Yes, Facebook API changes are happening. And you and I are going to be just fine.

Lakshmi Kumaraswami
February 27, 2015 • 2 min read
Updated on May 2, 2017
Unmetric’s rolling with the Facebook API changes, and so should you!
Everyone and their mother is worried about what April 30 2015 is going to bring. And before you start packing your Game of Thrones box set for your underground bunker, there is no apocalypse on the horizon. We’re talking about the changes to the Facebook API that will be implemented that day. And we’re here to tell you why you should chill out.
First, let’s tell you why their API is so important. An API is an established set of rules from a company that one must follow to access their data. This data can include names, email addresses and location. You get this information by making well-placed calls to the API. Many applications make calls to Facebook’s API including those quizzes that will tell you who your spirit animal is, procrastinating tools like Candy Crush and good ol’ Unmetric.
So why are people freaking out? Because they’re making changes to their API and people don’t like change. For starters, they are withdrawing the ability to access hashtags statistics, giving the user more control over the information they post publicly. They also launched their Video API that gives you the ability to restrict the audience by age, gender and location, set an expiration date for the videos and upload longer clips.
Sounds okay so far? There’s more.
The changes will remove access to data about your friends and to the list of the groups you belong to. They are also changing the classification for their user ids, which means, depending on when you log in, a user can have two different user ids, which could make things confusing when accessing data about one particular user. You can read about all the changes on their official changelog.
What does that mean for Unmetric? Will we be able to give you all the data like you’re used to getting? The answer is ‘Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes!’ Just because they’ve changed, doesn’t mean we have to. Unmetric’s process to access information will not be affected by the changes to the API.
However, we know that one day there might be a change that could possibly evoke the same feelings we have about pop ups on videos – mildly troublesome, but not the end of the world. But Unmetric is continuously evolving and looking for new ways to give you the data you need. So we assure you, when that day comes, we’ll be ready and so will you.