Search code examples
facebookfacebook-graph-apifacebook-access-token

Why does the Facebook Public Search via API return different results when using an access token and when not?

You can try it out yourself.

Be logged in to Facebook and go here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/

Hit the first link in the "Searching" section, called https://graph.facebook.com/search?q=watermelon&type=post. Be sure that it contains your access token as a parameter. Look at the results.

Now remove the access token from the url, hit enter, and look at the results again. They differ. Why?

As far as I'm concerned, the search method does not make use of any permissions. So why is the result not the same?

Solution

  • I think when you put the access token, it takes your own personal information into consideration, which affects the search results.