesn't try. That's why Matt Kruse is being targeted while Adblock isn't. He's the only popular source for code that can block all their ads, even the internally directed ones, and that they won't tolerate.

Just another reason not to use The Face Book

[Anonymous Coward]

As if we really needed another one. What a joke of a company.

Re:Just another reason not to use The Face Book

[Dogtanian]

Well, as I said previously, the problem with Social Fixer was that they *were* giving people a reason to use Facebook by making an app that *temporarily* alleviates some of the inconvenience caused by the latter's behaviour and policies without actually forcing- or even encouraging- them to change. Then failing as soon as Facebook change things round again.

They've designed an app that automatically jumps when Facebook wants their users to jump. It fixes nothing in the long term; quite the opposite, by making it marginally more comfortable to stay with Facebook, they're hiding and drawing attention away from the fundamental issue, which is Facebook's behaviour, business model and contemptious attitude towards its users. Only they have the power to change that, and they won't. The only solution is to encourage people not to use Facebook, and Social Fixer is a hindrance in that respect.

Social Fixer might seem helpful on the surface, but it's part of the Facebook ecosystem, and part of the problem, not the solution.

Re:Just another reason not to use The Face Book

[epine]

part of the problem, not the solution

This kind of logic is itself part of the problem. It presumes that people are engaged in the political dimensions of their life activities everywhere and always. Now perhaps you think the world would be a better place if this were true, and you might have the view—from within the confines of your evidently narrow and sheltered life—that we all have limitless capacity to politicize our every twitch and sneeze. But we don't, and it's not effective.

I have a range of issues where I'm especially well placed (though aptitude, knowledge, experience, and social connections) to speak out loudly and effectively. The rest of the time, like everyone else, I'm merely trying to get through life without succumbing to death by paper cut. Facebook is a cancer, so I don't go there at all, but if I did, I wouldn't regard Social Fixer as part of the problem. I'd regard it as a dry pair of socks, so I could live to hike another day.

But sure, if your boots pinch, burn your socks. It's true: you won't ever buy a bad-fitting pair of boots ever again. Too bad about those refrigerated vaccines you were trekking into a remote African village. Better luck next year.

The problem is our legal system?

[guanxi]

Clearly justice is denied when one party can use the threat of a lawsuit to compel another to capitulate, simply because they can't afford to defend themselves. Everyone knows it works this way. Why don't more people object?

Re:The problem is our legal system?

[girlintraining]

Why don't more people object?

For the same reason he doesn't; You learn early in life if you stand up for what you believe in, authority will make an example out of you. So you learn to fly under the radar, and cherish those precious few moments in life when you can do good without being punished.

It's youthful idealism to think people will risk their freedom, their home, their financial security, their family, to combat an injustice. Especially against a vastly better equipped adversary like a large corporation with an excessively-sized legal department and millions or billions of dollars to burn... and full access to a legal system that can take away everything you own and away from everyone you know, at the snap of a gavel.

The few people who can't give up their idealism to become "successful" (that is, capitulate to the demands of the dominant social institutions of their era) very rarely manage to achieve social change -- the Ghandis and Martin Luther Kings to the Che Guevaras, etc., in a socially acceptable fashion. The majority simply become homeless, outcast from the system, develop mental or physical illness, and die early, and generally alone. And then there's the extreme fringe that, so frustrated by an inability to accomplish anything, take themselves out of the picture in a hailstorm of bullets or fire. Terrorism can promote social change, though it's politically unpopular to say this.

But as you can see... idealism is not particularly practical, which is why few people practice it except in small doses.

Makes Facebook more usable

[Danathar]

"It makes Facebook at least three or four times more usable"

You know what makes Facebook more usable? Not using Facebook.

Yes, I just burned Karma.

Re:Makes Facebook more usable

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Yes, I just burned Karma.

Currently modded to +5.

Censorship is bad! NSA is evil! Facebook is for sheeple! Microsoft sucks! Apple sucks! Google sucks! Go Edward Snowden! Ooooh, I'm a rebel! Dancing on the edge!

Facebook is worst kind of double crossing scum

[JoeyRox]

First they create an API to help engender an ecosystem that attracts developers to improve the platform and thus bring in more users. Then after the ecosystem is established and FB goes IPO for billions they start pulling the rug from underneath the third-party developers that helped get them there. FB deserves a fate worse than MySpace.

Re:Facebook is worst kind of double crossing scum

[shentino]

No you are not free to go and make your own if the established players can trump up legal attacks on you and force you out.

ill tell you how to fix it

[FudRucker]

QUIT USING FACEBOOK!!!

i dont have a facebook account, no twitter account. no myspace account, i refuse to sign up to some lamer social network and spill my guts about my personal life to the world, if you knew my real name and googled it you wont find any information about me, no photos of me, because i refuse to upload that information to the internet, you have to learn to use the internet without letting the internet use you

Re:ill tell you how to fix it

[Isaac Remuant]

You have slashdot account and you voice your opinions and activities in it (telling us what you do and don't have). If that's not social I don't know what is.

Comments like

if the niggers in the ghetto were not such a bunch of criminal gangstas then racism would not be an issue,

the bleeding heart liberals and ghetto niggers can holler "racism" all they want, and i will holler "go to hell nigger gangster" because i have a right to know where the danger zones are despite it being populated with mostly trashy criminal niggers

and many, MANY others can be data mined and tied to you (don't think a pseudonym and alternative mail account do much in the way of privacy).

You have absolutely no grounds on telling other people what to do or giving advice about "not getting used by the internet".

Re:ill tell you how to fix it

[FatLittleMonkey]

Slashdot also lets you read it, even post, without an account.

Likewise, you can view a Twitter feed or follow a link to a tweeted pic, even through you don't have an account. Ditto a Myspace band-page (or whatever people use Myspace for.) I believe G+ is the same (not sure. I have a gmail account, and thanks to their insistent cross-liking, I apparently have every other G-account.) In other words, they are all "on the web".

Facebook requires you to have a Facebook account and logged in merely to read a posting on someone else's wall, even if you are following a direct link. They are not "on the Web". They are a distinct, private service that happens to use the internet for access.

Worse than Slashdot, worse than Twitter, worse than Myspace, worse even than Google. They are AOL of the 21st century.

They should sue browsers too ...

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

The solution to this is obviously to avoid facebook/twitter and all that shit like the plague.

Regardless, how can they sue somebody for doing a fucking greasemonkey script? "This software tinkers with our webpage" seems to be their logic. Well, so does every browser on planet earth. HTML is a declarative language, you REQUIRE a user agent to interpret your webpage. Essentially, you are telling the user "well, here is this information, and we think it should be displayed sort of like this". That's it. The user can either parse the code on his own (aka just read the source), or write some code to do it, or use somebody else's code to parse it. How are the actions performed by this script any different from what any browser does?

If you publish a website, everytime it's displayed, you are acting as GUESTS in my computer, no the other way around, and you'll play by my rules.

This tool affects Facebook revenue

[Antique Geekmeister]

by making Facebook "3-4 times more usable", it reduces the time people spend stuck with burdensome Facebook advertising and workflow to access desired material. In other words, it reduces Facebook's revenue for advertising from those links and burdensome clickthroughs. _Of course_ they object, and _of course_ they feel he's in violation of his terms of service or even more severe contract violations for interfering with what they try to sel to the advertisers and customer tracking companies, who actually pay Facebook's bills.

Why is there surprise that Facebook's legal staff and management would threaten the tool author over this?

Re:Hate Mail to Facebook

[HiThere]

Who advertises on FaceBook? Send it to them. And tell them why.

Caution: This may not be effective. Some companies believe that any publicity is good publicity.

Happened to author of FB Purity too

[UpnAtom]

I remember Kruse being very dismissive then.

Also FB Purity is a much better extension.

http://www.fbpurity.com/

Case in point: x264, libavcodec, mplayer, etc.

[amaurea]

Examples of this working are x264, libavcodec and mplayer, for example. All of these probably break large numbers of patents and are quite high profile and I'm sure they are a thorn in the side for the video and audio format cartels. But they are doing just fine, and have been doing so for a long time. If they had been closed one-man projects by somebody in the USA, they life expectancy would probably be much shorter.

Adblock already kills them, doesn't it?

[amaurea]

I don't see any advertisement on facebook at all, and I'm just using Adblock Edge + the rule facebook.com##div[class="ego_column"]. SocialFixer does more than just block advertisements, but if all you want is to get rid of then adblock already does a very good job at it.

Re:ABP is easily blocked.

[Anonymous Coward]

True.

With me, any site which blocks ad blocker gets visited exactly once.

Not through some personal policy or soap box theory, but simply because it's too big a pain in the ass to screw with my browser settings, and the internet is permanently filled with alternative options. It is extremely rare that a site will have something which is actually so unique that I can't get it somewhere else in under three seconds.

Re:ABP is easily blocked.

[allo]

a good reason not to visit them again.

If the site is important, there will be adblocker plugins for them. disabling their adblocker checking JS. Of course there may be a blocker-blocker, but in the end there will be more enthusiasts, which block the ads, than efford in blocking the blocker.