Facebook – Exact Syntax for Linking to a Facebook ID

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Until recently, it was possible to link to pretty much anything which has a Facebook ID using syntax like this in status updates, comments, chat messages and probably elsewhere:

@[398643386827709:Jost]

i.e.

@[<Facebook ID>:<Link Text>]

The <Link Text> had to be a prefix of the full page title (presumably to prevent misleading links), but other than that, there weren't any restrictions I am aware of.

(This is also described here: How to tag friends via mobile web site, m.facebook.com? and here: How can you tag a FB page follower, member or participant in a comment?)

I first noticed removal of this feature in Chat, where the link text shows up simply as text, but is no longer an active clickable link. Since a couple of months ago, this also no longer works in status updates: instead of the link, there appears a question mark symbol .

I found some mentions on the web involving a syntax like

@@[0:[<Facebook ID>:1:<Link Text>]]

But that doesn't work either, it just shows the same question marks instead of the link text.

It is of course still possible to link to users and pages by typing an @ symbol and a search term, and then selecting an item from the dropdown list. However, sometimes the item I want to link to doesn't show up in that list. Or, sometimes, I don't actually type in the text but rather copy&paste it from a text editor.

How can I link to items in that case?

Best Answer

This is no longer possible except for certain areas in the Pages API because of spam abuse.

See "Mentioning Friends or Pages" https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/opengraph/using-actions#mentions for more info