SocMed Safety & Privacy - Cautionary Tale - Facebook

Do you ever wonder what Social Media (SocMed) companies get out of letting you use functionality of a system that is continually being worked-on and improved upon by employing paid professionals? Do you want to know the answer?

If the service is free and is not selling you any product, then their product is most likely you or your data. Yes, it's that simple.

We encourage you to take some time to review Facebook's Terms of Service in the screenshot on the right and on their page - https://www.facebook.com/terms.php

Unto the cautionary tale. You've read the Terms of Service already? Not yet? Go on. We encourage you to read it first before trying to see what the screenshot below is all about.

There is a good amount of discussion in the comments section, follow the development of that concern at https://www.facebook.com/LeniRobredoFashionDiary/photos/a.1847803935487235.1073741838.1845749805692648/1848899325377696/?type=3&theater

The Gray Line

Below is the Section 2 of Facebook's Terms of Service as of posting date and since January 30, 2015

2. Sharing Your Content and Information

   You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:

   1. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.
   2. When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).
   3. When you use an application, the application may ask for your permission to access your content and information as well as content and information that others have shared with you. We require applications to respect your privacy, and your agreement with that application will control how the application can use, store, and transfer that content and information. (To learn more about Platform, including how you can control what information other people may share with applications, read our Data Policy and Platform Page.)
   4. When you publish content or information using the Public setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you (i.e., your name and profile picture).
   5. We always appreciate your feedback or other suggestions about Facebook, but you understand that we may use your feedback or suggestions without any obligation to compensate you for them (just as you have no obligation to offer them).

Understand now why copying a photo or article posted over Facebook isn't a violation of anyone's Intellectual Property rights? Copying a from some other site or source and posting it on your wall or page is. A clear distinction was made in the Terms of Service to which all users agreed to before signing up and using Facebook.

The Devil

By agreeing to the Terms of Service, you have granted them rights and all the other users to use any data you made publicly accessible. Even when you've deleted or made the image/post private, you have already granted those were able to take a snapshot of that post or have shared it, the right to use it (Facebook ToS Section 2.1) And claiming I.P. rights to a shared post whether as a screenshot or embedded post is also well taken into account in Facebook's ToS - read Section 2.4. Got it? No? Let me quote it here "When you publish content or information using the Public setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off (emphasis ours) of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you ...."

And that is what we all give up when we use Social Networks. The devil is always in the details.

If you're a privacy conscious individual or a lawyer, we'd like to hear your thoughts about this. Chime in through the comment system below.