On Tuesday, Dennis Harrison released a new iPhone application that lets Facebook users view those friends who’ve recently removed them as a friend. Let’s be honest, getting removed as a friend happens to the best of us. There have been a number of applications on the web that have let users know when their friends remove them, however Facebook has not approved of these applications for obvious reasons. Since launching on Tuesday, Facebook has gone ahead and disabled the application.
While we all would like to know those individuals who are removing us as friends, Facebook knows that such applications create an immense amount of drama and can result in users associating negative emotions with the service. For that reason among others, Facebook has decided to shut down the service. I just paid $0.99 for the application since I didn’t know it was disabled at the time but it’s pretty clear that Facebook has since shut it down.
If you really want to know which of your friends have removed you as a friend, you are better off using the Facebook friend checker greasemonkey script which Facebook can’t block. Any service which attempts to use Facebook’s API for the purpose of notifying users about those friends who’ve defriended them are typically banned. Yes, being unfriended is extremely commonplace.
In fact it’s so common that we wrote our Facebook unfriend recovery guide after finding out that the New Oxford American Dictionary officially added the term last year. While you may really want to know which of your friends are unfriending you, don’t pay $0.99 for the defriended iPhone application because it doesn’t work anymore!!
Update
In regards to Facebook disabling the application, this developer violated section 2 of the Facebook Platform developer agreement which states “you must not notify a user that someone has removed the user as a friend.”
Who has paid this application will see the money come back?
Why Apple put this application in appStore if it was outlaw?
IT
Comment by g369 — January 15, 2010 @ 12:34 am
Great – just bought this and immediately it doesn't work. Anyone know if I can get my money back?
Comment by Liam — January 15, 2010 @ 2:20 am
FB just amazes me with its we know best attitude. I guess they think it doesnt matter if we piss off half our members because we would still have 175 million left over. When they remember that their community is what MAKES them, then maybe they will not have so much drama with them!
Comment by Ric — January 15, 2010 @ 3:50 am
If you don't realize who defriended you, does it really matter? I realized that back in my Myspace days; got dropped by a guy out of the blue. It literally took me DAYS to figure out who was missing from my list. Had a hearty laugh when I realized that being dropped from someone you didn't even notice was gone is hardly anything to fret over! And it isn't always insulting. I've defriended very weak connections; people who probably woudn't notice I was missing either!
Comment by Ally — January 15, 2010 @ 7:05 am
I bought this and it immediately did not work.
The fact that i-Doodz left this up KNOWINGLY while it did not work seems manipulative and dishonest.
I left a comment on itunes asking for my money back and have heard from NOONE.
They MUST have known that there was a risk of removal when they created the app and were basically trying to scam us all out of 99 cents for as long as they could.
Comment by B — January 15, 2010 @ 9:50 am
I got it for free and it works!
Comment by Luna8899 — February 1, 2010 @ 6:44 pm
hi, i have an apple iphone, and the facebook app doesnt let you unfriend people. any thoughts?
Comment by Joseph hampton — July 30, 2010 @ 4:26 am
Way to go Facebook. Let's control what people see.
Comment by Lee — March 5, 2011 @ 4:04 pm
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