Why can't Facebook API post messages?

I know that this question has been asked before, but I still have to find a satisfactory answer. I want to access Facebook posts by two different users, let me call them Kenny and Stan.

  • Both users have messages that are clearly public - I can see them through my regular user account, even if I have no connection with Kenny and Stan.
  • I know that I can access public messages of other users using the same method (see below).
  • I can access Kenny messages through the Graph API. I cannot access Stan messages through any means of the API.

But here is what happens when I use this method https://graph.facebook.com/USER_ID/posts?access_token=APP_ID|APP_SECRET:

Kenny: I can only see a limited number of "messages", namely all of his new friends and other people.

Stan: All that is displayed is an empty dataset {"data": []}.

Third random user: I get exactly what I expect, all public messages.

What is the reason for these seemingly random answers? I suspect this has something to do with user privacy settings, but I tried to access their endpoint /permissionsand got even more errors (yay Facebook).

PS. Using the access token that the Graph API generates, I can access Kenny messages through a GET call to the Graph API. I don’t know what to do with it.

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