Instagram Suddenly Chokes Off Developers As Facebook Chases Privacy (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Without warning, Instagram has broken many of the unofficial apps built on its platform. This weekend it surprised developers with a massive reduction in how much data they can pull from the Instagram API, shrinking the API limit from 5,000 to 200 calls per user per hour. Apps that help people figure out if their followers follow them back or interact with them, analyze their audiences or find relevant hashtags are now quickly running into their API limits, leading to broken functionality and pissed off users. Two sources confirmed the new limits to TechCrunch, and developers are complaining about the situation on StackOverflow. In a puzzling move, Instagram is refusing to comment on what's happening while its developer rate limits documentation site 404s. All it would confirm is that Instagram has stopped accepting submissions of new apps, just as Facebook announced it would last week following backlash over Cambridge Analytica. Developers tell me they feel left in the dark and angry that the change wasn't scheduled or even officially announced, preventing them from rebuilding their apps to require fewer API calls.

Comments

Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

The users that game the algorithm to grow a follower count instead of attracting followers organically are pissed off.

No, sorry, I have to try again, I think I started laughing there.

Do My Followers Follow Me?

[Kunedog]

Apps that help people figure out if their followers follow them

Nothing of value of was lost.

Re:Do My Followers Follow Me?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is useful information due to the Follow/Unfollow habit of many follower seeking users. Knowing this info influenced my decision to quit Instagram - its fakeness and competition driven nature left a sour taste in my mouth. I'm a photographer, not a social media hound.

Re:Do My Followers Follow Me?

[AmiMoJo]

For some definitions of "value", but for people who make serious money off Instagram it matters. And those are the people Instagram needs to remain popular and generate revenue.

Which is all very good news, because it tells us that Instagram must be taking privacy seriously if they are willing to risk some profits over it. We can only hope this is the start of a major shift towards better privacy.

Re:Do My Followers Follow Me?

[Kunedog]

This is useful information due to the Follow/Unfollow habit of many follower seeking users.

I don't use IG and I still don't understand. Could you explain this?

Re:Do My Followers Follow Me?

[Anonymous Coward]

More info here - https://www.coffeewithsummer.com/blogging-social/stop-follow-unfollow/

Basically it is a slimy tactic to trick users in to following back, "friending back", and once that is done, the original user will unfollow. This results in a +1 follower for them, and over time it makes a person's account look like they're an influencer because they might have 10x more followers than the amount of users they follow. To the untrained, it also has the charm of seeming like validation - when someone with few followers follows YOU it makes you think wow, they're awesome AND they like me! But then they just unfollow you shortly afterwards and the con moves on to the next target.

There are sites that will do this automatically/programmatically for fee as well.

And...

[DeplorableCodeMonkey]

Apps that help people figure out if their followers follow them back or interact with them, analyze their audiences or find relevant hashtags are now quickly running into their API limits

Nothing of value was lost on the platform...

These are features that Instagram should have been providing already instead of leading to a data broker-friendly situation.

If you build your business on someone else's API

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

If you build your business on someone else's API, you're gonna have a bad day (when the API owners figure out how you're making money and decide to make it themselves). That's why "participating in an application marketplace" is usually a suckers bet unless that marketplace is OS wide (like Google Play, iTunes, (does Microsoft have a store up yet?), etc.)

Nice Move

[ArhcAngel]

Stock price is down 22% in the last week...what can we do to stop it? I know! We'll yank permissions from one of our other properties without warning and people will instantly trust us again. What could possibly go wrong?

It's a mad dash to "privacy"

[bobbied]

Facebook is taking it on the chin for that "security breach" by a company working for the Trump campaign and now EVERYBODY is running scared. How nice..

Why is this? Are we *really* that hopped up on political intrigues that everybody has to position themselves as "unbiased platforms" regardless of the consequences?

Who in their right mind ever thought that what they posted on any social media platform was "safe" from data mining operations? I know nobody reads the EULA, TOS or even the privacy policy every time it changes, but give me a break. Why are folks all upset now?

Asking for a friend..

Re:It's a mad dash to "privacy"

[Anonymous Coward]

working for the Trump campaign

This is what amuses me to no end. Suddenly all the journalists care about privacy? No, they don't give a shit about that. This is all just because they have such a hate boner for Trump. When Obama's campaign harvested data off Facebook it was just modern, "groundbreaking" campaigning, nothing to see here.

Re:Fuckerberg is all about the shekels

[HornWumpus]

So I guess they're back to spidering and scraping?

If my browser can see it, I can collect it.

I'm not 'defending this', but restricting the API just moves the activity back to grey areas. Truth: I have, years ago when I could outrageously overcharge for such simple shit, occasionally made a few bucks scraping data. Mostly companies collecting data on their competitors who made upwise website configuration decisions. Not 'hacking' per se, just 'walking' through an open no password 'login' a couple of hundred thousand times.

Automating web requests to collect all your contacts and scrape all their walls is pretty trivial.