following the fray: a look back at the facebook TOS debacle

There is no doubt that Facebook’s changes to their Terms-of-Service was the hot blog topic last week. Let’s recap the events blow-by blow.

The Consumerist originally broke the story with the quasi-sensationalist (and ridiculously-long-titled) blogpost Facebook’s New Terms of Service: We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Stuff Forever.

Facebook's terms of service (TOS) used to say that when you closed an account on their network, any rights they claimed to the original content you uploaded would expire. Not anymore.

Now, anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later.* Want to close your account? Good for you, but Facebook still has the right to do whatever it wants with your old content. They can even sublicense it if they want.

Mashable was right behind The Consumerist with a similar, albeit less sensational blogpost. Tremendous user backlash ensued, which resulted in a lot of unqualified speculation as to the implications of the changes.

AllFacebook News then published some clarifications from Mark Zuckerberg regarding the new terms-of-service, and the ability of users to delete their accounts, along with some much-needed editorial perspective (highlighted below in bold). Zuckerberg stated:

When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created—one in the person’s sent messages box and the other in their friend’s inbox. Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message. We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear.

Mark goes on to highlight the conflicting position with users:

Still, the interesting thing about this change in our terms is that it highlights the importance of these issues and their complexity. People want full ownership and control of their information so they can turn off access to it at any time. At the same time, people also want to be able to bring the information others have shared with them—like email addresses, phone numbers, photos and so on—to other services and grant those services access to those people’s information. These two positions are at odds with each other.

So should users be angry about the latest change in the terms of service? I don’t think so. Do you think Facebook is going to resell your family photos to others? Does the company have a diabolical plot to resell your personal information? Doubtful.

Zuckerberg’s clarifications seemed to quell the masses for the most part. Facebook did lose a few users in the fracas, but with nearly 500,000 new users each day, I doubt they will really notice the loss. It seemed the controversy was over.

That is, until bloggers like Alexander van Elsas and Razzed called into question Zuckerberg’s response. Or lack-thereof. Van Elsa’s aptly-titled post Mark Zuckerberg is answering the wrong question, and we fell for it again deftly exposed Zuckerberg’s avoidance of what was the larger and more important of the issues brought to light in the change of terms:

While Mark does a good job explaining this process and it’s complexities I cannot help but feel that the blogging community has let Mark get away with answering the wrong question. He has done a perfect job in avoiding a much more important privacy issue than the issue that arises when two people share information via Facebook.

The questions Mark should have answered are the following:

What exactly does Facebook do with all the user data has been collected on Facebook, and how exactly does it monetize that, even after a user has deleted his or her account?

Begin Backlash Round 2. Facebook’rs quickly realized that in fact, Zuckerberg had answered the least important of the questions raised by the controversial new TOS clause. More users deleted their accounts, and the rallying cry in the comment section of most social media blogs became “cancel your account!” I’m not sure how many actually followed through with their threats and delete their Facebook account, but I’m confident it wasn’t enough to truly matter.

With threats of formal FTC complaints and government involvment, as well as new protest groups popping up across Facebook’s own network, the situation was quickly spiraling out of hand, gaining momentum by the second. Nick O’Neill wrote for AllFacebook News:

One group, “People Against the new Terms of Service (TOS)“, has been at the forefront of the backlash although the group doesn’t appear to be gaining a ton of traction beyond the 58,000 members that have joined it. While 58,000 users is nothing to sneeze at, it hasn’t yet surged to levels witnessed during Facebook’s news feed launch or during the Beacon backlash.

I can no longer find the group, however I do know it surged well beyond the 58,000 member-mark. It became clear that Facebook had potential for a serious PR disaster on their hands. Then, something occurred which no-one quite expected (at least I sure didn’t). Facebook reverted to their old TOS. This was clearly a move to avoid the impending PR debacle. The controversy died as soon as it started. All this—the whole series of events beginning to end--took place in the span of less than a week.

The debacle brilliantly displays the speed at which social media moves, and how quickly a company’s reputation can be destroyed. In less than a weekend, Facebook’s brand had gone from the benevolent and much-loved social media giant to a sinister power-grabbing corporation, with no concern for it’s millions of loyal users.

Facebook, seeing the potential for disaster, did exactly what the angry users and bloggers wanted: they reverted to the old TOS. It was a move that shocked many, and pleased nearly everyone. It was not the move of a heartless, power-grabbing corporation. It was the move of a truly social network, ruled by its loyal users. Facebook re-established their brand as one of benign benevolence, as the decision created a sense of empowerment and influence among the dissatisfied users.

Perhaps even more than the potential for destruction of a brand in social media, the series of events illustrates the forgiveness of social media. That is, if:

• A situation is met head on
• The situation is handled with transparency
• There is a willingness to concede that were mistakes were made
• And finally, a substantive and and more-than-adequate response is produced