₦airaland Forum

Good day everyone,

I wanted to share a project I've been working on for the past 7 months.

As a developer, I've always struggled with scraping data from social platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. It's usually a cat-and-mouse game; you write a script, it works for a few days, then they change a class name or block your IP, and you're back to debugging.

I decided to build a unified wrapper around these platforms to handle the messy parts (proxy rotation, captchas, headless browsers) so I could just get the JSON data I needed for my other projects.

It's called SociaVault. It basically lets you fetch public data from 25+ platforms via a simple API call.

I made it pay-as-you-go because I hated paying monthly subscriptions for APIs when I only needed a few requests.

If anyone is working on projects that need social media data (like influencer search tools or marketing dashboards), you might find it useful.

I'm looking for feedback on the API structure and if there are any other platforms you think I should add.

https://sociavault.com

you are better off scraping reasonable platforms like nimc, npf insteqd of random socials except you are doing osint

olamsco2510:
Good day everyone,

I wanted to share a project I've been working on for the past 7 months.

As a developer, I've always struggled with scraping data from social platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. It's usually a cat-and-mouse game; you write a script, it works for a few days, then they change a class name or block your IP, and you're back to debugging.

I decided to build a unified wrapper around these platforms to handle the messy parts (proxy rotation, captchas, headless browsers) so I could just get the JSON data I needed for my other projects.

It's called SociaVault. It basically lets you fetch public data from 25+ platforms via a simple API call.

I made it pay-as-you-go because I hated paying monthly subscriptions for APIs when I only needed a few requests.

If anyone is working on projects that need social media data (like influencer search tools or marketing dashboards), you might find it useful.

I'm looking for feedback on the API structure and if there are any other platforms you think I should add.

https://sociavault.com

Great you did something but beware of the legal implications! Why not channel the energy into building some other useful stuff!
"Scraping data from other apps can lead to legal issues including breach of contract, copyright infringement, and violations of privacy laws like the GDPR and CCPA. The legality often depends on the app's terms of service, the type of data being scraped, and the scraping's purpose, which could result in civil penalties, fines, or even criminal prosecution for unauthorized access to a computer system."

platymus:
Great you did something but beware of the legal implications! Why not channel the energy into building some other useful stuff!
"Scraping data from other apps can lead to legal issues including breach of contract, copyright infringement, and violations of privacy laws like the GDPR and CCPA. The legality often depends on the app's terms of service, the type of data being scraped, and the scraping's purpose, which could result in civil penalties, fines, or even criminal prosecution for unauthorized access to a computer system."

Thank you very much for this. I only scrape publicly available data. Not getting anything behind the login or pay wall. Only data you can see using incognito browser.

Great stuff! Think you could build one to scrape videos and pictures off a whatsapp group?

olamsco2510:
Good day everyone,

I wanted to share a project I've been working on for the past 7 months.

As a developer, I've always struggled with scraping data from social platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. It's usually a cat-and-mouse game; you write a script, it works for a few days, then they change a class name or block your IP, and you're back to debugging.

I decided to build a unified wrapper around these platforms to handle the messy parts (proxy rotation, captchas, headless browsers) so I could just get the JSON data I needed for my other projects.

It's called SociaVault. It basically lets you fetch public data from 25+ platforms via a simple API call.

I made it pay-as-you-go because I hated paying monthly subscriptions for APIs when I only needed a few requests.

If anyone is working on projects that need social media data (like influencer search tools or marketing dashboards), you might find it useful.

I'm looking for feedback on the API structure and if there are any other platforms you think I should add.

https://sociavault.com

website not working

360who:
Great stuff! Think you could build one to scrape videos and pictures off a whatsapp group?

Thank you.
Scraping WhatsApp data would be breaching Meta's policy. Because the data is not public data, its behind a login.

Memberclub:
website not working

Its working now. Please try again, thank you.

olamsco2510:
Thank you.
Scraping WhatsApp data would be breaching Meta's policy. Because the data is not public data, its behind a login.

Oh ok. Thanks for the feedback

platymus:
Great you did something but beware of the legal implications! Why not channel the energy into building some other useful stuff!
"Scraping data from other apps can lead to legal issues including breach of contract, copyright infringement, and violations of privacy laws like the GDPR and CCPA. The legality often depends on the app's terms of service, the type of data being scraped, and the scraping's purpose, which could result in civil penalties, fines, or even criminal prosecution for unauthorized access to a computer system."

You talk about it like hacking lol.

Thereedemer:
You talk about it like hacking lol.

Yes because hacking means "gaining of unauthorized access to data in a system or computer."
So when you you scrape data from apps they can decide to take legal actions. That's why we have 'ethical hacking.'

olamsco2510:
Good day everyone,

I wanted to share a project I've been working on for the past 7 months.

As a developer, I've always struggled with scraping data from social platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. It's usually a cat-and-mouse game; you write a script, it works for a few days, then they change a class name or block your IP, and you're back to debugging.

I decided to build a unified wrapper around these platforms to handle the messy parts (proxy rotation, captchas, headless browsers) so I could just get the JSON data I needed for my other projects.

It's called SociaVault. It basically lets you fetch public data from 25+ platforms via a simple API call.

I made it pay-as-you-go because I hated paying monthly subscriptions for APIs when I only needed a few requests.

If anyone is working on projects that need social media data (like influencer search tools or marketing dashboards), you might find it useful.

I'm looking for feedback on the API structure and if there are any other platforms you think I should add.

https://sociavault.com

What data does this scrap

Thereedemer:
What data does this scrap

Publicly available social media data.
Tiktok - profiles, videos, reels, etc
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube
Threads
Tiktok Shop
Linkedin
Twitter/X
Ad libraries for Facebook, Google and LinkedIn

Many more still coming.

platymus:
Yes because hacking means "gaining of unauthorized access to data in a system or computer."
So when you you scrape data from apps they can decide to take legal actions. That's why we have 'ethical hacking.'

Scraping is not gaining unauthorized access to data. The data is publicly available in the first place. They can only sue you if you get data hidden behind login.

You can check hiQ Labs vs LinkedIn case. They won because there is right to scrape publicly available data from LinkedIn.

Whereas Proxycurl lost their case because they were registering with multiple accounts to scrape data out of linkedin, which is against their ToS

Their might be a thin line between scraping and hacking, but the difference is also wide.

olamsco2510:
Scraping is not gaining unauthorized access to data. The data is publicly available in the first place. They can only sue you if you get data hidden behind login.

You can check hiQ Labs vs LinkedIn case. They won because there is right to scrape publicly available data from LinkedIn.

Whereas Proxycurl lost their case because they were registering with multiple accounts to scrape data out of linkedin, which is against their ToS

Their might be a thin line between scraping and hacking, but the difference is also wide.

Well there are too many things i could have said to reply you but no time just know that there is difference between publicly available data and protected data. Sometimes data data will need to be scraped with user consent. Indeed it is a very thin line because even with publicly available data you can still be charged with illegally using owner's resources and APIs!

platymus:
Well there are too many things i could have said to reply you but no time just know that there is difference between publicly available data and protected data. Sometimes data data will need to be scraped with user consent. Indeed it is a very thin line because even with publicly available data you can still be charged with illegally using owner's resources and APIs!

The hiQ Labs vs. LinkedIn case was a major legal battle over web scraping, where data analytics firm hiQ scraped public LinkedIn profiles for talent analytics, clashing with LinkedIn's anti-scraping measures and CFAA claims. After years of appeals, the Ninth Circuit ruled scraping public data doesn't violate the CFAA, but the case ended in a 2022 consent judgment with a permanent injunction, largely favoring LinkedIn's breach of contract claims, setting precedents on data access, terms of service, and privacy.

Legal Journey
Initial Dispute: LinkedIn sent a cease-and-desist; hiQ sued for declaratory relief, claiming access to public data.

Ninth Circuit (2019): Ruled that scraping public data doesn't violate CFAA, as it's not "unauthorized access".

Supreme Court (2021): Vacated the ruling, sending it back to the Ninth Circuit.

Ninth Circuit (2022): Reaffirmed its stance: scraping public data is generally okay under CFAA, but raised issues about contract breaches.

Resolution (2022): The case settled with a consent judgment and permanent injunction, stopping hiQ from scraping in exchange for LinkedIn paying hiQ's legal fees, resolving data scraping claims but acknowledging breach of contract.

olamsco2510:
Scraping is not gaining unauthorized access to data. The data is publicly available in the first place. They can only sue you if you get data hidden behind login.

You can check hiQ Labs vs LinkedIn case. They won because there is right to scrape publicly available data from LinkedIn.

Whereas Proxycurl lost their case because they were registering with multiple accounts to scrape data out of linkedin, which is against their ToS

Their might be a thin line between scraping and hacking, but the difference is also wide.

Please note that I am not discrediting your work and effort in-fact i genuinely appreciate your creativity and being a startup myself, I know it takes the whole of you to make it work, am just concern about legal implications here and making you aware about it