A couple of weeks ago, the popular multimedia editing app Prisma introduced Facebook Live integration. In short, this feature allowed mobile users to customize their Facebook Live broadcasts with Prisma’s set of enhancing tools. People who had Prisma installed on their phones were able to launch the Facebook app, start broadcasting and then edit their videos with Prisma’s filters on the go. In other words, this feature could have also been called Prisma for Facebook, because that’s how it worked.
Yes, “worked,” because it doesn’t anymore. As it turns out, Facebook has just blocked Prisma’s latest feature. More specifically, the social media giant prevented Prisma’s access to its application programming interface (API), a set of protocols and tools which any developer needs to use for their app to work with Facebook Live Video. While this decision came out of the blue, it isn’t that surprising seeing how Facebook announced its own filters for Live Video broadcasts on the very same day Prisma rolled out the aforementioned functionality. Namely, Facebook has been rather aggressive when it comes to introducing video-related features to its services as the company believes video content is the future of the Internet; a future Facebook understandably wants to be a part of.
Not surprisingly, the Menlo Park-based social media giant gave a more diplomatic explanation of this decision to Prisma. As reported by TechCrunch, Facebook notified Prisma of its decision to block its Live Video integration by stating that the Prisma app streams video from a phone camera, adding that the same functionality is already supported by the Facebook app. Therefore, Facebook concluded that Prisma is copying its features and blocked its access to the Live Video API, telling the Russian company that the said API was released in order to help people develop solutions for broadcasting videos on Facebook from external cameras, and not phone cameras.
As the Live Video API FAQ page specifically contradicts that claim, it’s not unreasonable to presume that Facebook made this decision simply because it doesn’t want competition within its app, at least not until its very own real-time video filters make their debut. Both Prisma and Facebook have yet to issue any public comments on this turn of events.