For a decade, a web browser called Friendly has offered users a chance to have greater control over their social media experience. It allows them to re-order their Facebook feeds, display their pages in different colored “skins,” and block ad tracking. But all of that came to a screeching halt this summer when lawyers for Facebook contacted Friendly and demanded they stop offering their services. According to Facebook, the browser posed a privacy threat akin to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. However, one notable nonprofit vehemently disagrees.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote a fierce letter to Facebook standing up for Friendly, then posted a scathing blog on its site accusing Facebook of using privacy as an excuse to bludgeon services that take away its control.

“Friendly is a web browser, so it is our understanding that Friendly does not itself ‘gain entry to’ or ‘communicate with’ Facebook in any way,” the EFF wrote to Facebook. “Like other popular browsers such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, therefore, Friendly does not ‘access’ Facebook; Facebook users do. But presumably Facebook knows better than to directly accuse its users of being malicious hackers if they change the colors of websites they view.”

Of course, it’s a good thing for Facebook to want to prevent another privacy disaster like Cambridge Analytica. But cracking down on small, innocent web browsers is not the way to go about it.

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