Platform Evolution: Facebook Social Plugins to Be Discontinued February 2026
Postedabout 2 months agoActiveabout 2 months ago
developers.facebook.comTechstory
calmneutral
Debate
20/100
FacebookSocial PluginsWeb Development
Key topics
Facebook
Social Plugins
Web Development
Facebook is discontinuing its Social Plugins, including the Like button, on third-party sites by February 2026, sparking discussion about the impact on media sites and online interactions.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Light discussionFirst comment
4m
Peak period
2
0-1h
Avg / period
1.7
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Nov 10, 2025 at 12:41 PM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Nov 10, 2025 at 12:45 PM EST
4m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
2 comments in 0-1h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Nov 10, 2025 at 7:52 PM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
ID: 45878457Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 1:39:00 PM
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
Media sites in particular used to try to drive people to click the Like button, causing their articles to appear prominently on Facebook. And since it was an <iframe> running on every site, Facebook would automatically know what articles you viewed, data that they could use to target ads to you.
How/why did that die out, I wonder?
It didn't even have to be someone with an FB profile, they surely had shadow profiles of a lot of Internet users (when Zuck appeared before congress he dodged a question about this).
Just like Spotify or Netflix's recommendation engine, that's a gold mine for ads..
Also..
* In that time we moved from desktop to mobile; clicking that tiny button was difficult on mobile and they couldn't replace it with a comparable mechanic
* Changes to third-party cookie and XHR rules in browsers made the data less reliable
I did used to like reading HPE spec sheets for equipment and there was always a "Click to like on Facebook" button at the bottom. I'm not going to broadcast to my friends that I like eight different RAID card models thanks.