Introducing Facebook Graph API v16.0 and Marketing API v16.0

Today, we are releasing Facebook Graph API v16.0 and Marketing API v16.0. As part of this release, we are highlighting changes below that we believe are relevant to parts of our developer community. These changes include announcements, product updates, and notifications on deprecations that we believe are relevant to your application(s)’ integration with our platform.

For a complete list of all changes and their details, please visit our changelog.

General Announcements and Updates

WhatsApp Business Platform Error Responses

As part of our ongoing effort to improve API error response behavior, we have made the following changes.

• Error subcodes, which are rarely used and should not be relied upon, will no longer be included in v16.0+ error responses. Use code and details instead.
• Error code 100 ("code":100) had multiple unique titles which indicated the nature of a given error. All code 100 errors will now use Invalid Parameter as their title. Old titles that described the nature of a given code 100 error have been moved to the details property. This change is also now reflected in webhooks payloads that describe a code 100 error response.
• Webhook errors objects have gained a new message property which maps to the message property in API error response payloads.

Developer Platform will now require Business Verification for Advanced Access to Any APIs

As announced on Feb 01, 2023, Meta will now ask developers to verify their businesses in order to get advanced access for any permission on the Meta Developer Platform as a part of our process to help confirm the authenticity and legitimacy of a business or organization.

For apps created after Feb 01, 2023, we will begin rolling this out incrementally when new apps request advanced access. Apps created before Feb 01, 2023 with advanced access will be required to be linked to a verified business beginning on May 01, 2023. For a list of permissions that require business verification before they can be approved for advanced access, see this page.

Deprecations & Breaking Changes

Deprecate Trip Consideration

In 2018, we launched Trip Consideration as a toggle travel advertisers could turn on that would prioritize ad delivery to people who have expressed intent to travel, but have not yet decided where to go. Trip Consideration worked in conjunction with existing targeting options to help advertisers deliver ads to the right people at the right time across Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network. Over the last 4 years, through continuous development of our machine learning systems and extensive testing, we are now able to help travel advertisers reach consumers that intend to travel and achieve similar performance goals without the toggle as an option.

Starting February 2nd 2023, the Trip Consideration toggle will be removed as an option in Ads Manager and the API for new campaigns. We’ve determined the toggle is no longer necessary and advertisers are expected to see the same performance without the toggle. In the interim, turning the toggle on or off is unlikely to noticeably impact campaign performance.

As machine learning models improve, the same goals and performance can now be achieved without the toggle as an option, so we believe it will provide a more streamlined experience to remove it.

Deprecate Flight Ad Prospecting

In September 2018, we launched Flight Ads for Prospecting with success. In mid-2021, the product began to experience technical challenges and errors were identified that prevented campaigns from running efficiently. Therefore, we made the decision to proactively tell advertisers to pivot to other prospecting options. The retargeting capability still remains and can be used by advertisers.

If you or a partner of yours is currently using Flight Ads prospecting, we recommend any existing campaigns will be turned off by May 1, 2023.

Deprecation of the Instant Articles Ad Placement

We will be removing Instant Articles and the Instant Articles ad placement from Facebook starting April 20, 2023. We first introduced Instant Articles in 2015 to allow publishers to create interactive media articles on mobile and monetize them with ads on Facebook. However, news discovery is a small part of the Facebook experience for the majority of people who use the platform, and people tell us they want to see less of this content in their Feeds. As such, we are adjusting our investments to better align with user preferences.

The Instant Articles ad placement will no longer be available for new campaign creation within Ads Manager and the Marketing API starting April 20, 2023. After April 20, 2023, previous ad sets exclusively containing the Instant Articles placement will be paused, and all other ad sets that include the Instant Articles placement will be automatically updated to exclude the placement.

Hide reactions, comments, and tags on content posted to user profiles

With this release, we are implementing a change which will result in the comments, reactions, and tags of the session user to be hidden. The “via” and “sharedposts” fields will return empty data for posts on user profiles as well. This change will only impact content posted to user profiles.

Deprecate support for versions of TLS older than 1.2

To enhance our security posture, we will be deprecating the Graph APIs support for TLS versions older than TLS 1.2. If using TLS 1.2, access using static RSA ciphers (AES128-GCM-SHA256, AES256-GCM-SHA384, AES128-SHA, AES256-SHA, DES-CBC3-SHA) will also be deprecated. API requests made with older TLS versions will receive an error after 90 days.

We will also reject web traffic to developer.facebook.com after May 1, 2023 from browsers using older TLS versions (older than TLS 1.2 and using static RSA ciphers [AES128-GCM-SHA256, AES256-GCM-SHA384, AES128-SHA, AES256-SHA, DES-CBC3-SHA] if using TLS1.2).

WhatsApp template categories

Last year, we updated the template category types in WhatsApp Manager and API to capture new use cases being sent on the WhatsApp Business Platform. On February 2, 2023, we will rename these template categories to more accurately reflect these use cases:

• Marketing templates will continue to be named marketing (no change)
• Transactional templates will be renamed to utility
• OTP templates will be renamed to authentication

Businesses must use these updated template categories if creating or editing templates using Graph v16. On May 1, this change will apply to all versions, so any attempts to create or edit templates using any version must use these new categories. To ensure there is no disruption to the template creation or editing process, businesses and BSPs should prioritize updating their API calls to use new category values and templates no later than May 1, 2023.

Some other key dates and considerations are below:

• Template migration: On April 1, WhatsApp will migrate all existing templates to the new template categories. Businesses can view the new categorization of their templates in WhatsApp Manager and will have until May 15 to review. If a business disagrees with the categorization, they can submit an appeal until May 15. Any newly-created or edited templates using Graph API v15 or older versions between April 1 and May 1 will be migrated on May 5th. Hence we recommend beginning to call v16 for template creation starting April 1. As of May 1, any template created in WhatsApp Manager or any Graph API version will reflect the new template categories.
• Template creation in new template categories: As of April 1, all templates created in Graph API v16 and WhatsApp Manager will require category validation for approval. Any newly-created or edited templates may get rejected if WhatsApp detects the selected category is incorrect. The rejection reason will explain that the category selected does not match the template content, per our template guidelines. Businesses can then choose to either modify the category selection and submit again, edit the template or appeal the decision. Effective May 1, newly-created templates with variables will require in-line samples. Effective June 1, businesses will be charged based on new rate cards by template category.

Messenger API Platform

We are simplifying recurring notifications by removing the option to specify message frequency starting v16. For more info, see the Messenger Changelog.

API Version Deprecations:

As part of Facebook’s versioning schedule for Graph API and Marketing API, please note the upcoming deprecations:

Graph API

• February 23, 2023: Graph API v9.0 will be deprecated and removed from the platform
• June 8, 2023: Graph API v10.0 will be deprecated and removed from the platform
• September 14, 2023: Graph API v11.0 will be deprecated and removed from the platform

Marketing API

• April 25, 2023: Marketing API v14.0 will be deprecated and removed from the platform

To avoid disruption to your business, we recommend migrating all calls to the latest API version that launched today.

Facebook Platform SDK

As part of our 2-year deprecation schedule for Platform SDKs, please note the upcoming deprecations and sunsets:

• June 2023: Facebook Platform SDK v9.0 or below will be sunset
• October 2023: Facebook Platform SDK v11.0 or below will be sunset
• February 2024: Facebook Platform SDK v12.0 or below will be sunset