New Facebook Guidelines: Updated Statement of Rights and Responsibilities

If you are on Facebook, it’s practically impossible to miss the fact that they are proposing changes to the Facebook Guidelines, specifically the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR) and Data Usage.  Even if you don’t follow the Facebook Governance Page, the plethora of copy and paste updates are difficult to miss.

Warning… The following paragraph may require a shovel

Perhaps you have had this update whizz by in your newsfeed (a dozen times at least…)

In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention).
For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times!
(Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their Facebook Wall. This will place
them under protection of copyright lawsBy the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff under Facebook’s direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute).

Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates

What a pile of codswallop…

Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities

Facebook have proposed changes to the SRR and Data Usage Policy, you are free to leave your thoughts before 28^th November over on their page.

Facebook is a social platform and by logging in you agree to their guidelines including the SRR, their Data Use policy and all associated documentation.  You have always agreed that Facebook can use your data, status updates, images, video and anything else in line with your personal privacy settings.

No amount of copied and pasted clap-trap will change that! 

If you log in to Facebook then you agree to their guidelines and rules.  If you don’t want information shared, used, or distributed then don’t provide it.  If you don’t agree to Facebook terms, then don’t use it.  This applies to any site on the web, copying and pasting the above drivel doesn’t protect you.

You can probably tell these copy and paste updates annoy me!  Probably because they are often meaningless and don’t give people the info they need to check facts themselves.

What has actually changed?

You can download the proposed guideline updates as PDFs with the changes redlined for easy spotting:

• Statement of Rights and Responsibilities
• Data Usage Policy

I think the first thing that jumped at me was the scrapping of Facebook Democracy in the Data Usage Policy. 

This is when they put forward proposed changes to their policies (like these changes) and if they received over 7000 comments then the change would go to a vote.  The vote would be binding if 30% of active users agreed on a course of action.

In the Data Usage PDF, this section has a red line right through it.  After this change, you have the right to comment, not vote.

Unless we make a change for legal or administrative reasons, or to correct an inaccurate statement, we will give you seven (7) days to provide us with comments on the change. After the comment period, if we adopt any changes, we will provide notice (for example, on the Facebook Site Governance Page or in this policy) of the effective date. If we receive more than 7000 comments concerning a particular change, we will put the change up for a vote. The vote will be binding on us if more than 30% of all active registered users as of the date of the notice vote.

Needless to say, the English thread for comments has 11,585 copied and pasted clap-trap at the time of writing this.  Given that the above “statement” has very little relevance to the proposed changes, I doubt these comments count – but then I am not a legal eagle and not in a position to judge that.

Many of the updates are clarifications and I like that Facebook make it clearer that if your updates are shared, that information is STILL AVAILABLE (even if you remove it) until those that have shared it remove it too. 

Another change that leaps at me from the SRR is:

 “You will not use your personal timeline primarily for your own commercial gain (, and will use a Facebook Page for such as selling your status update to an advertiser).purposes.”

It’s a reminder that we should be creating pages for our business and not using our profile primarily for business promotion.

I do suggest you follow the links above and read the proposed changes.  You can also like the Facebook Governance Page for updates at https://www.facebook.com/fbsitegovernance

Over to you…

What are your thoughts on the changes, do you care either way?  I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments…

photo credit: The Rocketeer via photopin cc