Recently Facebook has decided to stop giving its competitors access to its social graph. In particular, it cut off Twitter’s Vine video sharing app and messaging app Voxer from “Find Friends,” the social network’s API that enables users to connect with their Facebook friends. The company is pointing to its Platform Policy, which states that competing social networks aren’t allowed to use Facebook Platform to “export user data into a competing social network without our permission.”
The social network’s decision was a headache for the much-buzzed-about Vine, which Twitter CEO Dick Costolo introduced to the world in a tweet Wednesday. Vine users were told that the pap wasn’t authorized to help them find their Facebook friends using the app.
This move makes sense for Facebook, especially when it comes to cutting off true competitors like Twitter that might vie for the same advertisers. But it could mean that Facebook is isolating itself and creating hurdles for other growing companies. A chilling effect could take place. “No one wants to build an app that relies on Facebook data if it could disappear,” writes Josh Constine at TechCrunch.
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