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It's the other way around. Why does Facebook think it has the right to remove years of their users' contributions? As the years march on, I think we'll see mor
by shawn 8y ago
It's the other way around. Why does Facebook think it has the right to remove years of their users' contributions?
As the years march on, I think we'll see more and more data protection laws in favor of users rather than companies. Data is the new uranium, not the new oil. It needs to be protected and taken seriously.
You can argue that it's Facebook's site and that they can do whatever they want. I argue that they cause material harm to users by removing years worth of social interactions among their family and friends. Emotional harm is still harm, and it should be treated as such.
In other words, it's a shame that they didn't catch this use case sooner, but that's really not the users' problem. The fact is, users were doing this. And now that they've been doing this, it's unethical to wipe all of their conversations just because you feel you can.
The largest companies are mostly monopolies. When there's nowhere else to go to have a conversation with the people you care about, what are you supposed to do when companies suddenly tell you that your conversations are violating their terms of service?
- Bucephalus355 8y agoThis: “Data is the new uranium, not the new oil”. Looks like Facebook is sitting on the largest legal liability of the 21st century. It’s kind of like being a major manufacturer in the US in 1970...you’re about to get screwed by 40+ years of environmental law (considering the river in Cleveland caught in fire in 1969, one can see why some of these laws were passed).
- pdelbarba 8y ago*caught fire 13 times (river is the Cuyahoga)
- Xylakant 8y agoThe Great Lakes Brewing Company has a Burning River Pale Ale as a toast to that. https://www.greatlakesbrewing.com/burning-river https://www.greatlakesbrewing.com/burning-river
- acjohnson55 8y agoJust some?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago> Why does Facebook think it has the right to remove years of their users' contributions? How much were they paying for the service?
- jdc 8y agoExactly as much as Facebook would allow them to.
- dasil003 8y agoThat's a clever re-framing, let me try: how many users would Facebook have if they charged $0.01 to sign up?
- Dylan16807 8y agoIn terms of money, as in "pretend you can insert your penny into the front of the computer", probably about the same number. (But even a 0¢ credit card requirement would have an enormous negative impact.)
- JBiserkov 8y agoAnd exactly as much as Facebook asked them to.
- r721 8y agoThey paid with their attention.
- baq 8y agoThousands of dollars worth of my time.
- joe_the_user 8y agoWhy does Facebook think it has the right to remove years of their users' contributions? Huh? We're talking about Facebook refusing to keep reposting stuff from another site. That seems like exactly the opposite of the stuff Facebook might have some responsibility for, if it did have responsibility for stuff. I mean, obviously, it's ambiguous whether Facebook is a repository, a gate-keeper, a community, a blogging-site or what. But the situation of stuff being reposted from other sites seems to be the least repository like. Deleting years of stuff that might not exist in other places would certainly be much more draconian.
- int_19h 8y ago> We're talking about Facebook refusing to keep reposting stuff from another site. We're talking about how Facebook not only turned off the API that enabled reposting, but removed all past posts that were made via that API. Which, at that point, was exactly the kind of user data that they had responsibility for.
- joe_the_user 8y agoI'd assume posts made with the API would exist still on Twitter.
- jefftk 8y agoThe fb discussion threads those posts initiated are gone, though. If this happened to me I'd be extremely upset: I've had many very good discussions on Facebook that it would hurt to lose.
- joe_the_user 8y agoThis is a point I hadn't considered.
- zaroth 8y agoI assume you haven’t downloaded a copy for yourself yet? I would not assume Facebook has any duty to maintain historical posts. That would be up to the TOS.
- dasil003 8y agoI'm all in favor of restricting what companies do with our data, but mandating that they continue to host everything we post ad infinitum? That doesn't seem reasonable to me.
- taurath 8y agoAt the very least they're completely breaking the social contract they have with their users. Users post their data, they get the service, in return for Facebook making money off of that data. If Facebook decides to stop providing a service that keeps people on Facebook, Facebook will stop getting the data. Users paid for the service with their data, which Facebook can turn into money. The idea that users don't "pay" for Facebook ignores what Facebook does.
- dasil003 8y agoI feel like you're conflating what I said with a sibling comment. Paying has nothing to do with my point, and I don't see what social contract that Facebook is obligated to host anything and everything they once allowed forever.
- taurath 8y agoThey built the feature that people's post histories stay forever. They promoted it, with things like memory posts. People used it with the expectation that it would stay. They took the posts down, with zero warning, zero hey we're deprecating this, back up your things. If your stuff was taken down and you care about it, one would hope that you would trust facebook less.
- drewmol 8y agoYes I agree but didn't this just happen? It's not like they actually deleted anything, maybe it's an initial twitter purge for impact, and they'll restore the old ones after some breif period? Toward your point, Facebook is currently promoting themselves as newly invigorated protectors of your data, which certainly implys retention.
- nradov 8y agoThe concept of "emotional harm" is absurd post-modern nonsense. I am responsible for my own emotions, not Mark Zuckerberg.
- lostctown 8y ago"Emotional harm is still harm." Fine. But I don't care about these people. I genuinely cannot empathize with them. They are allowed to leave! We can pretend that we are here to make everyone's lives perfectly great, risk free, all that stuff, but at what cost? Who enforces this wonderful life? By what criteria do they decide whether or not I, a non-incumbent, am allowed to interact with their precious users? What happens when the will to keep us safe at all cost is weaponized? How do we move forward as a species when we stop allowing great societal mistakes? Are we, as a species, done? Shall we spend the remainder of a existence siting back, masturbating to pornhub, slurping down big gulps, safe from the big bad wolf of capitalism? No. Make better decisions.
- wilsonnb3 8y ago> Why does Facebook think it has the right to remove years of their users' contributions Why would they not have the right to control content posted on their platform? If someone lets me and all my friends communicate by posting signs on their front lawn for free, should they have an obligation to keep my signs on their lawn until I decide to remove it? Saying it causes emotional harm is a pretty weak defense. Basically any action can cause emotional harm to someone.
- ISL 8y agoFB might not have that right, in practice, if the poster feels that their posts are their own. My "wall" is not generally referred to as "FB's wall documenting ISL's interaction with friends", but rather, "ISL's wall". If a society believes a thing to be true, it will tend to vote in politicians to make it so, whether it is presently contractually written that way or not.
- xevb3k 8y agoIf it becomes an established practice, over several decades... probably?
- thaumasiotes 8y agoOver several decades, they definitely do have that obligation. With just signs, it'd be hard to make a case for adverse possession, but easy to make the case for an easement. If you're a little more permissive and let someone live in a little hut on your lawn, then after several decades, they'll own the lawn, and you won't.
- tejtm 8y ago> Why does Facebook think it has the right to remove years of their users' contributions? I'm guessing that since their fleet of lawyers wrote that wall of legalease everyone must have clicked on, they are pretty sure exactly what their rights are w.r.t who owns the contributions voluntarily sent to their servers.
- shawn 8y agoProperty rights must have seemed a radical idea at the time they were first introduced. And the time seems right for data rights. Actions like this only solidify the need for such protections. One of the central questions of our generation is, who owns the data we create? Do we, or do the corporations? Seeing as Zuck was dragged in front of congress back in April, I think questions like these will only become more important over time.