I read the article “Facebook Backs Into a 'Bill of Rights'” by Rob Pegoraro on February 19, 2009, from the Washington Post website.
Facebook is a site online where you are able to stay connected to friends and family. You can upload photos; send each other messages, and many more things like games and groups you can join.
The article was mainly about how Facebook was going to change some of its terms about how they use and or share our information on the site. In the new terms they granted Facebook “an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license" to "use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute" to the things that you post on Facebook.
Many of the current users didn’t like the sound of this and became scared that Facebook could do whatever they wanted with their posted items on Facebook. Tens of thousands of Facebook users created a group to protest these new terms of use on Facebook. After Facebook heard all of the protesting from their consumers, they decided to fall back to their regular terms, which is way more secure for the users information.
Some people have suggested that before Facebook decides to make changes to its terms of use next time they should warn its users of changes they are thinking of making and asking for feedback. This would let them know if their users would be accepting of the changes or not, and it would eliminate all of the chaos that this caused.
I do have an account of Facebook, but am not a very avid user. I would however, not like it if everything that I have put up on Facebook be open for anyone to use and distribute. I feel more secure that they didn’t do what they were planning on. I also agree with the proposal to show a draft on the site whenever they are thinking of making changes. This would give users the chance to voice their opinion on the issue and Facebook wouldn’t have to worry about having all of this chaos again.
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Facebook is a great way to stay in contact with friends and family and it should be a safe place to do that. I think that the people of Facebook did the whole change of its policies way wrong. They should have first givign people the chance to not accept the new terms and like you said give thier opinions and feed back before changing.
ReplyDeleteFacebook is doing alot now though to make up for their mistakes. You pointed out that they changed the policy back to what it originally was and they also are revising their policy to make it more clear and easier to understand.
I to have a facebook account. I do go on it everyday but I do not post many ideas do to the fact that sometimes ideas that are posted just cause more "drama" between people. I would much rather stay out of that. Not only that but i am going into Education and i know that now days many future employers are getting on facebook and sites very similar to check out exactly what kind of people we truly are. I dont need to jepordize a future job because of information on facebook and if they are going to be able to do what they want with it then I am taking even more of a chance by having an account with them.
ReplyDeleteI do plan do delete my account soon because i will be job seraching and i dont have information i dont want them to see on my page but i dont want to even put myself in the place. Great blog Mike I think this is a topic that many people are talking about right now.
I noticed that they posted a little news feed that bascially stated "we changed everything back". I agree, though, that before being allowed to put others information out there for who ever wants it that there should be a discussion about it among the users.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Tiffany, everyone is on Facebook these days. It is hard to know if future employers will see it or not. Very wise to delete the account in those cases.
Good Post Mike