Is it possible to develop a Facebook app that filters updates out of a feed?

Question

Namely, does the Facebook API make this possible? I'd like to leave my news feed intact, but remove posts that meet some criteria for things I don't want to see (e.g., don't show me anything that sounds like Dick Cheney might have said it). Does the Facebook API allow apps to customize a user's normal news feed? I spent a few minutes looking at the facebook developer pages, but didn't see any direct answers to my question, so I was hoping some developers who were experienced with Facebook's API could help me here.

Before anyone mentions it, I don't want to just hide updates from those users. They may post other updates that I want to see, so I'd prefer to filter out updates based on content.

Answer 1

You could parse the news feed into a database on your site then use code to parse whether or not to display it.

Answer 2

yes this is possible but only if all your friends decide to add your application! otherwise you may be not able to access their feeds.

Its been a while since i used Facebook SDK so this may have changed.

Answer 3

The API provides very little news feed integration, and no you can't use the api to prevent news feed items from showing up in a users feed. All you can do is post and get, and you can only post 10 items a day, "significant" interactions. The Facebook API wasn't designed to enhance or alter the core Facebook experience, it was designed to allow developers to create third party apps that add to Facebook within a very limited and tightly controlled sandbox.

Answer 4

There is a Greasemonkey script called "Facebook Purity" which does this. You could probably look at the source and alter it to your specifications.

Answer 5

The Linq to facebook project looks quite interesting and may allow you to do what you are asking (if using .NET 3.5). My apologies for a link to such a pink website ;-)