Transparency in Social Media – Facebook Does it Again

Interesting activity today specific to Facebook’s change of its Terms of Service. It was first brought to my attention this morning via the Twitter feed. A random post linking to the Consumerist article, “Facebook's New Terms Of Service: We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever" caught my attention and does a great job of breaking down the issue.

I was immediately surprised that Facebook would allow such a thing to happen after the Beacon debacle. I wasn’t surprised that the omnipresent super power would claim rights in perpetuity to anything anyone ever posts ever forever and ever – this is what evil villains want. I was surprised that they would affect such a far-reaching change to their basic terms of service without notifying members of the change and what it means to them. As a social networking “leader”, and one who has lived through a similar circumstance with Beacon, one would think that a lesson in transparency had been learned.

Following a day of what I’m sure was pure PR chaos, Mark Zuckerberg finally posted, at 5:09pm, a response to what had been ricocheting throughout the webverse, “On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information”.

To a certain extent, I understand Facebook’s position on data, ownership and the responsibility of that ownership. What I don’t understand is their lack of transparency and ownership of the situation. The terms of service were changed “a couple of weeks ago”, according to Zuckerber’s post.

A couple of weeks ago!? As an active member of the network, I am disappointed that I wasn’t notified that a change to the management of my content and its ownership had occurred. While I recognize that their terms, as is common practice with most social network sites, are “subject to change”, isn’t their some responsibility o the part of the operator to advise its users when their very rights are being modified as a result of a change to those terms of service? It’s a social network for Pete’s sake. Post a notification of the change!

As brand and communications practitioners we coach our clients daily about the pitfalls of failed transparency in a transparent world. Users of social networks, and the Internet in general, are savvy. While it took “a few weeks” to pick up on this change, we picked up on it nonetheless and THAT is exactly what has many incensed by what appears to be deception on the part of Facebook. Had they announced the change and afforded users the opportunity to pull their content prior to this coming into effect, this would be a different story to tell. Instead we’re now reading reams of posts about the evil villain Facebook, attempting to take over the world a la Lex Luthor.

I have to believe that most users of social networks know that their information is being used for some benefit to the provider of the service and to a certain extent we must all be aware of this. (See my post May 2008 In Defense of Facebook, Caveat Emptor). And now that we’re aware, the providers must behave accordingly.

The fallout? Yes, some will delete their profiles and leave Facebook. Most may still not be aware of this change to the terms of service. I, and many others I know, won’t leave the site but will be far more cautious about what we post to the site.

The lesson to be learned here is that the user audience cannot – and will not – be taken for granted. Transparency is critical to the management of any reputation, particularly those that live and breathe on line.

Want to read more? Check out this summary on Mashable by Adam Ostrow and an equally insightful interview post by Ian Capstick on MediaStyle.

An interesting side note: Twitter relinquishes rights to anything users post, but if your Facebook status or Friend Feed is auto updated Facebook owns your tweets. Forever.