WTF Is Wrong with Facebook?

Dear Facebook,

WTF?

Love,
Ace


WTF Reason Number 1: Breast Feeding

Facebook has for a long time now allowed users to report inappropriate pictures. Many times people will report a picture of a women breastfeeding as inappropriate and Facebook will remove the picture. There is nothing inappropriate about a women breast feeding. The following Flickr image by gweggyphoto exemplifies what is wrong with Facebook’s anti-breastfeeding policy:

Image by gweggyphoto

Image by gweggyphoto

WTF Reason Number 2: Terms of Service

Facebook recently changed their terms of service to the following:

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

At the start of this week Facebook returned their terms of service to their original form and added back the following statement:

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

However this does not address the concern the majority of Facebook users still have. If you are an artist, poet, photographer, or just a regular person who does not want Facebook to use whatever pictures you upload or whatever you type on your friends’ walls for Facebook’s next commercial, then you are out of luck because Facebook’s current terms of service allows them to even sell you content to third parties. Scary huh? Hopefully, they get the message and their lawyers are working on solving this problem.

WTF Reason 3: Being Dicks to Families of the Recently Deceased

As Stephanie Bemister wrote Consumerist.com, Facebook does not allow you to remove dead relatives’ profiles even if you send their death certificate, are their next of kin, and have legal jurisdiction to do so. I smell a class action suit coming soon…

Facebook instead choses to memorialize the profiles and leave the wall open for anyone to say anything they’d like. Sounds like a good idea, but that should be left up to what the family’s wishes are. In Stephanie’s case, she is not even friends with her brother Bill Bemister whose profile she is trying to delete. He died before accepting her friend request. Stephanie’s daughters are constantly reminded that their uncle is dead due to his profile popping up in their home pages. Bill was a journalist who used Facebook more as a business device and did not know most of the people he is actually friends with. “Unfriending” Bill would cut his nieces completely off and they would not be able to see what people are putting on his profile.

It seems that what jrizos wrote on comments section may not be too far off: “Wait’ll she hears about the “memorial” book of his images and wall comments they’ll make available for just $19.95 (plus shipping).”

18 Thoughts on “WTF Is Wrong with Facebook?”

  1. the fact that Facebook change their TOS back so quickly is an indication that they knew they were wrong in the first place

  2. […] exposes the deficits of facebook.  WTF FB? [College […]

  3. WTF indeed. For those of you out there using facebook anyway… like most people…. here’s a nice little guide for facebook etiquette

  4. Completely agree. I cancelled my facebook account several weeks ago (at least to the degree that you CAN cancel) for some of these same reasons.

  5. Are you kidding? I had no idea. That is just craziness! I should go cancel mine, but I won’t because I’m addicted to it.

  6. I don’t know what to say about the breastfeeding pics, except that they are less “inappropriate” than many of their ads. Some people will be offended, others not.

    But the last two are unacceptable.

    The original statement that they added back into the TOS really doesn’t mean anything, since they can keep all of your information in their “archive” and still use it after if has been removed.

    And memorializing deceased members’ pages against the wishes of family members (even those who are legal representatives of the deceased) sounds both illegal and disgusting. I have been using FB since the year it came out, and I have never been as ashamed to call myself a member as I am after learning of this.

    Unfortunately, not many users are aware of this so thank you for bringing people’s attention to it.

  7. I am a Facebook user that has to say who flippin cares? I am personally sick and fucking tired of the mommy zombies bitching that they don’t get enough attention when the entire world revolves around you idiots, your kids, your schools, little johnnies soccer games. Get a life and keep your breastfeeding at home. It’s personal and no one on FB wants to see it.

    Sex sells. That’s just how it is. Comparing your bottles to anything otherwise is just stupid. Shut up and go breast feed your 3 year olds somewhere else.

  8. F*ck u.
    u r de looser, and facebook is wayy better dan u.

    so f*ck u.

  9. I am a Facebook user that has to say who flippin cares? I am personally sick and fucking tired of the mommy zombies bitching that they don’t get enough attention when the entire world revolves around you idiots, your kids, your schools, little johnnies soccer games. Get a life and keep your breastfeeding at home. It’s personal and no one on FB wants to see it.
    +1

  10. All totally valid points…I didn’t even know a couple of these went on on FB :(

  11. Hi guys. I created an anti-facebook website, http://koowie.com. I did this because I realized facebook was not a positive thing in my life. Friends I have are now content at letting me know their life by statuses. Or other people I follow randomly spew out non meaningful blurbs. I strongly feel FB is dumbing down America and I wanted to ride against this wave and be part of the anti-facebook movement. I hope you enjoy my website and if you do I hope you spread the word. Thank you friends.

    Peter

  12. Nice,im ann from philippines

  13. Real brain power on dlisapy. Thanks for that answer!

  14. Buenanoche querida hija dios te bendiga depues te

  15. HAUGH !!!

  16. Hi,
    You are right about Facebook. However, your spelling is way off (whose/who’s; friend’s/friends; relatives’/relative’s).

  17. @Chris: Thanks grammar nazi! :) We have made the changes.

  18. That鈥檚 why yo8#7u21&;ve to have effective internet based business home keep when it comes to taking items proper your individual web-based online business. cash

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