* * * * *

               Interfacing with the blackhole of the Intarwebs

Smirk called last night to ask me how I publish my blog to MyFaceMeLinked­
BookWeInSpace. I told him I do it by hand. When I post to my blog, I then go
to FaceMeLinkedMyBookWeInSpace and manually post the link. It used to be an
automatic feature but several years ago MeLinkedMyFaceWeInSpaceBook changed
the API (Application Programming Interface). He was curious because he was
getting fed up with FaceMeLinkedMySpaceBookWeIn and their censorious ways,
and wanted a way to post to both FaceMeLinkedMy SpaceBookWeIn and another
website. Here's what I found.

First:

> The publish_actions permission will be deprecated. This permission granted
> apps access to publish posts to Facebook as the logged in user. Apps
> created from today onwards will not have access to this permission. Apps
> created before today that have been previously approved to request
> publish_actions can continue to do so until August 1, 2018. No further apps
> will be approved to use publish_actions via app review [1]. Developers
> currently utilizing publish_actions are encouraged to switch to Facebook's
> Share dialogs for web [2], iOS [3] and Android [4].
>

“New Facebook Platform Product Changes and Policy Updates [5]”

For my usecase, I'm still screwed, unless I become an “approved partner:”

> On August 1st, 2018, the Live API publish_actions permission, which allows
> an app to publish on behalf of its Users, will be reserved for approved
> partners. A new permission model that allows apps to publish Videos to
> their User's Groups and Timeline will be created instead.
>

“New Facebook Platform Product Changes and Policy Updates [6]”

So, I'm still screwed.

You can do a “share dialog [7]” which looks like it may work, but … it looks
like it may require the use of JavaScript (a non-starter for me, so I'm still
screwed) and the user has to be logged into FaceMeLinkedMyBookWeInSpace for
it to work (another non-starter for me). This may work for Smirk, and more
importantly, it doesn't require a FaceMeLinkedMyBookWeInSpace app to be
written.

Then there's this Pages API [8] thing that looks like it could work (not for
me, because I don't think my “timeline” counts as a “page”—man this
MyFaceMeLinkedInSpaceBookWe stuff is confusing) but it requires building an
app. If what Smirk wants to publish to on FaceMeLinked MyBookWeInSpace is a
“page” then this is probably what he wants. While it may look like “Instant
Articles [9]” is the way to go, especially since there appear to be plugins
for popular web publishing platforms, but the kicker there is: “[t]he final
step before going live is to submit 10 complete articles for review by our
team.” That may work for The National Enquirer [10] or the Weekly World News
[11], but it won't work for me or Smirk.

And that's for getting stuff into MeLinkedMyFaceBookWeInSpace. As far as I
can tell, there's no way to get stuff **out!** And that's probably by design—
LinkedMyFaceMeSpaceBookWeIn is the Intarwebs, as far as it's concerned.

[1] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/apps/review
[2] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/reference/share-
[3] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/ios
[4] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/android
[5] https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2018/04/24/new-facebook-platform-product-changes-policy-updates/
[6] https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2018/04/24/new-facebook-platform-product-changes-policy-updates/
[7] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/reference/share-dialog
[8] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/pages/
[9] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instant-articles/
[10] https://www.nationalenquirer.com/
[11] https://weeklyworldnews.com/

Email author at [email protected]