Submitting R/Python scraper to Facebook App Review
Hi everyone, I am a PhD student and I have to collect Facebook data from time to time for my PhD project, I have been using R and it worked just fine. However, after the recent changes in Facebook policy, personal accounts can no longer generate short-lived token, to obtain an access token, we must first create an App, and to enable the App to scrape Facebook data, we must submit an App Review for "Page Public Content Access". I tried submitting my R codes and a screencast of me using the codes, but it was rejected on the basis that: Your screencast doesn't show how the use of this permission directly
improves the user experience in your app. Unfortunately, we also weren't able to determine this from testing your app manually.
All permissions data must be visibly used within your app. We do not accept
permission requests for data that you may decide to use later.
From above feedback, it seems the page public content access is only available for built-in Facebook App (like NetVizz), instead of standalone R/Python programs. I am wondering if anyone has successfully passed the review? Could you share your experience of how to do it?
Thanks a lot! Best regards, Justin The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
Justin: Thank you for asking. I am in a similar boat; my RA is trying to write a new FB scraper. I submitted my application last evening and it was a pain. Going by your experience, it is likely that FB will decline my application as well. I will let you my fortune favors me. If you are able to get your R scraper to work, please consider emailing me. Good luck! -----Original Message----- From: Air-L <air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org> On Behalf Of Justin Ho Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2018 4:04 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] Submitting R/Python scraper to Facebook App Review Hi everyone, I am a PhD student and I have to collect Facebook data from time to time for my PhD project, I have been using R and it worked just fine. However, after the recent changes in Facebook policy, personal accounts can no longer generate short-lived token, to obtain an access token, we must first create an App, and to enable the App to scrape Facebook data, we must submit an App Review for "Page Public Content Access". I tried submitting my R codes and a screencast of me using the codes, but it was rejected on the basis that: Your screencast doesn't show how the use of this permission directly
improves the user experience in your app. Unfortunately, we also weren't able to determine this from testing your app manually.
All permissions data must be visibly used within your app. We do not accept
permission requests for data that you may decide to use later.
From above feedback, it seems the page public content access is only available for built-in Facebook App (like NetVizz), instead of standalone R/Python programs. I am wondering if anyone has successfully passed the review? Could you share your experience of how to do it? Thanks a lot! Best regards, Justin
All, We had all but given up on the Facebook API, even though when we connected what became DiscoverText back in 2009, it was a very robust source of diverse post & comment data, including via free text search. Over time, it got to the point where even many public or formerly public pages were delivering no data at all over the API. Many goose eggs. Post 2014 API changes, we just assumed it was more or less useless for research. However, I have a few odd facts to report. Roughly 10% of all data flowing into our platform still comes from Facebook. I have been scratching my head about this for a while, since I can barely imagine which pages are giving up this data and we have done no work to find out what the story is. Mostly we tell people Twitter wants to be studied and Facebook does not. Second, based on a client request, I just tried yesterday to get the comments from the Mary Kay Facebook page, anticipating few or none. Much to my surprise, we are at 193,000+ items and counting. I have not personally had this kind of success getting FB data since before the 2014 changes. Of course, I have rarely even tried it, because of all the searches and pages that return no data. This now has me wondering more about the specific role of the Page Owners and their settings. I'm not an engineer. However, there are clearly page-specific factors that are impacting the ability of folks to access Facebook data for research purposes, irrespective of whether you are using R, Python, or a commercial application. Researchers may need to actively work with Facebook page owners to get better data access. Another idea is to send a delegation to Facebook to talk about this. I know there is something happening under the auspices of Gary King's work, but I have not seen the Call to Action yet. A decade ago you could get a meeting at Facebook. Is that still true? I'd like to be a fly on that wall. ~Stu Stu ShulmanMA Olympic Development Program (ODP), Assistant Coach NEFC-West 2008 Boys, Head Coach On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 10:07 PM Astvansh, Vivek <astvansh@iu.edu> wrote:
Justin:
Thank you for asking. I am in a similar boat; my RA is trying to write a new FB scraper. I submitted my application last evening and it was a pain. Going by your experience, it is likely that FB will decline my application as well. I will let you my fortune favors me. If you are able to get your R scraper to work, please consider emailing me.
Good luck!
-----Original Message----- From: Air-L <air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org> On Behalf Of Justin Ho Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2018 4:04 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] Submitting R/Python scraper to Facebook App Review
Hi everyone,
I am a PhD student and I have to collect Facebook data from time to time for my PhD project, I have been using R and it worked just fine. However, after the recent changes in Facebook policy, personal accounts can no longer generate short-lived token, to obtain an access token, we must first create an App, and to enable the App to scrape Facebook data, we must submit an App Review for "Page Public Content Access". I tried submitting my R codes and a screencast of me using the codes, but it was rejected on the basis that:
Your screencast doesn't show how the use of this permission directly
improves the user experience in your app. Unfortunately, we also weren't able to determine this from testing your app manually.
All permissions data must be visibly used within your app. We do not accept
permission requests for data that you may decide to use later.
From above feedback, it seems the page public content access is only available for built-in Facebook App (like NetVizz), instead of standalone R/Python programs. I am wondering if anyone has successfully passed the review? Could you share your experience of how to do it?
Thanks a lot!
Best regards, Justin _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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participants (3)
-
Astvansh, Vivek -
Justin Ho -
Stuart Shulman