General, Social Media

Is Facebook Playing Fair?

 

Facebook has recently blocked a new photography app called ‘Vintage Camera’, claiming large amounts of negative feedback from Facebook users to be the reason. The app, which is quite similar to Instagram, allows users to apply different filters to photos, creating a vintage style image. The app has a four star rating in the App store, and is used by an estimated 8 million people worldwide.

According to the BBC, the makers of the app, French studio Presslite received the following notification regarding its decision to block the app:

We’ve checked out the circumstances of your app’s restriction, and we found that your app received strong negative feedback from users and their friends. Unfortunately, we will not be able to restore your app’s functionality.

The owner of the app told the BBC that he has received very little negative feedback on the app, and feels that Facebook’s recent purchase of Instragam is at the heart of the matter. He goes on to say:

We don’t understand how Facebook could block the access to millions of users of the Vintage Camera application who want to share their photos on Facebook, only because of a few negative feedback reports. As you all know, Facebook has acquired the Instagram photo-sharing application, and we hope this acquisition is not influencing this kind of access limitation for other photo applications.

Do you think Facebook is unfairly blocking the Vintage Camera app due to its ownership of Instagram, or do you think the move is justified? Have you used Vintage Camera yourself? Let us know your thoughts!

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21572740