Many arguments regarding Facebook’s “draconian” terms of service have been floating throughout the Internet in the last couple weeks. Members said the company’s complete ownership of their information is unfair and unscrupulous, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded by switching the terms to its original state while the company decides how best to handle questions of information ownership.
Yet the series of events presented no significant altering to how Facebook operates – the effective meaning of its terms essentially stayed the same. The controversy, however, brings up a significant and growing challenge for social media networks to control content rights on the Internet.
Previously, the terms of service contract – and Facebook’s right to use your information – ended with the deletion of a profile, but the new terms held content indefinitely.
Facebook has always owned its users’ content. The updated passage merely defines the existing ownership more accurately. When users send messages to friends, two copies are created. If the sender were to delete his or her profile, the old terms of service suggested the recipient’s copy should be deleted along with the sender’s profile. By “owning” the content, Facebook is provided the legal right to keep that message and provide one of the users with archived information long after either user has deleted the profile.
What must be understood is that Facebook is a business that provides a service. It gives its customers a platform for interaction, and in return its customers give Facebook its content. Because there are several social networking sites – often with a user uploading the same content to all of them – there are inherent problems when determining who owns the rights to that content.
Facebook is smart to attempt to answer this question. With many sites competing for user content, Facebook utilized good business practice by changing its agreement to reflect stronger ownership.
In light of this controversy, it is important for Facebook users to realize that anything you upload to the Internet is, to a degree, public information. Your expectation of privacy and media rights is somewhat mitigated by the reality of the Web.
The frontier of social media has created a situation in which “complete ownership” may not be the most sensible answer. Facebook and other media should develop new terms of service that protect their users’ right to control their information, while providing themselves with the ability to distribute that information without facing unreasonable legal repercussions.
Internet privacy rights should be developed to respond to the reasonable expectations of users. Because social networking sites play an increasingly influential role on the global communication stage, new regulations should facilitate their use and minimize legal gray areas. A hybrid licensing contract could acknowledge both the property rights of users and Facebook in a way that is reasonable for the Internet age.
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