This guide will be proactively updated according to the progress of the situation.

Beginning December 16, 2020, several Facebook Messenger API features will experience temporary limitations that we will outline below.

To comply with new privacy regulations in the European Union, Facebook will be making updates to the Messenger API experience that will minimally impact users, developers, developer partners, and any other businesses using apps enabled by Messenger, such as the Socialbakers Community module. It also impacts the Messenger experience on Facebook itself.

Technical Limitations Implied - General

Facebook’s temporary limitation will impact the Direct Messaging experience for the following audience: Europe pages, pages with admins in Europe, any chats with people in Europe.

At Socialbakers, we always stay in full compliance with Facebook’s platform policies. And we'd like to highlight that every 3rd party application using the Facebook Messenger API, including Socialbakers, will experience the impact of this update.

These are the main technical limitations implied:

• Impacted audience - Europe, and contacts with European users:
  - Europe Pages in all chats
  - Pages with admins in Europe in all chats
  - Any chats with people in Europe
  - Any other businesses or users contacting any of the above
  
  
• Impacted countries: All of the 30 European Economic Area (EEA) countries:
  - All European Union member states
  - Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and the United Kingdom.
  
  
• Impacted features (general) - Facebook/Instagram Direct Messages Only!
  - Users photo for European users in Facebook Direct Message conversations will not be displayed for the time being
  - Receiving certain attachments in Facebook Direct Messages conversations will not be possible (incoming) for the time being
  - Sending attachments through Facebook direct messages will not be possible (outgoing) for the time being 
  - Instagram Direct Messages - receiving and sending attachments won't be working for the time being
  
  

What is the impact on Socialbakers' messaging experience?

The change will mainly impact the availability of European user data in the API (user full name, user photo) in Socialbakers' Community module. Our teams work closely with Facebook partners to ensure that the update will cause minimal disruption to your messaging workflow. 

Socialbakers Features Impacted

• Community Module - Facebook Direct Messages:
  - Profile photos from European end-users will not be shown for Facebook Direct Message conversations for the time being. Instead, you'll see a placeholder image.
  - Receiving certain attachments in Facebook Direct Message conversations will not be possible for the time being.
  
  The image below reflects how the will the limitations look like in Socialbakers Community Module, on the desktop version:
  
  
  
  And the mobile version:
  
  

No data will be lost!

• The change will impact only Direct Messages and user details available for EU users, mainly users' names and profile photos. According to our information, this should only be a temporary limitation until Facebook implements this new EU policy into its systems.
  
  
• There will be no interruption in data gathering. Your ability to engage with your communities from the Socialbakers platform will also remain unaffected. You will continue to receive all incoming communication (comments, direct messages, etc) from across your channels as usual, and there will be no loss of data.