We may be closer to “selling our souls” to Facebook than we realize.
Derigan Silver, who has a Ph.D in Media Law and Mass Communication, cautions students to read and understand the terms of service on social networking websites like Facebook, especially after recent changes have given Facebook more power over user-generated content.
Silver is an assistant media professor at DU and teaches media law courses.
Last Wednesday, CBS-Denver conducted an interview with Silver about the concerns that have arisen over Facebook buying the popular iPhone application, Instagram.
Silver specifically discussed concerns that Facebook will change the terms of service again to gain ownership of user-generated content, which will now include Instagram images as well.
“For a while, Facebook actually had a policy where anything you uploaded to Facebook became the intellectual property of Facebook,” Silver said in the interview. “You, in effect, transferred ownership to Facebook.”
Silver says Facebook changed the terms of service after protest arose on the website, and Facebook no longer takes ownership of the content that users post.
However, Facebook can still use the content users post for commercial purposes. Many don’t understand the extent that Facebook uses content generated by other Facebook users.
Silver knows from experience: his wife, Alison, took a picture of Glacier National Park in Montana. It was a good photograph, and she posted it to Facebook to share with other users.
Two weeks later, an advertisement popped up on Facebook for photography classes. The weirdest part? The advertisement used the photograph Silver’s wife had taken in Montana.
“Facebook doesn’t create any original content,” said Silver. “This means they not only rely on you to consume the content on Facebook, they also rely on you to create the content that brings you to Facebook in the first place.”
The advertisements that show up on Facebook are often accompanied by content from other Facebook users, said Silver.
Because Facebook relies on the intellectual property of its users, it’s seeking to control more services that provide an outlet for user-generated content. This is leading Facebook to buy social networking applications like Instagram, according to Silver.
“If it was up to Facebook, Facebook would keep you on a Facebook page all your life,” said Silver. “You would consume all your news, write all your emails and send all your IMs through Facebook.”
As Facebook encounters more competition from companies like Google and Twitter, it will be pressed to keep users on Facebook-owned websites and applications, according to Silver.
This could cause the Internet to become more segmented, and the Internet could gradually lose its ability to connect us in the creative and unique ways it does now, which is Silver’s biggest fear.
“I’m worried that the Internet will become like cable television,” said Silver. “Cable television was supposed to let anyone broadcast, and it was going to change our lives. Now, the extra channels give us reruns of Seinfeld and Friends.”
As big companies gain more control over the Internet, Silver is afraid the Internet will cease to be as open for the public to freely create new content as it is now.
Users need to be aware and educated about the Internet to be wise consumers, according to Silver.
Silver believes individuals should read the terms of service, constantly check their privacy settings and know who gets their information and how their information can be used.
“Students need to understand how important it is for the Internet to stay the way it is,” said Silver. “They need to become aware about issues of net-neutrality and they need to know that it’s important for the Internet to remain as an open-media system.”
