Facebook Shuts Down Apps Without Prior Warning

Over the last few days, Facebook, the phenomenally popular social networking site, has begun to shutdown numerous applications that are available on the site without any warnings to users or the developers of the applications.
The decision to remove the applications came as a part of a “new enforcement system” that Facebook recently put into place to respond to complaints made by users and to reduce spamming on the platform.
A statement made by a Facebook engineer indicated that most of the applications had been disabled because of high negative user feedback or because they had very high mark-as-spam numbers.
According to the blog All Facebook, the shutdown mostly affected smaller applications with tens of thousands of users, but the move also affected some popular blockbusters like Photo Effect, which has 7.5 million registered users, Social Interview, and Good Reads.
However, Good Reads, unlike most other applications repealed the decision and was restored a few days later.
Facebook’s ability to shutdown applications without a warning and without providing a reason to the owners serves as a warning to many developers.
According to Otis Chandler, the CEO of Good Reads, “We didn’t know the reason we were shut down, but audited our app and cleaned up a few things just to be sure, and appealed again…A great reminder of the power Facebook has over all of us developers”.