Published at 2:39 PM on February 18, 2009

By Rachel Dovey

Facebook terms of service switcheroo ruffles feathers

In his article a few weeks ago, "Oh The Random Things We Do For The Sake of Facebook," Washington Post staff writer Dan Zak raised a chilling question. Citing the viral spread of Facebook's "25 Random Facts," he wrote, "People are supremely comfortable sharing intimate information about themselves in this pseudo-celebrity culture of online social networking." Then he quoted communications professor Michael Stefanone, "But what happens when I can learn about you and you're not aware of it?"

This dilemma rose to a boiling point earlier this week, when Facebook suddenly changed a portion of its "Terms of Service" and members took notice. The site has always claimed the rights to anything uploaded onto its blue-and-white pages, but Monday it removed a portion of the text recanting these rights after a member has deleted their profile. Now any photos, music, articles or comments posted to Facebook belong to the site forever to publish, advertise and generally use in any way it deems fit.


The move that led one angry blogger to coin the term "Fascistbook" has spawned myriad online activist groups, including the Facebook Group "Facebook Owns You: Protest the New Changes to TOS." Amid many rants, a theme common to all these groups is confusion. Members of "Facebook Owns You" have drafted a number of questions for the Facebook legal team, mainly falling into three categories: advertising and commercial rights, creative property (of musicians, filmmakers, writers and photographers), and "share" links, which are links to content published on other sites. Another source of anger is the fact that the TOS were just modified, so members wonder if content uploaded before this amendment is still protected by the former TOS.

However, Paul Boutin of The Industry Standard claims Facebook's "Privacy Policy" setting trumps all, citing an e-mail sent to him from a Facebook spokesman, which read "It is important to note that this license is made subject to the user's privacy settings. So any limitations that users puts on display of the relevant content...are respected by Facebook."

Monday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg wrote a post entitled "On Facebook, People Own and Control their Information," to "clarify a few points" for users. He assures readers that "a lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective of the rights we need to provide this service to you." However, he also remarks on the complexity of publishing via Facebook. "People want full ownership and control of their information so they can turn off access to it at any time. At the same time, people also want to be able to bring the information others have shared with them...to other services and grant services access to those people's information. These two positions are at odds with each other."

In a sea of discontent, many bloggers simply accept the fact that publishing is publishing; whatever media, you're sharing creative content with the world. In a comment made to The Consumerist's Facebook-related post, Rob Weddle writes, "I think a good rule of thumb is just to presume that anything you put on the internet is out there forever and ever regardless if you want it there or not. Follow that logic, and no TOS will catch you off guard."

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