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Vine users unable to search for Facebook friends

Did Facebook just pull a Twitter on Twitter's new video-sharing service?

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Donna Tam Staff Writer / News
Donna Tam covers Amazon and other fun stuff for CNET News. She is a San Francisco native who enjoys feasting, merrymaking, checking her Gmail and reading her Kindle.
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Donna Tam
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Vine is not yet a day old and Facebook is already shutting its virtual doors to Twitter's newly acquired video-sharing service.

Vine users are suddenly blocked from using the app's friend-finding feature to look up Facebook friends. Instead of letting you search for your Facebook buddies, the Vine app responds with the message, "Vine is not authorized to make this Facebook request."

It looks like Facebook has blocked Vine from accessing its API, or application programming interface, which would let Vine extract that data.

The move sounds like what Twitter did to a few other companies last year, including LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Facebook's Instagram. It shut off access to its API shortly after announcing that it was cracking down on developers who didn't help its bottom line.

We have contacted Facebook for comment and we'll update when we hear back. A Twitter representative told CNET, "We don't have anything to share beyond the notification that's in the app."

It's not just Twitter that Facebook has its eye on. Earlier today, the social network reportedly blocked Yandex's newly launched social search app Wonder from accessing its API, and it reportedly blocked voice messaging app Voxer last week.

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