Show HN: BuddyHack - Mess with your friends' Facebooks | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: BuddyHack - Mess with your friends' Facebooks

buddyhack.com

25 pointsgailees51 comments

I am an engineer working on Platform Integrity at Facebook. Just as friends can't consent to transferring friend data outside of an app, they also can't consent to an app taking actions on their friends' behalf (such as posting a story when the friend didn't consent to it). Even if it's funny.

It's people taking actions on behalf of themselves.

People just happen to be using it innapropriately.

Because you're inducing them to do so. I think your app is funny, but the language makes it clear that the intent is at odds with FB's platform rules.

Yeah...we've come to see that the language was encouraging behavior that was clearly against the spirit of the Facebook platform. We have since removed most of that language.

How does changing the language absolve you from the implications of your malicious app.

It can't be used appropriately.

From the homepage: "BuddyHack: Did a friend leave Facebook open? Mess with it now."

It's an app designed to be authorized on someone else's account. You make that pretty clear.

Any way to get ahold of you guys and ask questions about ideas etc to help understand what is legal before building it?

Best ways are to check https://developers.facebook.com/policy/ thoroughly - it's actually a very well written and concise set of policies - or come see us at one of the hackathons we frequently run (such as the UPenn one mentioned in this thread).

I appreciate how they were mature and stayed away from inappropriate content. The hack can still be funny without the need to be gay, racist, sexest, etc. I personally like the "It's Your Birthday" one. Props guys!

That was exactly our aim.

Do everyone a favor and get rid of this. There is nothing OK with making light of identity theft. And quite trying to absolve yourself of any responsibility

seriously?

If you've removed any language suggesting that this should be used to gain and exploit unauthorised access to somebody elses Facebook account (I presume that means you will be registering new domain name for the app) then what is the point of it any more? Why would I want to click a button to post a bunch of fake stuff to my wall? That would be like #poopin yourself. Utterly pointless.

http://hackmyfacebook.com

People are hitting the site and using it. I wasn't sure if it was a real use case either; but our conversion rate for hitting the site and actually using it is even higher than before, so I guess some people think otherwise.

And API access will be revoked in 5...4...3...2...

Facebook can't revoke the API, because the site clearly states in the footer that "Buddy Hack in no way encourages the usage of any Facebook account other than your own." That seems waterproof to me.

In the world of walled gardens like this, there is no rule of law. If they don't like it, they can revoke access.

I was making an irony.

Oh, i didn't realize. Now that you say so, it seems obvious.

Truth^

It would appear it's already been blocked by FB: "An error occurred with Buddy Hack. Please try again later."

yeah....someone reported us for our defriend all button; that button is actually a joke and just gives an alert "you can't actually be that mean"

Would anyone care to explain roughly what it does?

This is what it looks like when you give it permission: http://i.imgur.com/nAvhx.jpg

Pretty self-explanatory once you get to that page, but there should be an explanation on the index.

Thanks for the input...will get on that ASAP.

Without trying it for obvious reasons, going off the HTML, I'm guessing it just posts a load of status updates on various topics, eg "Posts ridiculous lyrics and statuses about love for artists like Nickelback."

We just got reported by several users and got temporarily restricted on Facebook.

"temporarily"

How would you "quickly undo" an action that defriends everybody?

That would be a pretty bad joke but it someone doesn't sign out of their Facebook or email account on a share computer, they kind of deserve it.

Why on Earth would someone deserve to lose all their friends because they accidentally didn't log out on a shared computer?

That button was actually just a joke; it brought up an alert saying "Come on, you can't really be that mean!"

Let's say your friend just left their Facebook logged in at your house or got up from their laptop to go to the bathroom for a minute. You're tempted to mess with their Facebook, but don't know where to start or don't have enough time. Just go to http://buddyhack.com, sign in with Facebook, and we will help you hilariously mess with your friend in under a minute!

Oh, high-larious. Especially "defriending every single friend". How is this non-malicious again? Is this undoable?

Click it....it tells you that you shouldn't be that mean.

Thanks for all the feedback...Be sure to check out http://hackmyfacebook.com

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