Developer news
New Opportunities to Display New Content

We want to help developers ensure that content is delivered only to those for whom it’s appropriate. Along those lines, at the end of August we announced the new Demographic Restrictions feature, and our plans to revise our policies concerning alcohol content. Effective immediately, applications can now contain content promoting, facilitating, or referencing the sale of alcoholic beverages -- content that was previously prohibited -- as long as the Demographic Restrictions feature is used in the way specified by the new policy on the Platform Policy page of the Developer Wiki. Additionally, effective noon Pacific time 6 January 2009, we require that all content related to alcoholic beverages -- including unbranded, generic drink images -- be available only under Demographic Restriction. Depending on the primary purpose or focus of your application, you may be required to use the admin.setRestrictionInfo API method to restrict the entire application or you may be able to use the fb:restricted-to FBML tag to display alternate content. Please see the Platform Policy page on the wiki for more information.

In the past month we have also made several improvements to the Demographic Restrictions feature that we think you'll find extremely useful. First, we have modified the age and location parameters for the API method. Whereas previously, you had to set the same age restrictions across all countries in the location parameter, you now have the ability to set specific age restrictions for different countries. This gives you the ability to vary the restrictions across different locations for even greater flexibility. Secondly, we are releasing a new parameter called type. Type is basically a combination of pre-set age and location parameters that act as if you had manually entered the full itemized list of restrictions for what we believe to be the alcohol content requirements for almost every country in the world. If you wish, your application can then use the "alcohol" type instead of manually setting each age for each individual country. Currently, "alcohol" is the only type made available but there is the opportunity for others to follow as we find necessary or useful. For more information on types, see the documentation on the wiki.

Please note that, as the developer, you are responsible for ensuring that your application complies with all legal requirements in the country where it is viewable. You are also required to maintain compliance with Facebook Platform Policy and Guidelines. Please make sure you check out the Platform Policy wiki page for all requirements and additional information.

For any confidential questions or matters, please contact us using the new Web form within the Developer application. Otherwise, please use the Developer Forum, where we'll be participating and the whole community can join in the conversation.