Facebook bans creator of app that made Facebook less toxic

A developer who created a browser extension designed to help Facebook users reduce their time spent on the platform said the company responded by banning it and threatening to take legal action.

Louis Barclay says he created No longer follow to help people enjoy Facebook more, not less. Its extension, which no longer exists, allowed users to automatically unsubscribe from everyone on their FB account, thus eliminating the news feed function, one of the most heinous and addicting parts of the company’s product. Feeding, which allows an endless barrage of Targeted advertising, is powered by subscriptions, not friends, so even without this, users can still visit the profiles they want and navigate the site as usual.

According to Barclay, the purpose of opposing the stream was to allow users to enjoy the platform in a more balanced and focused way, rather than being blindly forced into constant engagement by Facebook algorithms.

How did Facebook reward Barclay for trying to make their user experience less toxic? Well, first, he kicked him off all of his platforms, locking him down from his Facebook and Instagram accounts. Then he sent him a cease and desist letter, threatening legal action if he didn’t close the browser extension. In the end, Barclay said he was forced to do so and that Following Everything no longer exists. He recently wrote about his experience in an editorial for Slate, saying:

If someone created a tool that made Facebook less addicting – a tool that allowed users to benefit from Facebook’s positive features while limiting their exposure to its negative aspects – how would Facebook react?

I know the answer because I built the tool and Facebook crashed it.

Barclay suggests that the trouble really started when he was contacted by researchers from the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, who wanted to use their browser extension to help study Facebook users’ levels of happiness when it comes to the News Feed feature. Barclay agreed, but soon after the company contacted him with their legal threat, he says. Facebook accused him of violating its terms of service and demanded that he “never again create a tool that interacts in any way with Facebook or its many other services,” as he put it. .

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment and we will update this post when they do.

News of Barclay’s ordeal comes as Facebook suffers what is potentially its worst public relations crisis to date. Beset by a recent whistleblower scandal that began as a series of articles in the Wall Street Journal and has now become a Brouhaha of the Congress, the social media giant is going through a rough patch lately. To top it off, the company suffered a global blackout earlier this week via some massive setup crap-whose likes now appear To to reproduce, at least in some parts of the world. The company could probably have counted on some goodwill in letting Barclay get away with it, but, sadly, their decision to purge him seems quite normal.