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Ask HN: Anyone else suddenly lose access to FB's API?

3 points by brd ↗ HN
We're in the middle of a project and just saw multiple FB accounts all lose access today. Is this happening to others? Any idea how long it takes to get re-approved? Any chance that a fellow HNer can help us get our request expedited?

We're just looking to retrieve comments for some NLP work and we're only dealing with public data. We expected some difficulty with all the Cambridge Analytica stuff but losing access wholesale really stings.

8 comments

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minimaxir
Facebook closed off most public data via the Graph API unfortunately. What were you trying to do?
brd
We were retrieving posts and comments from specific pages. We're working with a marketing agency and were going through a benign data collection process of one of their clients.
AznHisoka
1. Were you using the Page-id/posts endpoint? (what else?)

2. How long have you had API access?

3. How many API calls do you usually make a day?

brd
1) Just page-id/posts.

2) Our CTO was originally testing with an old token he had from a previous pet project. Our company's API access was submitted for approval sometime in the last couple weeks.

3) Low volume, thousands a day at max but hundreds is more likely.

AznHisoka
Hmm.. I work for a company that makes over 5 million calls a day but we have had access for over 2 years.

What specific error are you getting when calling the endpoint?

brd
"(#200) Access to this data is temporarily disabled for non-active apps or apps that have not recently accessed this data due to changes we are making to the Facebook Platform. https://developers.facebook.com/status/issues/20594281348887...
AznHisoka
Yep you are not “banned” from their API. They just show this to all new apps registered in the past 2 months or so. It is just a blanket new policy not something special they applied to just you.

Older apps that were created < 2 or so months ago still have this access. If you have one, I suggest using that instead.

brd
We've been following the changes and no where have I seen mention of access to Graph Page APIs being closed off wholesale.

We expected to lose access to things, but didn't anticipate losing access to public comments. We're trying to understand if this was a policy change, if we got swept up into some other clearance process, etc.