The Next Web

Why forgotten Facebook and Twitter apps could be real trouble

By Martin Bryant
December 22, 2009
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Facebook appsHow many apps have you connected to your Facebook and Twitter accounts over the years? It may be may more that you think – and they could have the potential to be real trouble.

Just think of all those fun little Facebook apps you signed up for, tried once and then forgot about. They’re all still sat there, with access to your account and personal details. If one of the app developers wanted to, they could cause you a whole world of pain.

Even if you’re quite careful with the apps you install, check your Facebook and Twitter settings and you may be surprised just how many apps you’ve granted ‘additional permissions’ to.

I was slightly shocked to discover an amazing 66 apps had varying levels of access to my account. While most of these long-forgotten novelties couldn’t do much hard with simply the ability post my recent activity with the app to my wall, some had the ability to send me emails and – more frighteningly – access my data even when I wasn’t using the app.

Why forgotten Facebook and Twitter apps could be real troubleIn most cases the developers won’t mean any harm by this but it’s easy to see how some of them could cause trouble By leaving these unused apps with a backdoor to your data you’re leaving yourself open to potential trouble.

With Twitter, 13 apps have read and write access to my account. Most of these are third party Twitter clients like Brizzly and Seesmic but some (Twazzup, for example) I’d forgotten even existed and I may well never use again. As with Facebook, by leaving these connections open you’re leaving yourself open to potential troublemakers who can send messages from your Twitter account if they choose.

So, check your Facebook app connections here and your Twitter app connections here. You may get surprise. If you don’t use it, it’s probably best to lose it.

Martin Bryant UK Editor, The Next Web
Martin Bryant is based in Manchester, UK. A co-founder of the city's monthly Social Media Cafe events and award-winning blogger, he is Digital Content Editor for Marketing Manchester. His main interests are developments in the social web that relate to the mobile and music industries. Twitter, Personal site

  • I frequently go through my apps and indeed revoke access to quite a few of them every time. Thanks for sharing this reminder :-)
  • I frequently go through my apps and indeed revoke access to quite a few of them every time. Very good to share this reminder :-)
  • Just a couple of days ago I realized how many services have access/connect to my fb and twitter. time to clean up a bit :)
    roland
  • Nice reminder! When I first came across my Facebook apps I was in SHOCK! I actually had no idea that I had "saved" all of those things permanently.
  • Actually, I've done this in FB a couple of times before: go through and revoke permissions. Usually, that was because some annoying app kept sending me notifications and that forced me to dig deep to figure out what was going on.

    However, I'd not done it in awhile and hadn't revoked any Twitter permissions. I just cleaned house with both my accounts. Thanks!
  • Nice reminder, many people do not actually revoke permissions for apps from Facebook and Twitter and that could more often than not lead to trouble.

    There are some really nasty apps on twitter which tweet without your permission and that could really take things out of control.
  • Sometimes it is the obvious stuff that we take for granted that is the most important to share. Well done! ~ Donna

    P.s. Half Man Half Biscuit?
  • HMHB are a brilliant band (although they probably wouldn't make sense to people outside the UK). The app is something to do with the song titles if I remember correctly. Ages since I used it.
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