The recent surprise announcement that Meta will soon be shutting down the Facebook Groups API is throwing some businesses and social media marketers into disarray.
On January 23, Meta announced the release of the Facebook Graph API v19.0, which included the news that the company would be deprecating the existing Facebook Groups API. The latter, which is used by developers and businesses to schedule posts in Facebook Groups, will be removed within 90 days, Meta said. This includes all permissions and review capabilities related to the API, he also noted.
Meta explained that an important use case for the API was a feature that allowed developers to reply privately in Facebook Groups. For example, a small business that wanted to send a single message to a person who posted in the Facebook Group or who had commented on the group could be messaged through the API. However, Meta said another change in the new v19.0 API would enable this feature, without the need for the Groups API.
However, the developers told TechCrunch that shutting down the API would cause problems for companies that offer solutions to customers who want to schedule and automate their social media posts. For example, explained Adam Peterson, its CEO VipeCloud, which provides a range of tools for scheduling social media posts, the API shutdown will have a “noticeable impact” on its business, as around 8% of its total revenue is on the chopping block. His company serves about 5,000 Facebook accounts, mostly those owned by female entrepreneurs, he noted.
These customers rely on VipeCloud’s access to the Facebook APIs to post publicly to their Facebook Pages, but also to post privately to Groups to communicate with their group. Private teams are being used as a Slack alternative by these small businesses, he says.
“Every single one of our customers freaks out,” says Peterson.
Other customers of the Groups API may rely on automations programmed by the company’s partners, some of which will be disproportionately affected by the API shutdown.
Peterson explains that clients often rely on agencies to handle various aspects of their posting, such as team building or team motivation. “These agencies, that’s their whole job. This is their livelihood,” he adds.
The move also affects VipeCloud’s competitors, often non-venture-funded companies that build market-specific services and whose revenue can be in the single-digit millions to the low double-digit millions.
“Some of these other companies — they’re going to get killed,” notes Peterson. “And that’s never fun to watch, even if we’re competing against them. Would you rather win on a service or product or something like that,” he continues. “This is real-time platform risk.”
A company named PostMyPartywhich helps social marketers and others schedule and automate online parties, says shutting down the API will put the company out of business.
“I will lose seven years of business and over 10,000 customers,” owner Daniel Burge tells TechCrunch. “A multi-million dollar loss. Let alone the impact on all our customers who rely on our software,” he adds.
PostMyParty is used by small micro-businesses, including health and fitness coaches doing online boot camps in Facebook Groups, work-at-home moms doing social selling, and others with coaching groups or customer groups, Burge says.
The businessman pointed out that this is not the first time that Meta has done something like this.
“Several years ago [Meta] abruptly terminated their Events API, with zero notice,” says Burge. “We just came in one day and everything was broken, we had thousands of support requests open from our customers and it almost destroyed our business that time too.”
Additionally, the developers tell us that Meta’s motivation behind shutting down the API is unclear. On the one hand, Facebook Groups doesn’t generate revenue from ads, and shutting down the API will leave developers without a solution. But Meta has not specified whether this is the case. Instead, Meta’s blog post only mentioned one use case that would be addressed via the new v.19.0 API.
Maurice W. Evans, a certified Meta community manager, believes the move will create challenges for small businesses, developers and digital markets, but also represents a “pivotal change in Meta’s operating philosophy.”
“Removing third-party access to Facebook Groups could significantly change the digital landscape, creating obstacles and opportunities for both community managers and businesses. As a Certified Meta Community Manager, I’ve seen firsthand the value these tools bring to fostering vibrant, engaged online communities. This change highlights the need for adaptability and innovation in our strategies,” Evans tells TechCrunch.
Elsewhere on social media, web design firm Archer Web Design called the news of the API closure “devastating” and said “businesses and social media marketers will be thrown into the stone age with this!” they wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
On Meta’s developer forum, says a programmer are “quite shocked” by the company’s announcement, noting that their app relies on the Groups API and will essentially no longer work when the shutdown occurs.
Others are disappointed that Meta hasn’t made it clear whether posting to Groups will be done with a page access token in the future, as the way the announcement is worded it seems like the place is only relevant for those posting private replies, not posting to the group as a whole. Burge, for one, wonders if the whole thing could just be a messaging error — like maybe Meta forgot to include the part where he was going to note what his new solution would be.
There is concern, however, that Meta is depriving the interests of developers after it recently shut down developer error portal also.
Facebook representatives have not responded to developer comments on its forums (as of this writing), leaving everyone in the dark.
Sadness another developer on the forum, “it affects my ongoing and soon-to-be-started projects. I do not know what to do.”
This story is developing. Meta has been asked for comment and we’ll update as we know more.
