Facebook has restored the cross-posted tweets that were removed from users’ profiles

Facebook says it has corrected the issue of users’ deleted posts, which had affected those who had previously cross-posted their Tweets to their Facebook profile – a feature that’s no longer supported. Earlier this month, Facebook locked down its API to prevent third-party apps from being able to post to profiles as the logged-in user, and Twitter was one of those apps impacted by the change.

However, the changes to Facebook’s API would not have mass deleted all of users’ cross-posted Tweets. It should have only prevented Twitter users from continuing to automatically post from Twitter to their Facebook profile or business page.

But Twitter, for whatever reason – an accident, one would hope – requested its Facebook app be deleted. This resulted in removals of all the content that had been cross-posted by Twitter to Facebook being also deleted from users’ profiles.

Facebook was in touch with Twitter since then, and received permission to have the app re-enabled. (Though it took longer than expected – Twitter was made aware of the problem early in the evening on Tuesday but it wasn’t until the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday that Facebook confirmed it was restoring the content – which means they received permission from Twitter to do so. Obviously, Facebook can’t just turn on a third-party app again after the developer says to take it down – it had to ask. Twitter, we understand, didn’t give Facebook immediate permission to fix the problem. Maybe it’s still mad about the whole cross-posting thing being turned off?)

While, technically speaking, the error is on Twitter’s side here, Facebook probably should have had some kind of warning in place to alert the app developers – whomever they may be – of the consequences of their decisions. That is, deleting their app would also delete all the content shared through it over the years.

Many Twitter users had heavily relied on the cross-posting feature to maintain their presence on Facebook and continue their discussions with a new audience. The deletions meant they lost years’ worth of Facebook posts and conversations, in many cases.

Facebook says it has restored all the removed content, a spokesperson told TechCrunch via email around 1:20 AM ET on Wednesday. All impacted users should be able to see their cross-posts tweets and their discussions again.

 

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