Facebook's restrictions on its user data, which were announced last year and put into effect in May, are rippling through academia, business and Presidential politics.
Dozens of startups that had been using Facebook data have shut down, been acquired or overhauled their businesses. Political consultants are racing to find new ways to tap voters' social connections ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
The new rules reflect Facebook's shifting attitude toward third parties using its data, considered one of the world's richest sources of information on human relationships. In 2007, with great fanfare, Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg invited outsiders to access to Facebook's "social graph," the friend lists, interests and "likes" that knit Facebook users together.
Facebook said it reversed course after users raised concerns about their data being shared with outsiders without their knowledge. The new rules don't "make it harder for developers to build social experiences," said a Facebook spokeswoman. The rules "simply require them to do so in a more privacy-protective way."
Other social networks, including LinkedIn Corp. and Twitter Inc., also have restricted access to their data in recent years. But Facebook's changes have generated more controversy.
Many developers who use the social graph count on subtle-yet-powerful nudges, sending users reminders to ask friends to vote in elections.
To some, the data restrictions reflect Facebook's growth and emergence as the world's largest social network. In 2007, the year Mr. Zuckerberg opened up the company's data, Facebook had 58 million users and generated $153 million in revenue. This year, Facebook is expected to post revenue of $17.2 billion; last month, the company said one billion people had used the network on a single day.
A Facebook spokeswoman says the change aren't about money, but giving users more control. Facebook allows outsiders to request access to specific types of information, such as users' birthdays. But data about their friends, coveted by developers to expand their user base, is largely off limits. Some developers say Facebook's process for considering these requests is time-consuming and opaque, yielding unexpected outcomes.
The changes also stymied a voter-outreach tool used by President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. The app identified potential Obama supporters among a Facebook user's friends, and measured the closeness of the friendship. A user who was a close friend would then be asked to encourage that person to vote, possibly by sending them a message or a video about voter registration. The targeted voters were five times as likely to click on material that came from a close friend as a randomly selected Facebook connection.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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