> Facebook doing that is actually good, to protect consumers from data abuse after incidents like cambridge analytica.

There is nothing here stopping cambridge analytica from doing this again, they will provide whatever details needed. But a small pre launch personal project work that might use a facebook publishing application can't be developed or tested without first going through all the bureaucracy.

Nevermind the non profit 'free' application you might want to create on the FB platform, lets say a share chrome extension "Post to my FB", for personal use, you can't do this because you can't create an application without a company and IVA/TAX documents. It's hostile imo.

Before, you could create an app, link your ToS, privacy policy etc, verify your domain via email, and then if users wanted to use your application they would agree, this is how a lot of companies still do it. I'm actually not sure why FB do this specifically.

Facebook knew very early and very well about the data harvesting that was going on at Cambridge Analytica through their APIs. They acted so incredibly slowly and not-harsh that it's IMO hard to believe that they did not implicitly support it.

> to protect consumers

We are talking about Meta. They have never, and will never, protect customers. All they protect is their wealth and their political power.

Is it? I’ve never touched Facebook api, but it sounds ridiculous that you need to provide tax details for DEVELOPMENT. Can’t they implement some kind of a sandbox with dummy data?

They just want people to use facebook. If you can see facebook content without being signed in they have a harder time tracking you and showing you ads.