Facebook clarifies "complicated" relationship status with developers

Error message on video-sharing app Vine. / Vine

Facebook went up with a blog post Friday to clarify its platform policies. Although it does not specifically mention the Twitter owned video-sharing app Vine, the timing of Facebook's post suggests it is addressing the chatter surrounding the two companies.

• "Frenemies" Facebook and Twitter's latest clash leaves Vine app in cold

According to the tech blog All Things D, within hours of Twitter's launch of Vine, Facebook cut off access to the app's "find people" feature. When attempting to connect to Facebook, Vine users are left with an error message. Users who want to connect to friends on the social network will have to find a workaround.

A spokesperson for Facebook has declined to comment on the matter and referred CBS News to a blog post by Facebook director of platform partnerships and operations, Justin Osofsky.

Osofsky says Facebook still supports developers who are building apps for the social network, but it has policies against companies that either replicate its functionality or does not provide an easy way to share back to Facebook.

Facebook cited a section of its platform policy, which states:

Reciprocity and Replicating core functionality: (a) Reciprocity: Facebook Platform enables developers to build personalized, social experiences via the Graph API and related APIs. If you use any Facebook APIs to build personalized or social experiences, you must also enable people to easily share their experiences back with people on Facebook. (b) Replicating core functionality: You may not use Facebook Platform to promote, or to export user data to, a product or service that replicates a core Facebook product or service without our permission.

Vine is a video-sharing app that was acquired by Twitter in 2012, before it was launched. The micro-blogging service announced the official release of Vine on Thursday.