Social Media and their rights to user content
Whilst I think it is generally acceptable for Social Media sites to claim rights to sell their member's information (to a limit; selling credit card details for example would be unethical and dangerous), I do however object to these sites claiming ownership rights to user-uploaded content. In the reading, Amanda French examines the worst aspects of Facebook's user policy regarding user-uploaded content. The most disturbing to me is that if you have a 'share on Facebook' button on your site (e.g. a blog) then you give Facebook rights to that content. This seems unethical as many people use these 'share' buttons, but are unlikely to be familiar with this policy. Facebook has become so ingrained in internet culture that most bloggers, whether they use Facebook or not, include a 'share' button on their posts. When they set this up, it in no way mentions that this is giving Facebook rights to your content. Blogs are often places where people post their creative work, be it writing or photography or digital art, and I believe that this content should remain exclusively the property of its creator, unless that creator expresses desires otherwise. As I have said before, Social Media sites need to be more transparent in their policies, in order to give people an informed choice as to whether they want to use the service, and risk having their content used without their express permission.
It also worries me that if I deleted my account, Facebook would still have rights to the content I had on my profile. I should be able to decide to remove my content from a website if I so choose.
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