Thinking Through the new FB TOS
Is it time to leave?
If you haven’t read Facebook’s new Terms of Service, going into effect on 1 January 2025, they’re here.
If this is a TLDR scenario for you, here are some of my concerns1.
From Section 3:
2. Permission to use content you create and share: Specifically, when you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights on or in connection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your privacy and application settings). This means, for example, that if you share a photo on Facebook, you give us permission to store, copy, and share it with others (again, consistent with your settings) such as Meta Products or service providers that support those products and services. This license will end when your content is deleted from our systems.
Read it again. It gives all of Meta a worldwide license to your content.
To someone like me, who is considered a “content creator” with intellectual property (IP) rights, this is BAD. Some who have looked at the TOS indicate that Meta will use content to help train their AI bots. That means if, for example, I were to post the content of one of my Substack blogs to Facebook, they could train AI on it.
Even if you think you’re not a “content creator” because you don’t blog, they now have rights to the photos of your family on Instagram, and the information in that supposedly end-to-end encrypted message in Messenger. Not to mention what they might be able to get out of Meta Pay.
EEK!
If you stay on Facebook in 2025, consider everything you do on Facebook as public information. This includes, but is not limited to:
4. Permission to use your name, profile picture, and information about your actions with ads and sponsored or commercial content.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want Facebook using a picture of me endorsing a product, especially if it is the printer I recently took a hammer to because it was such a disaster. I wouldn’t want anyone thinking I endorsed that printer.
In addition, somewhat hidden in the TOS is an agreement that if they make additional changes, you automatically agree to them. They’ll tell you about them, but there will be no opt-out, only the ability to delete your account. There is no telling what they will sneak in at a later date.
They claim that they will “protect” your privacy, but that hasn’t really been the case in the past.
What to do as an individual?
You need to make a decision about whether what you do on Facebook is okay or if it’s time to leave.
This is a “your mileage may vary” question because people do different things on Facebook.
There are innocuous things you can do on Facebook. For example, I recently posted this:
It’s completely innocuous2.
I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends from high school, my cousins, and some friends I don’t see on a regular basis. Again, innocuous. We’re talking vacation pictures, some jokes, and for our high school class - reunion planning3.
In addition, I post links to my Substack on Facebook. Meta does not have an opt-out structure relative to IP at this time, including links. There is an organization for content creators which is sending opt-out requests to Meta on behalf of their users, and anticipating a legal battle. I am vacillating about whether to join or not4.
Facebook has deemed me a “spammer” when I have posted links to my Substack blog, and deleted the posts, but Facebook is inconsistent. Other people can post links to my Substack, but I cannot on most days, and Facebook varies in how they treat me. They shut my original account earlier this year for some reason they could never explain to me, and refused to reconsider. 15 years of photos and memories gone. Section 4.2 discusses all the reasons they might shut down your account.
I am vacillating on whether I will place links to Substack on Facebook after the first, but I still have a few weeks to decide.
As I said, your mileage as an individual will vary predicated on what you post, and who is included in your friends group5.
What to do as an organization?
This is a more delicate decision set.
If you were a Facebook user back in the 20-aughts, you likely remember when it was a friendly place. You’d play games, and end up with new friends who actually became friends. Your feed had the most recent posts from your friends and family. There were very few ads, and it was FUN!
Flip forward to today. Many political groups leverage the tools (which tend to work well, from a technical standpoint) to find members, post documents, set up events, and disseminate all sorts of information.
There really is no other platform that can do what Facebook does relative to political groups. Admins can make the groups public or private, determine who and who cannot participate, set rules, view stats. It’s an easy system to use.
But.
Come January, it will be necessary to balance privacy with what people are used to. Let me explain.
The thing about social media is that it is designed to be addictive and easy for the user. There are a lot of people who go to social media, and “doomscroll” and conduct all sorts of aspects of their lives there - they get information. It’s what they know.
Most people have routines. And most people are lazy. (I say this not as a criticism, as I am one of the laziest people I know. Honest.)
One option for Facebook groups is to put very little information on their feeds and instead direct users to a website for that group for disseminated information, registration for events, and development of a user distribution list. People on Facebook like to comment on posts: that can be set up on a website, or people can be redirected to Bluesky.
The major downside of this is that the group would likely lose a fair number of members because people are USED TO Facebook, they do other things on Facebook, and it would be another site for them to access. The active members will, of course, move, but there will be a loss. Further, from an administrative side, the website needs to be built, paid for and managed. But it is, for the most part, far safer, in terms of who is in a group, and advertising when and where meetings are held.
On Facebook, there is the issue of a public address for any meeting. Even with private groups, that information can leak out, which could potentially be problematic. A group can use a third-party vendor to handle reservations and tickets, but those vendors present their own privacy issues.
The question of how to schedule, advertise, and hold meetings is an open question for next year. A group of people with whom I’m associated are working through options for different types of meetings, and we have not yet reached a conclusion. My feeling is that there will need to be different solutions for different types of in-person meetings.
My gut says that very little will be truly “safe” next year unless we use old, OLD, methods like secret handshakes, codewords and phrases, drop locations, and other things I hope we don’t have to do.
In the aggregate, individual groups will need to decide if the privacy risks related to Facebook are okay, or a bridge too far. Every political group needs to consider their options as relate to membership, advertising, and overall privacy of information provided.
Tomorrow’s post is a PSA.
While these are the Facebook TOS, there’s a link within the TOS that relates to “and other Meta products”, which links here, and says:
Meta Products include:
Facebook
Messenger
Instagram, including apps like Threads and Boomerang
Meta Platforms Technologies Products such as Meta Horizon Worlds or Meta Quest
Meta Portal-branded devices
Business products, such as ads, Meta Business Tools and Meta Business Suite
Meta Audience Network
Meta's commerce services platforms, features and products, including Meta checkout experiences and Meta Pay
Meta Avatars
Other features, apps, technologies, software, or services offered by Meta Platforms, Inc. or Meta Platforms Ireland Limited.
If we get snow this winter, I’m seriously considering doing this. I think it would be pretty. By the same token, if I make the giant, colored water balloon balls, I wouldn’t post a photo on Facebook, because they could geotag it.
Our most recent reunion was this past September, so we’ve got 10 years to worry about the next one.
Still researching. Will post when I have more information.
Hopefully you have already locked down your security settings, if not, get that done.
None of this is new. It's merely reworking/rewording previous terms to address legal ambiguities.
Also, META does not geotag photos. However, if a USER uploads a photo with EXIF data attached, it could possibly be identified at some point - but it wouldn't be by META.. Meta explicitly requires consent to use location data from users. As by "Checking in" and activities such as that.
And to add insult to injury... anything you have already posted on a META platform is covered by the above.
I don't remember studying any prior terms of service to know what they're changing. Other than there are more/newer services under the big umbrella.