What is the difference between user_status and read_stream FB permission?

Question

I'm confused between those 2 permissions. From the Permissions Reference, both permissions provide access to user's post/message. It seems that the read_stream permission covers user_status permission, since it provides access to all the posts (mean all message, checkin, status... and also the post that user's friend post on user's page).

Can anyone provide more information for those permissions? Thanks.

Answer 1

The documentation now thankfully answers this:

user_status

Provides access to the user's status messages and checkins. Please see the documentation for the location_post table for information on how this permission may affect retrieval of information about the locations associated with posts.

Whereas...

read_stream

Provides access to all the posts in the person's news feed. This permission is reserved for apps that replicate the Facebook client on platforms that don’t have a native client. It may only be used to provide people with access to this content. It may take up to 14 days for your app to be reviewed.

So to put it another way, read_stream gets the user's newsfeed (ie. not their statuses), and it extremely tricky to get approved for (as you might imagine). Whereas user_status gets statuses that the user has posted themselves.

Answer 2

This post might be useful to you. It looks like read_stream includes tagged photos, friends going to events, friends' relationship updates, etc., while friends_status gives you access to all(?) friends' status updates, which may include shared links, but not photos, events, etc.