Facebook’s automated application disabling system has claimed numerous victims in recent months, but none as large as the Breakup Notifier, which was disabled last night after obtaining millions of users in its first day.

Last week we were sent a link to a conversation taking place in the Facebook developer forum where developers were complaining about having their apps shut down without notice. The social network has essentially stayed mum on the topic, only sending out emails to the developers, like this one which was sent to the breakup notifier developer:

“To ensure positive user experiences on Platform, we run routine automated screens that take user feedback, machine learning and various algorithms into account and remove spammy applications. For example, if an application is making an inordinate number of stream.publish calls and receiving a large number of user reports, it may be removed by our automated systems to protect the user experience and the Platform ecosystem.”

Is it surprising to see this action taken? Not at all. Facebook has previously shut down similar apps that alert users to changes in their friends’ statuses (such as the unfriending notifier) and for the most part the actions that have become publicized have been somewhat reasonable. However there’s no doubt that an automated system is not 100 percent perfect and the result is a few casualties, some of which are more public than others.

Facebook isn’t exactly unique in this regard. Apple regularly prevents applications from using their system and just today we published about Google preventing Facebook from accessing specific features on the Android platform. It’s a story that repeats itself time and time again: Developers get punished, sometimes unfairly, by the platform owners.

While the developers complain, the platform owners are the ones with all the leverage, which is why it pays to be a platform owner. While there are ways to mitigate this risk as a developer, any small developer can do little to combat the risk, aside from trying to go it alone. Honestly, this is just another day in the life of a small-time app developer. If you don’t build an app that the platform owner likes, you’re essentially just shooting yourself in the foot.