Facebook’s Terms of Service is rarely the hero of our story: changes to the document in February created controversy as Facebook appeared to claim ownership of user content even after a user left the site. That same week, Facebook polled users and found that 56% wanted the old TOS back: Facebook complied.
Still feeling the need for change, Facebook then conducted a democratic process to define new terms, and the old TOS was superseded by these rules, titled the “Statement of Rights & Responsibilities”.
The TOS found itself in the middle of other controversies, too, including complaints from breast feeding mothers that photos of breast feeding were being removed.
Let’s take a second, then, to congratulate the Facebook TOS on a rare win: the UK’s Telegraph reported on Friday that Facebook has shut down a group (or perhaps a fan page: the Telegraph uses the terms interchangeably) called the “Isle of Man KKK”:
The ‘Isle of Man KKK’ page urged members to cleanse the island of newcomers….Almost 100 youngsters had subscribed to ‘Keep the Isle of Man white and free from foreigners’ which carried a picture of a hooded Ku Klux Klan member.
The group’s creator told members online: ‘There are too many comovers (sic) [non-British] on the Island. They are taking all of the jobs, houses and most of all they are taking advantage of our ****ing Island. …. join us and help clense (sic) the Isle of Man.’
Such a group, of course, is in violation of one of Facebook’s terms: “You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.”
If we’re going to cover the Facebook TOS’ controversies, we should also champion its victories, should we not?
