Sorry Facebook stalkers–all 3.6 million of you. The popular social network has pulled the plug on Breakup Notifier, a recently introduced app that promised to let you know when one of your friends changes their relationship status to single.
After a good round of online criticism (the word “creepy” was bandied about an awful lot), Facebook has apparently pulled the plug on the third-party app. Here’s a note that the site sent to the app’s creator, Dan Loewenherz,
To ensure positive user experiences on Platform, we run routine automated screens that take user feedback, machine learning and various algorithms into account and remove spammy applications. For example, if an application is making an inordinate number of stream.publish calls and receiving a large number of user reports, it may be removed by our automated systems to protect the user experience and the Platform ecosystem.
[RELATED_ARTICLE]Facebook has since issued a statement to the effect that it didn’t so much block Breakup Notifier as tweak it, in order to “provide a positive user experience.” Here you go,
We have automated systems in place to ensure apps on Facebook Platform provide a positive user experience, and we’re currently looking into the issue with “Breakup Notifier”. Additionally, we did not block the “Blackmail Yourself” app. Some features were temporarily disabled this week as we worked with the developer to ensure the app complied with all of our policies, but it has been and continues to be accessible.
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