Category: Facebook

Facebook Allows Editing Your Typing Errors

Facebook has started to let you edit post’s text after you publish it. The feature comes to the web and Android in an update today, and to iOS soon. Previously you had to delete your post, lose all your Likes and comments, and repost to edit something.

Android users also get emotion and activity sharing, events at a glance, and photo album creation today. Now, you are able to edit all posts and comments from the web. To edit posts, you’ll be able to click the down arrow in the top right of one of your posts and select ‘Edit Post’ to change the text, then click done editing.The revisions and original post will still be viewable if friends check your post’s edit history, though. Editing the comments came into the picture a while ago.

September 27, 2013
Mass Identity Suicide on Facebook, 11 Million Users drop out after NSA probing

Over Eleven million Facebook users in the US and the UK have deleted their Facebook accounts in view of recent NSA spy program revelations. The number is still increasing and is expected to cross 20 million by the end of September. This phenomenon also known as “Virtual Identity Suicide” is demonstrated by people with privacy confers and internet addiction phobias.

Approximately 9 million Facebook users in the US and 2 million people in the UK have deleted their accounts from the social network, the Daily Mail reports. Reasons for quitting Facebook were mainly privacy concerns (48.3%), followed by a general dissatisfaction (13.5%), negative aspects of online friends (12.6%) and the feeling of becoming addicted (6.0%). Fear of Facebook addiction and unwillingness to waste time on silly talk was mentioned among other reasons for deleting Facebook accounts.

Brenda Wiederhold, editor of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behaviour and Social Networking which published the findings, said:

Given high profile stories such as WikiLeaks and the recent NSA surveillance reports, individual citizens are becoming increasingly more wary of cyber-related privacy concerns.

With over 950 Million active users Facebook barely gets a scratch in its popularity, but if the trend continues the Online Social Giant may be forced to tap into better security and privacy norms to ensure the peace of mind of its members.

[VIA]

September 23, 2013
Facebook will Use Artificial Intelligence to Understand and Predict Our Actions

Facebook is trying to get a better understanding of the 700 million people with help of AI which they call as ‘deep learning’, targeting people who share everything happening in their life through the social networking giant everyday.

A new research group in Facebook (called “AI Team”) is working on this artificial intelligence, which will use the simulated networks of brain cells to process the data. With the help of this strategy, the social networking site might be able to predict our actions online and to show us content that is more relevant to our interests, and to better target advertisements as well.

The new team hopes to use deep learning AI, to determine which posts are genuinely important. The technology could also be used to sort users photos, and it might even select the best shots. However, the AI work has only just started, the company shared with MIT Technology, that it should release some findings to the public.

Facebook is not the first company to bring deep learning, last year Google and even IBM have also used this concept in the past. Deep learning uses a multi-layered approach to data, parsing information to build up a body of knowledge that can be used to figure out concepts or even understand what objects sound and look like.

[via]

September 21, 2013
Facebook and Twitter reportedly Unblocked in Iran

Facebook and Twitter became widely accessible to Iranian users on Monday for the first time since 2009, when the services were blocked in the midst of widespread protests against former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to reports emerging from the country.

Various reporters for print as well as Network media located in the country were able to access the services starting Monday.

“Some other blocked sites are reporting themselves unblocked – the National Iranian American council is reporting themselves unblocked as well,” York said, referring to a U.S.-based nonprofit group.

Iranian authorities blacked out Facebook and Twitter in the summer of 2009, when Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election victory sparked massive protests that gained momentum with the help of organizers using social media. The new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had stated earlier this month, that he would have a more open minded approach to social media when compared to the hard minded predecessor.

[VIA]

September 17, 2013
Instagram Hits 150 Million Users Landmark, Ads Coming Soon

Instagram announced today that they now have over a 150 million users, up 50 million in the last 6-months.

The app itself – which allows users to capture and share video and pictures – is only available on two platforms, iOS and Android, plus knowledgable BlackBerry users can port the app over to their device.

Instagram also noted that they’re “more committed than ever to bringing you the best Instagram experience possible.” This ‘best Instagram experience’ will include ads. A separate report in the Wall Street Journal reveals that the company will begin monetizing its app “within the next year.”

Emily White, who the WSJ says is Instagram’s COO, is leading the charge to bring in big brand advertisers. She stated that although Instagram was bought by Facebook for $1 billion and has never made a cent, “We want to make money in the long term, but we don’t have any short-term pressure.”

The company is building relationships with brands that are already using Instagram to promote themselves for free. Those brands will have to be convinced that paying for ads is more effective than simply posting amazing photos. Instagram also needs a sales team.

According to the WSJ, White is considering the app’s Discover and Search sections as definite ad possibilities. White also said that brands are interested in click-through links from their Instagram photos to their product pages, but that is a pie-in-the-sky idea for now.

White’s biggest challenge in prepping Instagram for ads is the app’s 150 million users. Instagram has been ad-free for so long that any major change could send those users into the waiting arms of another photo-sharing app.

The company has already met with Ford, Williams-Sonoma and Coca-Cola.

September 9, 2013
Facebook Delays Privacy Policy Update

Facebook has said it will not roll out a scheduled update to its privacy policy till next week, after it takes the time to “ensure that user comments are reviewed and taken into consideration to determine whether further updates are necessary”.

Six consumer watchdog groups have asked the Federal Trade Commission to block the Facebook privacy changes that they say would make it far easier for the company to use the names, images and personal information of its nearly 1.2 billion users — including teens — to endorse products in ads without their consent.

“We are taking the time to ensure that user comments are reviewed and taken into consideration to determine whether further updates are necessary and we expect to finalize the process in the coming week,” Facebook said in a statement emailed to the Los Angeles Times. The social networking website is vehement that it isn’t changing its policies but simply clarifying the language they’ve been written in to eliminate all possibility of confusion.

Facebook said it proposed new language in response to a $20-million settlement of a 2011 lawsuit that alleged the company used personal information for commercial purposes without consent or compensation.

The original proposal has drawn tens of thousands of comments from Facebook users, most of them opposed to the changes.

September 6, 2013
Facebook To Pay $20M For Sponsored Stories Privacy Breaches

A U.S. judge has put a stamp of approval on a US$20 million fund for Facebook to settle a class-action advertising suit, despite objections from groups representing minors on the site.

The ruling was issued Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The class-action suit, which was first filed in 2011, challenged Facebook’s “sponsored stories” advertising program. A sponsored story is a type of promoted post appearing in users’ feeds that may include the profile name and picture of Facebook members who have “liked” that advertiser’s products or services.

As Wired reports, “Sponsored Stories” basically turns the act of pressing the Facebook “Like” button into a potential commercial endorsement. If a Facebook user clicks the “Like” button for a product or service with a Facebook page, that user’s profile picture and name may be automatically used in advertisements for that product or service that appear in the their friends’ Facebook pages. Facebook also reserves the right to show such ads on sites other than Facebook.

U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco approved the revised deal months after he said he had “serious concerns” because it originally provided a $10 million payout to attorneys suing Facebook and $10 million to activist and research groups in what is known as a cy pres award.

Under the new plan Seeborg approved, the same $20 million pot is to be shared by charities, the class-action attorneys and the 125 million U.S. Facebook users who appeared in a “Sponsored Story” without consent.

In a statement, a Facebook spokeswoman said the company was “pleased” that the settlement had received final approval.

August 27, 2013
How To Keep Your Facebook Account Safe

Facebook is part of our daily routine, it is very important for us to take care of its security so that it does not harms us in some or the other way. Here are some steps you may want to follow to make sure that you have your Facebook account secured:

Privacy settings:

Set your privacy setting to ‘Friends only’, by doing this, you will be able to have control who has access to your information and pictures. For certain pictures, you can also select certain friends that you do or do not want them to see. this is known as “Custom” sharing.

Always monitor pictures:

Always monitor pictures that other people put of you and tag you on. You can see the tagged pictures of you by going to your profile, click on “Photos”- you should see “Photos of You” and the number of tagged pictures. Click on that, and look through the pictures. You can un-tag any photo of you, but people still have the ability to see it. Click “Report/Remove Tag” under the “Options” on the bottom of the picture. Also if you think that the particular picture could put you in a compromising situation, consult whoever put it up and ask him or her to remove it immediately. If they are your so called friends they should acknowledge your request.

Personal Information:

Avoid putting your phone number, mailing address, or your home address in your profile. People often use words such as pet’s names or numbers as passwords, so it is not recommended to publish them on-line.

Change your password:

Don’t make your password something obvious such as your birthday or mother’s maiden name. Try to have at least one capital letter, one lowercase letter, two numbers, and a symbol. The longer and more complicated the password, the safer you are from getting your account hacked. Always remember to log out after you’re finished with Facebook, especially on a shared computer.

Connecting Facebook with untrusted websites:

The purpose of Facebook is to connect you with people you know and not adding everyone randomly. Making your profile public means you’re sharing your information with everyone, even though you don’t know them, a risk that you would not want to take. Never link Facebook with any untrusted websites.

Add someone you know:

Don’t friend anyone out of your state/country unless you know them pretty well. Only friend people you know. Make sure they are the correct person by looking through their pictures. If they are not familiar, then remove them as a friend by getting to your friend list. Report/Block anyone that seems to threaten or harass you.

These are some steps that will help you to update and secure your much loved Facebook account. If we missed any please let us know below!

August 27, 2013
When Facebook denied: Hacker Khalil Gets over $12k From Online Donors

Khalil the hacker who broke into Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Timeline to expose a security lapse will be awarded nearly $12,058(increasing amount) from a campaign started on GoFundMe. The campaign was started by Beyond Trust Chief Technology Officer Marc Maiffret, who is doing his best to make sure Shreateh doesn’t walk away from this experience empty-handed.

The campaign has raised $12,058 for Khalil Shreateh, of Palestine, who claims he was forced to hack into Zuckerberg’s page to bring attention to the security vulnerability because Facebook had ignored his earlier warnings.

The bug that Khalil found allowed him to post on the Timelines of people who weren’t his Facebook friends.

Khalil Shreateh found a vulnerability in Facebook.com and, due to miscommunication, was not awarded a bounty for his work,’ Maiffret wrote on the GoFundMe campaign page. ‘Let us all send a message to security researchers across the world and say that we appreciate the efforts they make for the good of everyone.’

According to the ‘Bug Bounty’ program that pays out at least $500 to hackers who bring software bugs to the company’s attention. But the company said Khalil would not qualify for a reward because he tested the bug against another user.

Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s Chief Security Officer, explained the company’s decision in a post online.

We will not change our practice of refusing to pay rewards to researchers who have tested vulnerabilities against real users,’ he wrote. ‘It is never acceptable to compromise the security or privacy of other people. In this case, the researcher could have sent a more detailed report (like the video he later published), and he could have used one of our test accounts to confirm the bug.’

But instead of thanking him and fixing the issue, Facebook said it wasn’t a bug.

‘My name is Khalil Shreateh. I finished school with B.A degree in Information Systems . I would like to report a bug in your main site (www.facebook.com) which i discovered it…The bug allow Facebook users to share links to other facebook users , I tested it on Sarah.Goodin wall and I got success post.’

“I hope this has raised awareness of the importance of independent researchers,” Maiffret said on the Indiegogo page. “I equally hope it has reminded other researchers that while working with technology companies can sometimes be frustrating, we can never forget the greater goal; to help the Internet community at large, just as that community has helped donate over ten thousand dollars to Khalil within a day.”

Here is a video made by the man himslef:

[youtube id=”F9J8U9ZpEnw” width=”100%” height=”300px”]

August 23, 2013
Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Samsung and Qualcomm form Internet.org

The global social network, Facebook and a few major companies like Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Samsung and Qualcomm have joined hands to form what may be the future of the Internet. Internet.org is an initiative to deliver internet access to two-thirds of the world that currently does not have access to it.

The collaborative effort plans to bring down costs for deployment of such large infrastructure, By reducing the cost and amount of data required for most apps and enabling new business models, Internet.org is focused on enabling the next 5 billion people to come online.

Although, many still struggle with basic internet access, and where implementations can be a lifelong goal, its not one that cannot be achieved.

For more than 100 years, Ericsson has been enabling communications for all and today more than 6 billion people in the world have access to mobile communications,” said Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson. “We are committed to shaping the Networked Society – where everyone and everything will be connected in real time; creating the freedom, empowerment and opportunity to transform society. We believe affordable connectivity and internet access improves people’s lives and helps build a more sustainable planet and therefore we are excited to participate in the internet.org initiative.”

“As a world leader in mobile solutions for emerging markets having powered more than 300 million smart devices within 2 years, MediaTek whole heartedly supports the internet.org initiative.” said MK Tsai, Chairman of MediaTek. “Global Internet and social media access represent the biggest shift since the industrial revolution, and we want to make it all-inclusive.”

“Nokia is deeply passionate about connecting people – to one another and the world around them,” said Nokia President and CEO Stephen Elop. “Over the years, Nokia has connected well over a billion people. Our industry is now at an exciting inflection point where Internet connectivity is becoming more affordable and efficient for consumers while still offering them great experiences. Universal internet access will be the next great industrial revolution.”

“Today, more than 300 million people use Opera every month to access the Internet. Tomorrow, we have a chance to serve the next 5 billion people connecting on mobile devices in developing countries. It’s in Opera’s DNA to save people time, money and data, and through internet.org we think we can help advance these goals.” — Lars Boilesen, CEO Opera Software.

“Mobile has helped to transform many people’s lives in the emerging regions where often a computing device will be the first and only mobile experience they’ll ever have” said Paul Jacobs, chairman of the board and CEO of Qualcomm Incorporated. “Having shipped more than 11 billion chips, Qualcomm is a market leader that is committed to the goal of bridging the digital divide. We’re pleased to be a part of internet.org and to be working with key ecosystem players to drive this initiative forward.”

“This new initiative has big potential to help accelerate access to the Internet for everyone,” said JK Shin, CEO and President of the IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics. “We’re focused on delivering high quality mobile devices to ensure that the next five billion people have great mobile Internet experiences.”

[toggle title=”Press Release”]Technology Leaders Launch Partnership to Make Internet Access Available to All

August 20, 2013

Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm, Samsung to be founding partners

MENLO PARK, CA, — Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, today announced the launch of internet.org, a global partnership with the goal of making internet access available to the next 5 billion people.

“Everything Facebook has done has been about giving all people around the world the power to connect,” Zuckerberg said. “There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy. Internet.org brings together a global partnership that will work to overcome these challenges, including making internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it.”

Today, only 2.7 billion people – just over one-third of the world’s population — have access to the internet. Internet adoption is growing by less than 9% each year, which is slow considering how early we are in its development.

The goal of Internet.org is to make internet access available to the two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected, and to bring the same opportunities to everyone that the connected third of the world has today.

The founding members of internet.org — Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung — will develop joint projects, share knowledge, and mobilize industry and governments to bring the world online. These founding companies have a long history of working closely with mobile operators and expect them to play leading roles within the initiative, which over time will also include NGOs, academics and experts as well. Internet.org is influenced by the successful Open Compute Project, an industry-wide initiative that has lowered the costs of cloud computing by making hardware designs more efficient and innovative.

In order to achieve its goal of connecting the two-thirds of the world who are not yet online, internet.org will focus on three key challenges in developing countries:

Making access affordable: Partners will collaborate to develop and adopt technologies that make mobile connectivity more affordable and decrease the cost of delivering data to people worldwide. Potential projects include collaborations to develop lower-cost, higher-quality smartphones and partnerships to more broadly deploy internet access in underserved communities. Mobile operators will play a central role in this effort by driving initiatives that benefit the entire ecosystem.

Using data more efficiently: Partners will invest in tools that dramatically reduce the amount of data required to use most apps and internet experiences. Potential projects include developing data compression tools, enhancing network capabilities to more efficiently handle data, building systems to cache data efficiently and creating frameworks for apps to reduce data usage.

Helping businesses drive access: Partners will support development of sustainable new business models and services that make it easier for people to access the internet. This includes testing new models that align incentives for mobile operators, device manufacturers, developers and other businesses to provide more affordable access than has previously been possible. Other efforts will focus on localizing services – working with operating system providers and other partners to enable more languages on mobile devices.

By reducing the cost and amount of data required for most apps and enabling new business models, Internet.org is focused on enabling the next 5 billion people to come online.

Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm, Samsung and other partners will build on existing partnerships while exploring new ways to collaborate to solve these problems.

“For more than 100 years, Ericsson has been enabling communications for all and today more than 6 billion people in the world have access to mobile communications,” said Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson. “We are committed to shaping the Networked Society – where everyone and everything will be connected in real time; creating the freedom, empowerment and opportunity to transform society. We believe affordable connectivity and internet access improves people’s lives and helps build a more sustainable planet and therefore we are excited to participate in the internet.org initiative.”

“As a world leader in mobile solutions for emerging markets having powered more than 300 million smart devices within 2 years, MediaTek whole heartedly supports the internet.org initiative.” said MK Tsai, Chairman of MediaTek. “Global Internet and social media access represent the biggest shift since the industrial revolution, and we want to make it all-inclusive.”

“Nokia is deeply passionate about connecting people – to one another and the world around them,” said Nokia President and CEO Stephen Elop. “Over the years, Nokia has connected well over a billion people. Our industry is now at an exciting inflection point where Internet connectivity is becoming more affordable and efficient for consumers while still offering them great experiences. Universal internet access will be the next great industrial revolution.”

“Today, more than 300 million people use Opera every month to access the Internet. Tomorrow, we have a chance to serve the next 5 billion people connecting on mobile devices in developing countries. It’s in Opera’s DNA to save people time, money and data, and through internet.org we think we can help advance these goals.” — Lars Boilesen, CEO Opera Software.

“Mobile has helped to transform many people’s lives in the emerging regions where often a computing device will be the first and only mobile experience they’ll ever have” said Paul Jacobs, chairman of the board and CEO of Qualcomm Incorporated. “Having shipped more than 11 billion chips, Qualcomm is a market leader that is committed to the goal of bridging the digital divide. We’re pleased to be a part of internet.org and to be working with key ecosystem players to drive this initiative forward.”

“This new initiative has big potential to help accelerate access to the Internet for everyone,” said JK Shin, CEO and President of the IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics. “We’re focused on delivering high quality mobile devices to ensure that the next five billion people have great mobile Internet experiences.”

The Internet.org website launches today and provides an overview of the mission and goals, as well as a full list of the partners. In the coming weeks, it will feature interviews with technology leaders and experts, along with the latest news on Internet.org activities.[/toggle]

August 21, 2013
Mark Zukerberg’s Profile Hacked By A White Hat Hacker

A Palestinian white hat hacker posted a Facebook security issue on the Social Networks’ CEO Mark Zukerberg’s profile a week ago, in an attempt to prove the security extent of the bugs he had found, to the company. Initial bug reporting attempts by him were not acknowledged by the Facebook team.

The hacker, who uses the name of ‘Khalil’, discovered an issue that allowed users to make posts to others’ Timeline pages without even being connected to them on Facebook. Khalil said he tried reporting it to the security team earlier in the week, but as it was not acknowledged. Consequently, he made the post on Zuckerberg’s wall by using the security bug he reported for, probably the only way he could think of getting security’s attention.

It certainly did. The security flaw was fixed as of Thursday, shortly after Khalil posted to Zuckerberg’s page. A post made by a Facebook security team member on Web forum Hacker News said that Khalil’s limited English skills and lack of complete information made it difficult for the team to immediately respond.

The reason could also be because Facebook receives too many bugs each day thanks to the Bug Bounty Program, which pays hackers for sharing the security related bugs.

Despite of all this, Facebook admitted its failure to follow up in its dealings with Khalil.

“We should have pushed back asking for more details here,” Facebook software engineer Matt Jones

The company said that they encourage further bug reports from Khalil and other White Hat hackers looking to help the site.

[via] [via]

August 19, 2013
Where Have We Seen That Before? Facebook Testing Trending Topics Feature

Soon after introducing hashtags, Facebook confirmed that it’s now testing another Twitter-esque feature: trending topics.

“Today we started running a small test that displays topics trending on Facebook,” confirmed the social network. “It is currently only available to a small percentage of U.S. users who use Facebook’s mobile web site (m.facebook.com) and is still in very early stages of development.”

What those mobile users will see is a banner atop their News Feed that will highlight the people and subject matter that Facebook users are talking about the most. Tapping the banner will reveal what their friends are saying about the topic in addition to opinions and feedback from other users they don’t know.

Hopefully, when Facebook rolls out this feature across the site it’ll continue to base trends on newsworthy events being discussed within the community rather than the asinine nonsense users are currently subjected to within the trends section on Twitter.

Facebook has borrowed several features from Twitter over the years, including “@” mentions, verified accounts and the option to follow people.

No word has been given on a timeline for the testing or a full-scale rollout of the Trending Topics system.

Meanwhile, in other news, Facebook today confirmed its Graph Search indexing feature has now rolled out to all members using US English. The feature allows users to find people with similar interests, revisit photos they’ve liked, find recommendations and look for movies and music liked by their friends.

[Via]

August 8, 2013
Facebook Pays Bug Hunters $1 Million, India Second Biggest Recipient
The social media giant ‘Facebook’ has paid over 1 million USD to security researchers who report bugs on their website, with India being the second biggest recipient among other countries. India has over 78 million Facebook users, and now is one of the fastest growing in the Bug Bounty program. The social networking major said 329 people have received rewards, including professional researchers, students and part-timers. The youngest recipient was 13 years old.

A software bug is an error, flaw, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program’s source code or its design, and a few are caused by compilers producing incorrect code.

As per Facebook To qualify for a bounty, you must:
- Adhere to the Responsible Disclosure Policy of Facebook.
- Be the first person to responsibly disclose the bug
- Report a bug that could compromise the integrity of Facebook user data, circumvent the privacy protections of Facebook user data, or enable access to a system within the Facebook infrastructure, such as:
  
  Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
  
  Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF/XSRF)
  
  Broken Authentication (including Facebook OAuth bugs)
  
  Circumvention of our Platform/Privacy permission models
  
  Remote Code Execution
  
  Privilege Escalation
  
  Provisioning Errors
- Use a test account instead of a real account when investigating bugs. When you are unable to reproduce a bug with a test account, it is acceptable to use a real account, except for automated testing. Do not interact with other accounts without the consent of their owners.
- Reside in a country not under any current U.S. Sanctions (e.g., North Korea, Libya, Cuba, etc.
Facebook offers great prize money which is a minimum of $500 and there is no maximum amount they have quoted, as each bug is awarded a bounty based on its severity and creativity.

Our Bug Bounty program allows us to harness the talent and perspective of people from all kinds of backgrounds, from all around the world,Two of the bounty recipients have taken up full-time jobs with the Facebook security team” Facebook Security Engineer Collin Greene said
August 5, 2013
Facebook Planning 15-Second Ads For Your News Feed

Facebook plans to introduce 15-second television-style ads to its Newsfeed, opening the door to a potentially crazy-lucrative new advertising option. Bloomberg reports that Facebook will sell the ad space for up to $2.5 million a commercial, and that commercial spots will initially run for a full day. The commercials will be targeted, so advertisers will run ads specific to age and gender.

The social network currently allows advertisers to upload videos to their Facebook page and then broadcast them to a user’s news feed. The new service would let marketers buy their way directly into a person’s feed with a 15-second pitch, according to Bloomberg.

As TheNextWeb reports, assuming the $2.5 million per day price is accurate, the new ads would create an immediate boost for Facebook’s bottom line. Considering that the company brought in $1.81 billion in revenue during the second quarter of 2013, a quarter worth of commercials at the highest price could hypothetically drive over 12 percent growth by adding as much as $225 million in revenue.

With Facebook’s incredible dominance of global social networking and the sheer influence of the site on many users’ daily lives, it begs the question – where could unhappy users even migrate to, without losing so many digital connections, photos, and the ability to instantly keep in touch with just about everyone they know?

[Via]

July 31, 2013
Instagram Deleting Posts Uploaded Through Third Party Windows Phone App

Those of you using Instance, the unofficial Instagram client for Windows Phone, have probably noticed that things aren’t running as smoothly as they should since yesterday. Indeed Instance seems to be in some trouble.

Numerous users report that photos that they share to the social photo service are being deleted shortly after being uploaded. This issue is in addition to an earlier problem that saw some users receiving a log-in error message when trying to use the app, although the two may be connected.

The problems started when Instagram changed their keys that are used to authenticate, and Windows Phone users obviously got left out. However that problem was quickly fixed once Daniel Gary, the app’s developer, got wind of it.

The Facebook-owned photo-based network hasn’t developed an official Instagram app for Windows Phone users. As a result, people have been forced to use third-party clients, such as the popular Instance application.

There’s no clear explanation why this is happening and the app’s creator Daniel Gary half-jokingly posted the tweet below.

Evidently Instagram has little spies that watch every @WindowsPhone user and deletes their images after uploading. #onlythingicanthinkof

— Daniel Gary (@danielgary) July 30, 2013

It’s unclear at this point whether the automatic deletions are a technical problem, or an intentional decision by Instagram to disincentivize third-party applications on the Windows Phone platform.

July 30, 2013