Bot that copies every post of a public Facebook Group

Hi there,
i’m trying to convince people to change from Facebook to Diaspora. But I guess many stay at Facebook as they are very well connected to several groups. If it were possible to bring a clone of such groups to diaspora (with the agreement of that lists owner or admin), as there is for the newsfeed of newspapers, it would be more easy to convince people coming over… Is there an easy way to do what I want to do? Or is a feature like this already in existence and I was unable to find it. What I found is the possibility to copy my posts from diaspora to facebook. But not in the other direction. Hope you are feeling well!
Good day to everybody :slight_smile: wishes
dschones

Hi and thanks for your suggestion. Before going any further, can you please verify if such a feature would be compliant with Facebook terms of use? They are picky with anything accessing their data.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! Sorry, that just made me laugh a lot. I know they’re resistant to anything like Diaspora accessing data, but … hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

You’re right, though; it’s probably not possible for Diaspora to get this sort of data from Facebook. Perhaps if Cambridge Analytica set up a social network?

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Bringing Groups or pages to Diaspora would bei great. One of the Biggest Problems of Diaspora is that it is to complicated for new users. They have too few possibilities to interact shortly like they are suitable with after they are logged in.

Also there are no apps which could sent push messages on new notifications. I know that this development is hard and lasts Long, but at the current state I think it is far behind and even not useable for a broader user mass.

There are many other technologies which should be implemented instead of developing a new way like rocket Chat.

Hey All, Hi @flaburgan,

I’ve read the Terms of Service:

  1. Sharing Your Content and Information:
    “4. When you publish content or information using the Public setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you (i.e., your name and profile picture).”

  2. Safety:
    “2. You will not collect users’ content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our prior permission.”

As a member of Facebook who agreed on the Terms of Service it sounds quite forbidden running automated means… but if one has not agreed on… Can they forbid automated means in general even if one is not a member of Facebook? I am not a lawyer but my understanding of a bot is a maschine unable to agree on any terms of service… and if content is available from www they shouldn’t be able to forbid it?

You have to have a Facebook account (i.e. be a member) in order to authorise any app to interact with Facebook’s API. Unless you hack their system or having some underhand back-channel to their data in the way Cambridge Analytica did. Diaspora ain’t gonna do either of those things. And I’m pretty sure Facebook ain’t gonna give Diaspora permission to do such.

Whether there is a way to harvest post data with a Facebook user’s explicit permission is another matter. People have looked into the possibilities of doing something like this over the years – see this GitHub issue, for example – but as yet no one has found a good way of doing this that Facebook’s practices will allow.

The Terms of Service writes:

  1. Protecting Other People’s Rights:
    "We respect other people’s rights, and expect you to do the same. …
  2. If you collect information from users, you will: obtain their consent, make it clear you (and not Facebook) are the one collecting their information, and post a privacy policy explaining what information you collect and how you will use it."

If one asks the groups owner to add something like a disclaimer on the groups header that every content posted here will also be posted (anonymously or under a pseudonym) in diaspora?!

I don’t see the use to migrate hole user accounts. People may give themselves another profile and their digital self an update in Diaspora*. But having access to groups and information they used to consume, share or work with is something different. By the way… Is there something like a group on diaspora?