Break

I read a post recently about how everything we publish online becomes a decision point for someone. The author, Scott Monty, was talking about this as it pertains to a businesses social media strategy but I think it’s great advice for our kids.

A few months ago, I met a young woman in her early twenties that was interviewing at our company. She presented herself very professionally and we brought her in to consult with us. After I met her, the first thing I did was search Google about her. Quite easily, I came across her Facebook page. There wasn’t anything particularly salacious on her page but it was easily found. As employers wrestle with this technology, I’ve often wondered about the future 10 years from now as our children have moved into the workplace. What influence will their social networking footprint have on their employment opportunities? Will the Facebook users of today understand that drunken frat party pictures do not necessarily reflect poorly on a 30 year old teacher looking for a job?

However it shakes out, it still is important to stress to the kids that are driving social media that there might be consequences to the digital footprints they leave behind.

The Consumerist website noted that Facebook recently changed their Terms of Service (TOS) so that they now effectively own all of the content you post on their site. I verified this on their Terms page. I’ve copied the relevant section below.

You are solely responsible for the User Content that you Post on or through the Facebook Service. You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof. You represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses.

While I’m not a lawyer, what I read in this is if you post content, like a song you’ve written and performed, on Facebook then you’ve relinquised your ownership rights and they are free to use it as they wish.

Sort of scary and maybe an argument for distributed social networking, something I’ve been thinking a lot about in the last few weeks.