Facebook permanently banned a developer after he made an app to let users delete their news feed
A developer who designed a tool to let people essentially delete their Facebook news feeds says he was served with a cease-and-desist letter and permanently kicked off the tech giant's platform.
Louis Barclay, a developer in the UK, is the creator of a browser extension called Unfollow Everything. The extension lets users automatically unfollow all their friends and pages on Facebook, leaving their news feed blank. Barclay told Insider people could still connect to their friends and family on Facebook when using the extension.
Barclay published Unfollow Everything on the Google Chrome store in July 2020 and said it attracted attention from researchers at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, who wanted to study the impact of having no news feed on people's happiness on Facebook, as well as the amount of time they spent on the platform.
In July of this year, Barclay received a cease-and-desist letter from Facebook's lawyers, he said. Barclay published a redacted version of the letter online. Insider reviewed an unredacted version to verify its authenticity.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/facebook-permanently-banned-a-developer-after-he-made-an-app-to-let-users-delete-their-news-feed/ar-AAPn2xt
