I would like to read (and if possible post to) two closed Facebook groups on behalf of an application. I have only been able to read as a user member of a group, but that doesn't quite satisfy. Can someone help me find the correct API-call and permission please?
The idea of a closed group is that only specific people (at the discretion of the current members) are allowed access to it. Your app will not be able to access the group. If you want an app to make posts, etc that members can see, your best bet is to make an app page that people can like instead.
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From my understanding Facebook has made changes to their API such that third-party services can no longer have access to the friend list (at least names) of someone using your app (while being logged in facebook, of course).
Does anyone know if I maybe just missed one API endpoint, and it is still somehow possible? I just know that the original one is deprecated/has been removed. Thank you.
(Wasn't sure where to ask this, so I turned to stackoverflow. I know it's not the best use of the site, I apologize for that.)
No, you did not miss anything, accessing the friend list is no longer possible. You can only get data of users who authorized your App too, every other user is not available at all - for privacy reasons.
What I'm trying to do is basically described in this particular
doc page from FB itself: click (post, comment content and listen for new content), but for a "normal" closed group instead of a group in a workplace.
According to the document, this would only be possible by storing the user access token of the group admin and use various graph API endpoints, but this does not seem like a good solution to me.
Is there any other known way (something like creating a Facebook app which will create posts, comment/like stuff and listens to new posts made in the group (similar to the group bots in workplaces))?
Thank you in advance!
Luca
Is there any other known way (something like creating a Facebook app wich will create posts, comment/like stuff and listens to new posts made in the group (similar to the group bots in workplaces)) ?
No, there is not.
Reading posts and creating them using the group admin's token would be possible, but that's about it.
Liking posts in the name of users has generally been removed (not just for group posts),
commenting will likely not be possible either for any non-admin in a closed group, and
Webhooks do not cover non-workplace group feeds as of now either, so you'd have to do constant pulling to get new posts.
And yet, the Facebook API clearly states:
In groups, bots can do many of the things that people can do. This means you can build bots that post new content, comment on content with new information and like posts to indicate acknowledgment or approval.
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/workplace/integrations/custom-integrations/bots#botsingroups
Is there a way to systematically __scrape__content from Facebook closed groups? I am member of some Facebook closed groups and i would like to monitor this groups for the occurrence of certain words - is there a possibility for this?
I have found this tool: https://mkonrad.net/projects/facebook-discussion-tk.html - but you need to manualy collect data from closed groups.
Facebook used to allow group-scraping (at least programmatically via their API), but not anymore.
The user_group permission, which used to allow that, is now deprecated and will be replaced by user_managed_groups
I am trying to get a list of posts in a particular group on facebook that is closed, also I am not the admin, just a member in this group. When I am trying to access the group's posts via graph explorer (I checked all the permissions) I am getting an empty list returned.
What is facebook's reason for not allowing this access? If I am a member of this group I have access to this information anyway via browser/scraping...
Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated.
What is facebook's reason for not allowing this access? If I am a member of this group I have access to this information anyway via browser
That would be only you being able to see the posts then, fine. Two parties involved - you, and the other group members; everyone aware of who will be able to read the posts, all good.
But with an app, a third party gets involved - the app developer. And they could theoretically do anything with that data, that the app reads from the API on your behalf. (Sure, the app developer might be you in this special case here - but that is not the normal use case.)
And in a closed group people might discuss topics that are a little more sensitive than the current weather; think f.e. health problems or something like that. For sure not the stuff you’d want exposed to any third parties.
And therefor, the decision whether an app should be able to read the group’s feed posts, has been placed in the hands of the group admin(s).
If you would like to access the data use api version 2.3, the only downside is that it will be deprecated.
I'm developing a program that read posts from groups by using
graph.facebook.com/v2.3/[group_id]/feed
I've heard that facebook is about to block the access for developers to closed groups.
but I can't find any formal mention of this.
Anyone know if it's true?
Thanks
Update:
user_groups is gone, now we need to use user_managed_groups instead of user_groups, and the problem with this permission is, it only allows you access to the groups which are open, or the one you are admin/developer/tester of. No closed groups are allowed.
They don´t block access, but you will not get user_groups approved and the permission may get removed sooner or later:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/permissions/v2.3#reference-user_groups
There is a new permission called user_managed_groups, use that one. For groups you are an admin of, nothing changes.
Facebook seems to remove all possibilities for users to read their own content automatically:
No more access to user groups (without being admin of that group)
No more access to messages (except for conversations with pages)
This will become a severe problem with deprecation of API v2.3 on July 8, 2017.