Users of numerous popular iPhone apps such as Spotify, Venmo, Tinder, TikTok, DoorDash, and Pinterest experienced persistent app crashes as a result of a bug in Facebook's SDK this week. The crash reports began coming in around 6:30pm Eastern yesterday, but the issue has since been resolved.
Not long after the problem emerged, it was revealed to have been caused by a server-side change by Facebook. "A new release of Facebook included a change that triggered crashes for some users in some apps using the Facebook iOS SDK. We identified the issue quickly and resolved it. We apologize for any inconvenience," a Facebook spokesperson told The Verge.
The Facebook SDK is included in apps by developers for a number of reasons, from offering single sign-on using users' Facebook accounts to enabling sophisticated metrics for Facebook ads. The apps were attempting to communicate with Facebook's servers and crashing as a result. The crashes happened even if users were not logged into Facebook, did not have any apps made by Facebook installed, or were not using any Facebook-related features in the affected apps.
Many users aren't aware that the Facebook SDK is included in—and often collecting data inside—most of their favorite apps or that apps like Spotify check in with Facebook servers. But widespread reporting on this issue is exposing more users to that fact, and that has led to some outrage on social media platforms.
Developers, too, were incensed. A GitHub thread is filled with reports from developers whose apps and users were affected. "To stop crashes from the Facebook SDK, some devs tried commenting out any code that calls Facebook," Halide developer Ben Sandofsky said on Twitter. "Nothing worked."
Developers were frustratedRead More – Source
[contf] [contfnew] 
arstechnica
[contfnewc] [contfnewc]
