> People might not want to be seen publicly by everyone
Private accounts (where you have to approve followers manually) exist and as far as I know nobody is calling for making those public. A hypothetical API would still require the credentials of an approved account before returning data of such accounts.
> But it’s not all that hard to exploit this by creating a popular page that lots of people end up sharing some data with
I don't understand what this has to do with an API? You can create a phishing page now.
> This is more or less how the Cambridge Analytica fiasco started. And yes, this was seen as a privacy problem.
Cambridge Analytica created a malicious website that requested access to people's accounts and they granted it. Not only is it on idiots that approved the OAuth consent form, but it doesn't seem like it's got anything to do with what the parent comment was proposing? As far as I know all he was calling for is to provide an API that returns the public data that you can already get via the official web UI or app.
Private accounts (where you have to approve followers manually) exist and as far as I know nobody is calling for making those public. A hypothetical API would still require the credentials of an approved account before returning data of such accounts.
> But it’s not all that hard to exploit this by creating a popular page that lots of people end up sharing some data with
I don't understand what this has to do with an API? You can create a phishing page now.
> This is more or less how the Cambridge Analytica fiasco started. And yes, this was seen as a privacy problem.
Cambridge Analytica created a malicious website that requested access to people's accounts and they granted it. Not only is it on idiots that approved the OAuth consent form, but it doesn't seem like it's got anything to do with what the parent comment was proposing? As far as I know all he was calling for is to provide an API that returns the public data that you can already get via the official web UI or app.