Can't you just open facebook.com in your phone's browser? I've been doing that for a couple of years since noticing that it's both faster and more reliable than the Facebook iOS app.
If you're on Android, you should check out Tinfoil for Facebook. It's a wrapper for facebook's mobile page. I find it more useful than the regular facebook app. You can also get notifications back using IFTTT.
Thank you for the suggestion. I'll check out Tinfoil.
On the whole my FB interaction is fairly minimal and I expect social companies to push the limits so to speak. Such is life. This particular case was just so blatant that I can't help but react with "go shove it a place the sun don't shine" (colloquially speaking).
If they added new functionality & put that into a new app...cool. But to strip existing functionality, block it from existing users and add it to a new app with extended privacy intruding permission...that is simply unforgivable in my books. (FB employees reading this - and I know you are - see sun reference above for exact instructions).
