Facebook graph objects - public or private?

Question

I'm a little confused about graph objects visibility:

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/ describes a number of built-in object types some of which are obviously private (well not public), eg photos, checkins etc.

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/beta/opengraph/define-objects/ states that "objects are always visible to the public". I realise this relates to the Open Graph not the 'Social Graph', but as one is an evolution of the other surely photos, checkins etc. are still objects?

Is it possible to create objects analogous to photos and checkins using Facebooks implementation / use of Open Graph? Ie restricted visibility.

Without giving away any details, in my application it would make more sense to have objects analogous to photos and checkins rather than try to describe everything in the action of a public object.

If anyone can shed any light on this I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

Answer 1

The Graph API is how you read/write to Facebook's databases.

The 'Open Graph' is the concept of objects being represented by URLs on the web. Movies, Sports teams, People, News Articles, Songs etc.

As Open Graph objects are represented by URLs on the web, the objects themselves must be public.

Interactions with these objects by Facebook Users (liking, listening, watching, reading etc) is data which can be written to Facebook's databased via the Graph API. These actions have variable visiblity, depending on the chosen privacy settings of the user who performed the action.

So yes, all Open Graph objects are publicly visible URLs and pages on the web.

Native Facebook objects (events, status updates, photos etc) are not Open Graph objects and may or may not be publicly visible on the web based on the object owners privacy settings.