Facebook's terms of use give it broad rights to use users' content and data. When users sign up, they agree Facebook owns their content and can use it for advertising even if deleted. A 2011 lawsuit challenged Facebook's use of users' data in ads without compensation. As a result, Facebook updated its terms to more explicitly state it owns users' data and can widely share it. Facebook's privacy policies allow it access to users' online and offline activities and sharing of data with third parties for targeted ads. While privacy controls allow limiting sharing, information others post about users can't be fully deleted. The broad data collection and sharing raises concerns about privacy and surveillance.

1. POLICY PRIMER:
FACEBOOK
Facebook’s Statement of Rights and
Responsibilities and what it means for you.
By Brett Elphick

2. When you signed up to Facebook,
you probably didn’t read their terms
of use. Most people don’t. When it
came to privacy policies only 3% of
users read them.
(Privacy Leadership Initiative, 2001)

3. Why do so few people read terms of
use and privacy policies?
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon
found that the average privacy
policy takes 10 minutes to read and
sometimes ran as long as 15 pages.
(out-law.com, 2008)

4. Why is it important to read terms of use?
If you value your:
Content you post on Facebook and
privacy.
You’ll understand that you are giving away
basic rights as an individual.

5. To look at this in closer detail, this
presentation will cover:
• Facebook’s use of users details,
images and content.
• Rights to privacy including
surveillance.

6. According to Facebook’s Statement of Rights and
Responsibilities, it is clear that everything you
put on Facebook belongs to them:

7. As you can see, anything you post on
Facebook belongs to them royalty
free. They can license out your content
without your approval. Also, even
deleted information can be used if it
has been shared with another person.
So, how did this come about?

8. Fraley versus Facebook
In 2011, a class-action lawsuit filed
against Facebook for using the photos
and names of users in “Sponsored
stories “ resulted in Facebook being
ordered to update their terms of use
to reflect their practices.

9. In the case, the plaintiffs complained
they were “economically injured” by
not being compensated for use of
their names and photos in Sponsored
Stories.

10. Additionally, opting out and controlling
your details for use in advertisements
was difficult. Something that Judge
Lucy Koh noted:
Members are unable to opt out of the Sponsored Stories service,
which was introduced after Plaintiffs became Facebook members, and
instructions on how to disable an individual post from appearing on
Friends' News Feeds or as a Sponsored Story are only available on a
'buried Help Center page, not connected by any link within the Privacy
Policy or Statement of Rights and Responsibilities pages,’…
(Koh in Schwartz, 2012)

11. It appeared that instead of “burying”
information about settings, it decided
to state out in the open what it really
wanted to do.
That is take all your information for
free and use it as they see fit to make
profit.

12. Because in the words of privacy law
expert Maninder Gill:
The reality is that most users would rather agree to
sign away some of their privacy rights than not be
on Facebook. And Facebook knows this and thus
keeps widening its rights to use our data and
personal information.
(Gill in Grothaus, 2014)

13. What Fraley versus Facebook resulted in
was quite the opposite of what those
viewing the case imagined. Instead of
restricting Facebook and its access to
members’ data, it felt emboldened to go
further. This can be clearly seen in its
Data Policy.

14. At the heart of Facebook’s Privacy
policy is unfettered access to
every members’ private life on
and off Facebook.

15. A quick perousal at some of the points
in the Data Policy supports this.

16. Whether it be what you post, who
you contact, what you read and
where you are, Facebook knows
and records this information for
the purpose of more targeted
advertising and to sell this
information to third parties.
Sounds benign?

17. Better services or
Big Brother?

18. It depends who you are.
In its “Global Government Requests Report,” released in
2013, Facebook received 38,000 requests from
government agencies about its users.
According to its own law enforcement guidelines, it
states that a warrant or subpoena is needed to request
information.

19. “But its report does not state that the US figures
take into account collection of communications
under the FISA Amendments Act, which allows
the National Security Agency (NSA) to target
non-US persons without an individual warrant,
and gags companies from disclosing even basic
information about such cases.”
(Knowland, 2013)

20. Theoretically, the U.S. government can
request information about Facebook
members here without any warrant or
oversite.
And you thought it was a way to connect
with people.

21. So, be very careful when you do that
research for your essay on terrorism
and social media!

22. Do we have control over the
information we post of Facebook?
Yes, there are privacy controls which control who
can search for us and who can see your posts.

23. However, information that has
been shared cannot be made
private, even though, you yourself
remain private online.
“Keep in mind that information that others
have shared about you is not part of your
account and will not be deleted when you
delete your account.”
(Facebook.com, 2015)

24. Are there any other ways that we can
retain our privacy 100% and escape
be surveiled on Facebook?
No

25. To conclude, Facebook’s terms of use raise serious
questions about how much information private entities
are allowed access to and what they can do with that
information.
The spectre of a complete surveillance apparatus is
objectively real. It may be in the words of Facebook
used to provide a better, personalised user experience,
but if one values their freedoms, it is something that
can easily overstep basic democratic rights such as
unreasonable intrusions into our private affairs.

26. Remember, next time you post
something on Facebook, it may be
used in ways you never intended it to.

27. References
Average privacy policy takes 10 minutes to read, research finds. (2008).
Retrieved from out-law.com/page-9490
Grothaus, M. (2014). I Asked a Privacy Lawyer What Facebook's New Terms
and Conditions Will Mean for You. Retrieved from
http://www.vice.com/read/i-asked-a-lawyer-how-facebooks-new-
terms-will-affect-my-online-life-183
Knowland, D. (2013). Facebook releases report on requests from
governments for information on users. Retrieved from
wsws.org/en/articles/2013/08/30/face-a30.html
Schwartz, M. (2012) Facebook Settles Lawsuit over Sponsored Stories.
Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/docview/102144
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