Facebook Cuts Off Competitor Prisma's API Access (nymag.com) 65
Photo-filter app Prisma, the popular program which makes pictures and video look like painterly art, had its access to Facebook's Live Video API revoked this month. From a report on NYMag:According to Prisma, Facebook justified choking off Prisma's access by stating, "Your app streams video from a mobile device camera, which can already be done through the Facebook app. The Live Video API is meant to let people publish live video content from other sources such as professional cameras, multi-camera setups, games or screencasts." This is the implied aim of Facebook's video API, the technical entry point for producers to pump video into Facebook's network: The API is meant for broadcasting setups that are not phone-based. The problem is that none of this is explained in Facebook's documentation for developers. In fact, it states the opposite. Here is the very first question from the company's Live API FAQ: "The Live API is a data feed and the "glue" needed to create higher-quality live videos on Facebook. It allows you to send live content directly to Facebook from any camera."
Re: Slashdot whining about FB, surprise, surprise (Score:1)
Facebook dev here. You are partially correct.
I Miss the Open Web (Score:5, Insightful)
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I agree. Facebook is allowed to control their API and terms of service. The real shame is that we've all allowed ourselves to be penned into proprietary/closed "social networking" sites for our communications.
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How is Prisma a Facebook "competitor"? (Score:1)
All they do is apply neat special effects to video. How does that make them a competitor? If it encourages people to share nifty videos to Facebook, you'd think that would make them an ally.
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FU, we're Facebook (Score:2)
We'll change the rules, or reinterpret them, any time we damn well please, and there's nothing you can do about it.
I'm just about done with them. I'm on a "no Facebook" diet until after the holidays. We'll see if that works.
Re:FU, we're Facebook (Score:5, Funny)
I think the correct phrasing is ..
" I am altering the deal, pray I don’t alter it any further."
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I'm on a "no Facebook since birth" diet. It's been working quite well for me.
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In fact, it's much more likely that your friends are actual friends if they're not based on a Facebook-enabled relationship.
I never bothered to get a Facebook account. Friendships that faded of their own accord are comfortably left faded. I make new friends with people that I actually have met. I don't worry about keeping tabs on what they're doing all of the time, that's what makes getting together with them actually fun; catching up over a beer or dinner or t
I graduated pre-Facebook (Score:2)
I'm on an "I graduated and lost my .edu email address before there even was a Facebook" diet. Does that make me suspicious [slashdot.org]?
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I'm on an "I graduated and lost my .edu email address before there even was a Facebook" diet. Does that make me suspicious [slashdot.org]?
I graduated before we even had email addresses.
[Yorkshiremen]
why, when I was in school, I had a VT-05 and was glad of the 300 baud
[/Yorkshiremen]
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"Facebook is evil."
API startups (Score:3, Insightful)
If your company uses an API to another party's service to make your product you should seek employment somewhere else. Urgently.
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I can see Facebook arguing that there are other social mediums out there. Hell, technically Myspace still even exists. As such they're not an actual monopoly even if they're by-far the largest player. This kind of logic is what continued to allow Microsoft to do ill, they were not the only company making an OS and software, so they were able to argue in some instances that they were not a true horizont
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You don't have to have 100% marketshare to be an "actual monopoly", according to the laws, just an overwhelming marketshare with too much power.
Your first sentence was 100% correct: anti-trust protection is only as good as the court decisions. We saw this firsthand in 1999/2000 with the Microsoft trial: they were ruled an abusive monopoly (and with less than 100% marketshare remember), but then GWB took over and the DOJ dropped the case, so there was zero punishment. It had nothing to do with being a "tru
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FAQ Seems Clear (Score:2)
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I think the point was that a lot of smartphones are capable of high-quality videos. Facebook's response basically said the API wasn't meant for streaming through mobile devices (smartphones) while the FAQ says any camera, which one would assume would include smartphones.
this is why we cant have nice things (Score:1)
This is why all large companies want to own one or more layers of the infrastructure and/or ecosystem. Then this shit cannot happen to you. And they all know it will happen, because they will all do it to someone else without giving it a second thought.
I suspect it's a Fake News crapfest reaction (Score:1)
I suspect it's a Fake News crapfest reaction.
Riddle me this, Batman:
How do I tell a real video, adulterated by Prisma, from an already adulterated video, further adulterated by Prisma?
OK, now suppose I'm Facebook, and I want the video uploaded to be obviously adulterated/non-adulterated, so I can sell my services as the video equivalent of a Reuters or an AP NewsWire source... do we think MSNBC or Fox or ABC or CBS or Reuters or CNN will pay fro Prisma'ed content?
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Prisma connects to the Facebook through a special API key. The Prisma app supports videos from the cell phone, so Facebook has revoked the Prisma API key. This blocks all videos from Prisma.
Your question is pointless. It doesn't matter if the video is altered or not, it matters who is doing the upload. No uploads from Prisma are allowed (probably because Facebook is about to release a similar feature).
~Batman.
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Prisma connects to the Facebook through a special API key.
I'm aware how the API key system works.
The Prisma app supports videos from the cell phone,
Predominately adulterated video. Because otherwise, you'd use the Facebook App, because you wouldn't be using any of the Prisma features to make it "hip", "kool", "rad", and "gnarly".
so Facebook has revoked the Prisma API key. This blocks all videos from Prisma.
Yes, I'm also aware of how key revocation was used to block Prisma.
Your question is pointless. It doesn't matter if the video is altered or not, it matters who is doing the upload. No uploads from Prisma are allowed (probably because Facebook is about to release a similar feature).
The question is not pointless. Prisma's primary users are people who are adding "effects" to the video. Otherwise they'd be using the Facebook App. The entire purpose of Prisma in the 99% use case is to adulterate the v
Platform is better than Application (Score:3, Insightful)
This should be a lesson for anybody that develops an application based on a platform that they don't control; it's as if nobody learned nothing from "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run" Microsoft era experiences.
If you don't control the platform, the platform owner can cut off your air supply at any moment. When working with a giant, they have the resources to replicate whatever you're doing immediately. So FB, Google, all other platforms are using all the startups on their platform as brute-force approach to success - everybody tries something, if something succeed, first they replicate it, and then cut the air to the original app. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish 2.0 Social Edition.
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Most of the people developing for Facebook were not even born when "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run" happened.
That's the problem right there.
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That's true, however all the masses of rubes out there love these platforms and refuse to give them up no matter how abusive they get, so developers target them anyway, hoping to capitalize on the popularity of these platforms, much like pets will eagerly await crumbs falling off their masters' tables.
Umm, this is an anti-trust suit in the making (Score:1)
Facebook enjoys a monopoly position. They literally cant do what they just did. Prisma is a Russian company too. The Russkie anti-monopoly agency will do very nasty things to Facebook over this. They've been looking for an excuse to kick them out of the country as is.
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You literally used literally incorrectly, you illiterate loser.
Facebook 95 (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
FB is a de facto monopoly, just like Microsoft was (Score:1)
It is high time that a lot of these internet giants get some hard scrutiny from the justice department on anti-monopoly grounds, similar to what Microsoft got after they destroyed Netscape by bundling IE. FB is a defacto monopoly on social media, as evidenced by the failure of Google plus, my space etc. Since they are a defacto monopoly, cutting off another company's access to their API is an illegal anti-competitive move and they should get slammed hard for it.
I would love to see some federal legislation
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I was wondering how FB's actions are not anti-competitive, but it's because they don't pretty much own the market like MS did at that time. Due to the ultra-conservatives having disposed of the old FTC and replaced them with people who's only qualification was to support the, then, current administration, it makes it less likely that they would even know what to do if they wanted to.
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WTF makes you think the Justice Department gives a rat's ass about this? If the DOJ doesn't feel like pursuing an anti-trust case against Microsoft (even at the height of their abusive monopoly with IE6 back in 1999), what makes you think a conservative Trump DOJ is going to care about Facebook? (Or, if Hillary somehow wins the Electoral College election, that her DOJ would care?)
Face it: we're on our own with these abusive companies. If we want to keep them in line, we have to be willing to vote with ou
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I guess maybe you were still in diapers back then, but MS was investigated by the DOJ and subsequently sued by the DOJ:
"The company barely escaped being split up after it was ruled an unlawful monopolist in 2000 for using its stranglehold on the PC market with its Windows operating system to cripple competitors, such as Netscape’s Navigator Web browser.
A court settlement approved in 2002 and a consent decree curbing some of its practices saved Microsoft."
http://www.seattletimes.com/bu... [seattletimes.com]
FB, Apple, etc
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... in that he is specifically looking for what is best for the people
You are correct that he's no conservative, but this is just bullshit. Trump is a Trumpist. He doesn't give a shit about what anyone else thinks or wants. He, like any politician, will tell you what you want to hear to get your vote, but he doesn't give a shit about saying the opposite to the guy standing next to you. He has no shame at all, and only cares about himself.
Presidential elections have been a popularity contest since at least the advent of television. Trump, for all his intellectual failing
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Your statement as well as mine is speculation. Yours is based on bullshit hysteria put out by the Democratic party, mine is based on what Trump has said and done since winning. The jury is still out on the long term, but it does appear that he genuinely wants to help people (see what he just did for Carrier employees who were going to get outsourced to Mexico). He is not even the president yet and he has already saved 1000 jobs at a cost of $700/employee per year in incentives to the employer. The state
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Back in the day, without microsquish, ordinary folk couldn't reasonably *use a computer*. Apples and Oranges. Thank God for the relative - if not total world dominating - success FOSS has enjoyed since then.
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Facebook is VASTLY easier to avoid than the Microsoft monopoly ever was. A windows tax was added to nearly every computer, even ones that shipped without any os at all. They used their monopoly to make using almost any other product that competes with their painful. They leveraged the OS to push their browser and it worked until VERY recently.
Facebook is fairly easy to avoid and pretty much no pressure related to it.
Obligatory PRISM Propaganda References (Score:1)