6/4/2018 Why We Disagree with The New York Times Facebook Newsroom Search in newsroom Like 407K Share Contact Us June 3, 2018 Why We Disagree with The New York Times By Ime Archibong, VP of Product Partnerships The New York Times has today written a long piece about our device-integrated APIs — software we launched 10 years ago to help get Facebook onto mobile devices. While we agreed with many of their past concerns about the controls over Facebook information shared with third-party app developers, we disagree with the issues they’ve raised about these APIs. Here’s why. In the early days of mobile, the demand for Facebook outpaced our ability to build versions of the product that worked on every phone or operating system. It’s hard to remember now but back then there were no app stores. So companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter and YouTube had to work directly with operating system and device manufacturers to get their products into people’s hands. This took a lot of time — and Facebook was not able to get to everyone. press@fb.com Categories Company News Product News Hard Questions Inside Feed Measurement FYI Community Boost Archive 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 To bridge this gap, we built a set of device-integrated APIs that allowed companies to recreate Facebook-like experiences for their individual devices or operating systems. Over the last decade, around 60 companies have used them — including many household names such as Amazon, Apple, Blackberry, HTC, Microsoft and Samsung. 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/06/why-we-disagree-with-the-nyt/ 1/3 6/4/2018 Why We Disagree with The New York Times Facebook Newsroom Featured News All these partnerships were built on a common interest — the desire for people to be able to use Facebook whatever their device or operating system. This was something I experienced firsthand as a Blackberry user who relied on Facebook and Messenger to stay in touch with family and friends back in Nigeria. Given that these APIs enabled other companies to recreate the Facebook experience, we controlled them tightly from the get-go. Shining a Light on Ads With Political Content May 24, 2018 We’re making big changes to the way ads with political content work on Facebook to help prevent abuse, especially Read more These partners signed agreements that prevented people’s Facebook information from being used for any other purpose than to recreate Facebook-like experiences. Partners could not integrate the user’s Facebook features with their devices without the user’s permission. And our partnership and engineering teams approved the Facebook experiences these companies built. Contrary to claims by the New York Times, friends’ information, like photos, was only accessible on devices when people made a decision to share their information with those friends. We are not aware of any abuse by these companies. Facing Facts: Facebook’s Fight Against Misinformation May 23, 2018 This is very different from the public APIs used by third-party developers, like Aleksandr Kogan. These third-party developers were not allowed to offer versions of Facebook to people and, We’re working to reduce the spread of false news on Facebook through a combination of technology instead, used the Facebook information people shared with them to build completely new experiences. and human review. Read more Now that iOS and Android are so popular, fewer people rely on these APIs to create bespoke Facebook experiences. It’s why we announced in April that we’re winding down access to them. We’ve already ended 22 of these partnerships. As always we’re working https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/06/why-we-disagree-with-the-nyt/ 2/3 6/4/2018 Why We Disagree with The New York Times Facebook Newsroom closely with our partners to provide alternative ways for people to still use Facebook. Like 65 Share Email Removing Trending From Facebook Related News April 16, 2018 Hard Questions: What Data Does Facebook Collect When I’m Not Using Facebook, and Why? About Contact Us Investor Relations Privacy Terms Country: United States (English) Facebook © 2018 Powered by WordPress.com VIP https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/06/why-we-disagree-with-the-nyt/ 3/3