Commentary Ticker
- Google Wants Balloon Internet for Everybody
June 15, 2013 | 11:06 am“Balloons. That’s right. Balloons,” says the voice of a young girl in a video for Google’s latest endeavor: bringing the world online with massive balloons. The initiative, called Project Loon, comes from Google X, the experimental lab within the company whose sole purpose is to dream up big, borderline insane, ideas. Google X created self-driving [...]
- Watch Researchers Discover a Sunken Egyptian City
June 13, 2013 | 9:36 pmThonis, the legendary port city that served as an entryway to the Egyptian empire, was long considered to be a myth. The tales of its immense power and vast riches conflicted with the evidence of its existence—mainly that there was none. Cities of such grandeur do not typically disappear off the face of the earth. [...]
- “I Am The Nucleus” and Other Bizarre Quotes By Kanye West
June 12, 2013 | 10:06 amKanye West says the darndest things. On his unrelenting quest to become his own species of hip-hop artist, he has established a reputation as irreverent, controversial, and unapologetic. Though he makes time for public grandstanding by claiming a US President “doesn’t care about black people” or interrupting the VMAs, he remains mostly quiet when it [...]
- 50 Charities, 10 Years, $1 Billion Wasted
June 11, 2013 | 12:38 pmIn Holiday, Florida, sits a warehouse. From the outside, it looks like nothing special, but as a joint investigative report from the Tampa Bay Times and the Center for Investigative Reporting uncovered, inside is one of the most useless charity in America: Kids Wish Network. For every dollar it raises, a mere 3 cents goes [...]
- Different Names For The Same Thing: The Regional Words That Divide Us
June 6, 2013 | 10:06 amAmerican English is a unique beast. Taken from British English and then purposefully tweaked to be different, the American variation has itself taken on diverse forms. We know this, of course, but you might not have realized just how pronunciations remain. As new data visualizations from Joshua Katz of NC State University (based on data [...]
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Demystified: Posting a Facebook Status with Legal Terms Does Not Protect Copyright or Privacy
It’s happened before an it will happen again: someone realizes how much access Facebook and its users have to people’s personal information and they concoct some pseudo-legal note to fight for their right to privacy. It is true that Facebook does have a massive amount of your data, but it is also unfortunately true that Facebook users gave up their data when they signed the legal terms of service and no posting can revoke that.
In the past week a new version of one of these attempts has surfaced. People on the popular social network have updated their statuses to include a note along these lines:
This looks impressive enough. It contains enough legalese to sound legitimate, it cites specific laws and conventions, and it makes the all powerful statement “I hereby declare.” Yet, it actually means nothing. There’s no slippery loophole you can fit into a status update that will exempt you from terms you’ve already accepted. Simply, that is not how the law works.
Snopes, a site that deconstructs rumors, tears apart the claims of the note.
When anyone signs up for Facebook, they must first accept the services legal terms which includes their privacy policy and terms and policies. Any terms that were accepted at that point remain in effect unless the service issues an update to their terms (which they recently). By continuing to use the service, users accept the new terms—that’s the cost of being a Facebook user.
Some versions of the privacy fear-mongering note include a mention now that Facebook is a publicly traded company, users’ data is somehow more accessible to the world at large. This is simply not the case. Facebook’s public listing in no way changes the policies and terms all users signed. Other issues stand: the Berner Convention is not a thing, but the Berne Convention is; and the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) with it’s ever fabled Section 1-308 doesn’t cover the claims the note makes.
There are only really three options a user can do if they want to be exempt from the standard terms of service Facebook uses: never sign up for Facebook or using the service, bilaterally negotiate individual privacy terms with Facebook, or delete a Facebook account.
The first solution is pretty simple. If someone doesn’t want their data online, they just shouldn’t go online. The second solution is incredibly farfetched. Only under the most extreme situations would you be able to get Facebook to come to the table and legally make an exemption for an individual’s use of the site. The third solution is effective at stopping further privacy issues but can’t stop what is already online. All the data Facebook already has, they are allowed to keep and do with what they want.
It’s good for all users to be aware of how much data is given away to companies like Facebook and equally important to know that there isn’t any magical formula to protecting that data. If there’s anything to take away for those who are concerned but don’t want to walk away from Facebook’s social offerings, it’s best to be careful with what is shared and keep the most private and personal off Facebook.
Attribution
Snopes