Facebook Developers has introduced a new feature today called 'Test Users' which would allow app developers to create multiple user accounts for testing the working of the apps. Earlier there was no provisions to create multiple accounts and there was always the risk of getting the profiles blacklisted if any individual tries to create fake profiles. But with 'Test Users' API, one can now create as many as 50 user accounts for testing their functionality of apps without bearing any penalty for such account creation. However, this new feature which they believe will boost their app development is bound by some limitations for use in order to be exempted from the Facebook's internal spam and fake user profile detection system.

• All the test user accounts that will be created are allowed to engage into any interaction only with those of the other test user accounts. Therefore, they will not be eligible to communicate with any real user account within the site.
• They are prohibited for making any interaction with public contents like Pages etc.
• The privilege of access will be available to any other developer of the said application.
• For all other developer having access to the applications will be limited to usage under live mode or sandbox mode but any further manipulations like editing the technical settings are barred to be performed.
• All the test users are meant to remain as such and cannot be converted to normal users in future.

“This feature is absolutely key for us to be able to work on stability and bugs,”, said Facebook developer relations head Douglas Purdy. “Our hope is that this lets folks build automated tests to give us an early warning into any breaking changes we miss… This should help people give us narrowed report of bugs they encounter in their test suites.”

Thus by making available this new feature for Facebook app developers, it would be boon for them to work with their applications within the live platform thereby enhancing the stability and performance of each of the application while they are being developed. This 'Test User' feature will be available for App Developers through the API as of now but is expected to be subsumed with the developer app in the near future.


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