0

I've been looking online for the past two hours and the only way I've found to access Facebook's API using R is through the Rfacebook library by creating an app in Facebook's developer's forum.

The reason I'm reluctant to do this is because it requires a posted privacy policy for my app. I'm only using this as a data source to analyze stats, I'm not actually creating an app. I can post the privacy policy for my company's website, but is that what I really should do? Or is there a way to access the API without saying I'm creating an app (since I'm not)?

Litmon
  • 247
  • 3
  • 18
  • I'm not a (frequent) FB user, but from a privacy standpoint I find one statement here a little alarming: *"I"m only using this as a data source ... I'm not actually creating an app."* Any time you can use *any* data, you need to be clear about your use of that data: if, how, and to whom you share data. The fact that no fuzzy-widgets will appear on a page does not reduce the need. I am not a lawyer, but with all of the legal issues recently, this constraint seems somewhat reasonable to me (though I don't know that it is the *only* feasible solution). – r2evans Jul 22 '19 at 15:28
  • I'll caveat this with the assertion that any data from FB or a similar social-media platform has the potential to have personal information, whether intentional or accidental. With that in mind, it's almost as if you need radioactive protocols in place to start using it. – r2evans Jul 22 '19 at 15:30
  • Ok, thank you, that makes sense! Do you think it makes sense to include my company's privacy policy then? It would cover how we use any data (and I'm not looking at individual users, just aggregated data). – Litmon Jul 22 '19 at 15:33
  • I think that's a good start. Again, IANAL, you might want/need to consider GDPR regulations as well, since FB is rather international. Good luck, that's a minefield of *"oops"* and *"I didn't think of that"* moments. – r2evans Jul 22 '19 at 16:12
  • The privacy policy URL is for “external” users that will log in to your app and grant it access to their data - if you don’t really have any, and it will be used only by internal staff (someone’s likely got to login at some point to generate the access tokens necessary to access that data you are interested in), then it isn’t really that important to begin with. But Facebook will perform automated checks on the URL you specify, so make sure it is publicly reachable. – misorude Jul 23 '19 at 06:29
  • If you are still looking for a way to access facebook data from R maybe this package can help you: https://github.com/windsor-ai/windsoraiR. It is a new package, should be on CRAN soon, and it provides convenient way to access windsor.ai data sources where you can have facebook (and other sources as well). – novica Apr 18 '21 at 09:35

0 Answers0