Facebook does not take kindly to people who act against business interests. According to information, a software developer was banned from the platform for life because he had developed a browser extension "Unfollow Everything" that allowed users to limit the negative features of Facebook.
The developer told his story on Slate.com.
British developer Louis Barclay claims that Facebook has permanently suspended its account in response to a browser extension it has developed.
Barclay has developed a browser extension called Simply Unfollow Everything that allows users to automatically remove all their news. The tool, Barclay said, is also used by Swiss researchers studying the link between Facebook use and happiness.
Barclay said Facebook (Perkins Coie)'s legal department sent him a letter of cessation in July. The letter accuses Barclay of allowing "unauthorized Facebook features".
It also referred to Facebook's terms of service, which prohibit the use of Facebook trademarks, access to users' content through "automated media", interfere with Facebook's "prescribed functions" and "facilitate or encourage others to violate them". terms ”.
At the time, the browser extension had about 13.000 downloads and about 2.500 weekly active users, according to Barclay.
Barclay, who runs another tech startup and developed Unfollow Everything as an unpaid side project, told Page Minutes that a few hours before receiving the termination letter, he noticed that Facebook had removed him from his 15-year-old account.
Facebook, citing a provision in its terms of service that is said to bind even former Facebook users, also asked not to re-develop a tool that interacts in any way with Facebook or its many other services.
These demands seemed outrageous to Barclay. Lawyers consulted by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and in the United Kingdom also found it outrageous.
And because Barclay lives in the United Kingdom, he will probably have to sue Facebook in a British court. But he would also have to pay Facebook court costs if he lost the case.
Of course because he could not risk that much money, the Unfollow Everything extension no longer exists.
