Scraping data from "hard" social sources (POF, FB, YouTube)?

[fivon]

Hi all, I'm trying to build a scraper to pull some data from POF, Facebook groups, and YouTube comments, but I'm getting blocked instantly (hitting CAPTCHAs or Cloudflare).

What's the current "meta" for this? Are there any public tools that still work, or is building a custom script with a high-quality residential proxy pool the only answer? Would love to know what stack you're using.

 

[T J Tutor]

You are really going down a losing path with what you are trying to do. Get real, this is a business, working within a platforms policies is cheaper and easier than trying to establish a Blackhat path to success.

 

[asphero]

When going after tough sites like Facebook, basic scrapers often don't work - unless you're using tons of home IP addresses. Right now, most people are switching to tools like Puppeteer or Selenium that act more like real users by simulating natural scroll behavior. Not super fast, yet way less likely to get flagged.