A major change to the Facebook Graph API, due to be implemented on June 3, could mean that many websites and mobile apps will no longer integrate with Facebook.

There are two aspects to this news item. Firstly that  a major change is being introduced to Facebook's Graph API which is used by many third party sites and services to access data on Facebook.

Here are the details as posted on the Facebook Developer blog:

Breaking change: Graph API PROFILE_ID/feed and PROFILE_ID/posts requires access_token

The Graph API PROFILE_ID/feed/ for a Page, Application, User or Group and PROFILE_ID/posts for a Page or User will now require a valid access_token to access the wall or posts of the corresponding object (where previously no access_token was required). This will also affect direct FQL queries to the stream table, when querying for posts on a wall.

You will need to pass a valid app or user access_token to access this functionality. Please update your code if you are calling this API without an access token.

The other, and perhaps more disturbing aspect is the way in which this news, which is going to involve a lot of work on the part of developers given that getting an access token requires two-step authentication, appears to have been buried. The blog posting, which concludes:

This change will go live a week from today - Friday(June 3rd). 

has a time stamp of 02:15 on the Saturday morning of a holiday weekend.

So how many developers are going to notice it in time to avoid disruption?

Luckily Ralf from TNW Design & Dev was paying attention and, commenting:

As this severely alters the current interaction flow, chances are, many apps will need an upgrade over the next couple of weeks.

has spread the word.

Now do your bit and get the news into the open.