Facebook’s Restrictions on User Data Cast a Long Shadow

DEEPA SEETHARAMAN and ELIZABETH DWOSKIN:

few months ago, social psychologist Benjamin Crosier was building an app to look for links between social-media activity and ills like drug addiction.

Then, he was stopped in his tracks after Facebook Inc. limited outsiders’ access to information about its roughly 1.5 billion users. Dr. Crosier, a postdoctoral fellow at Dartmouth College, is petitioning the company to get some of that data back.

His experience highlights how Facebook’s restrictions on its user data, which were announced last year and put into effect in May, are rippling through academia, business and presidential politics.

Dozens of startups that had been using Facebook data have shut down, been acquired or overhauled their businesses. Political consultants are racing to find new ways to tap voters’ social connections ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

“Facebook giveth and Facebook taketh away,” said Nick Soman, who collected the locations of Facebook users’ friends to enhance his anonymous-chat app, Reveal. He later sold the app to music service Rhapsody International Inc. Mr. Soman said he admires Facebook, but learned a lesson about relying on third parties for a key component of his app.