Facebook Horror Story

Or, What Happens to your photos once you post them on Facebook.

So you have a Facebook profile and you enjoy reading daily updates from your friends and browsing their photo albums. You also enjoy posting your own photos and updating your status. It's fun and safe, you think, because after all, you use the privacy settings to not show your profile in search results and all your photos are accessible to your friends only. You feel in complete control of everything that you've added to Facebook so far.

But do you realize that simply by posting your photo on Facebook you grant the site the right to reuse that Photo for any purpose they please. Yes, they can use your private photos anytime anywhere because you grant them that right. You don't believe me? Read this directly from their Terms of Use:

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

No big deal, you think, because after all you can delete your photos on Facebook can't you? In fact you can't. You can't delete your account either. Still don't believe me? More from the Terms:

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

So as you just read, even when you delete something from Facebook it remains there indefinitely. Even though they say that the license you granted theme expires ask yourself this: if they did not intend to reuse your content why would they keep it?

You might be thinking it's no big deal because you're not famous. The fact is it may not bother you now but who knows in 2, 5, 10, 20 years what will you think of it?

And this is not even the horror story I promised. Nope, I have my very own your-content-is-ours-and-we-keep-it-forever story with Facebook.

So here I am, a reluctant but long time hi5 user now on Facebook where many of my hi5 friends seem to have migrated. I added just one picture so my long lost classmates can recognize me when I send them friend requests. You can read my first impressions from using Facebook then come back to read the rest of this story.

One day, a friend sent me an invite to install an application. Actually the application used my friend's details to send me an invite to install it. While in one of those confusing pages where you choose what type of access to grant the application I see a Facebook-like button telling me I have one message. Thinking the message was from the application I clicked.



I know I should have been more careful but I would have never guessed that Facebook allowed ads with buttons that look exactly like the ones on the site. Truly, it's the most misleading ads I've ever seen. Anyway, I clicked then it happened. I saw myself on a site I had never heard of. The site had my Facebook profile photo and my public details. I was horrified. How to remove myself from this site? HOW!!! I tried and tried and just wouldn't find anything. This site that I shall not name, wanted me to think that they had imported my Facebook details to it and created a profile for me. I'll call the site, the Site Without a Name, SWN for short.

After investigating a little I realized that in fact what happened is even scarier. This 'SWN' was 'reading' my Facebook information from my browser session. Don't ask me how I don't know, maybe it's some sort of spyware. What it does is as long as your logged into Facebook it shows your profile picture and any public info you have available. Which means, if you Log out of Facebook and go on SWN site, it no longer shows your so-called profile but tells you that the site is 'Not open to you'. And it shows you an add for a Facebook application (I wonder if I can report this application and have it banned from Facebook?). As soon as you click on the ad it sends you to what looks like a Facebook login page (you can never be 100% sure these days) so you can login and proceed to install the application.

In a moment of panic, I deleted my profile photo. Hoping that it would no longer show up on the SWN profile page. Since they take the information from Facebook that should certainly solve the problem since the photo is no longer there, right? Wrong! Remember what you read earlier about Facebook keeping your content indefinitely. You see, each photo you add has a unique address and it is that address that the SWN site uses. When you delete the photo from your profile, it simply does not show up in your profile but its address remains the same. Since the SWN site knows your photo's address, it can reuse it at will even when it does not show up in your profile.

But the horror doesn't stop here. As I was getting used to my faceless profile, looking at what my friends where doing and just browsing around on Facebook. The most horrifying thing that ever happened to me on a social network happened. Keep in ming that I've tried many social networks and I'm active in quite a few, Friendster, hi5, Orkut, Myspace, WAYN, Mash(R.I.P.), 360 and I'm probably forgetting a few. As I was browsing and went back to the home page it was there... The photo that I had deleted. How? Where? When? I have not idea. I hadn't reupload it but it was there starring at me. Facebook was asking me to crop it. I was so stunt that I just didn't do anything. What happened can anybody tell me?

For a moment I wanted to set it back as my profile picture, yet I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if I simply clicked 'close' (Close what? I have no idea. Facebook is one of the most confusing sites I've even used). So I did it, closed and was back to my picture-less profile.

So now it's official, I think Facebook is dangerous.

Read more of my experiences with Facebook:
Facebook, second impression
Facebook - First impression

Make friends at 3gb

If you're looking for a place to make friends online and chat for free, you should try 3gb.

Yes I know, you're already a member of hi5, Orkut, Friendster, Facebook and others so you're asking yourself, why should I join yet another social networking site? Well, at 3gb you can connect with old and new friends, upload your photos, join groups, write blogs and send email to other members. These are features that you do find on most social networking sites but unlike some of them, 3gb has chat rooms and offers online songs, online live radio and shoutcast. Chat rooms are one of the most requested feature on social networking sites since many don't offer them.

The majority of 3gb users are from the USA, Egypt and the Philippines, they also have members from other countries but they are not as numerous as those from the three countries I've just mentioned.

The live radio server is the most popular feature of 3gb. With this feature, each user can be a DJ and broadcast to other members of the community. The live radio server allows you to share what you are listening to, on your computer, with your friends on 3gb. I've also found blogs to be quite popular among 3gb members, many do create and maintain blogs.

The admin at 3gb is also a member of the community and he's available for contact and exchange if you do have queries or need help.

Unlike most other social networking site I've found 3gb to be almost picture less. Indeed when you think of social networking you think of lots of pictures of people who look happy hanging out together and being friends, I've found none of that at 3gb. The only people pictures were those found in members' albums, obviously the admins decided to go with a sober look. Oddly enough, 3gb reminded of another site I've written about a while ago, Perfspot. I'm still a Perfspot member even though I have not come to like the place more but I tend to stick around and see how sites evolve over time. 3gb's layout is quite similar to Perfspot's but Perfspot has lots of pictures and also videos. But both sites use a gray border and they have similar layouts.

I like the fact that 3gb is well organized, the menu makes it really easy to find your way around the site. I also like the fact that they have chat rooms, you know how much I like to chat.

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Facebook - First impression

Facebook, second impression

I've recieved a few Facebook invites from friends with whom I chat on msn. Facebook is the social networking site that everyone is talking about right now. You would think the process of joining the site would be easy. On contrary, they have not one but two captcha words that you have to try to read in spite of the heavy distortion - don't forget to wear your reading glasses -. It confuses the Education level field with the full name field. I type in my full name and complete the form but when I try to submit I'm told that I must enter my full name. I recheck and retype only to get the same message again only after the third attempt do I realize that it's not my full name I did not provide but rather my level of education. I select one and voila. Maybe someday I'll actually like Facebook but that day has not arrived yet.


Related Posts
Friendster, Hi5 and Orkut+
The geography of social networking sites
Perfspot - Yet Another Social Networking Site
Meeting People Online part I

The geography of social networking sites

Each country or community has its preferred social networking web site. Knowing which site the people from a certain country prefer, you can be sure to have the best odds of meeting a person from that country or community, at that particular web site.
A preferred social networking site is not only the networking site where people from a specific country are the most numerous, it's also the site where they are the most active. Below is the list of social networking web sites I've come up, with after a few years of being a member of most of them.

• Friendster for Filipinos/Asians
  
The first person who invited me to join Friendster was a Filipina. Though Friendster may be more popular in the Philippines than it is in other Asian countries, most Asians I've met online have a Friendster profile.

• Myspace for Americans
Myspace is extremely popular in the United States but its success doesn't seem to have spread too much worldwide.

• Hi5 for Haitians
  
I've said it before, Hi5 is the social networking site to find Haitian people.

• Orkut for Indians and Brazilians
I've received spam in Portuguese from Brazilian spammers who found my email through Orkut. I have three Gmail accounts, and the only one on which I receive those "Brazilian" spam messages is the one I use to connect to Orkut. Though I don't have any Brazilian contacts on Orkut, many of the Indian friends I've met online are there with their family, friends and coworkers.

• Perfspot for Turks
I've notice a high number of Turkish people on Perfspot, I'm guessing the founders must be Turkish or of Turkish origins.

I personally prefer Friendster for the look and easiness of use, Hi5 for the community, and Orkut for flexibility and control over your information. I'm not a Myspace member and I've only started using Perfspot this year, unless the later go through a major update and aggressive marketing campaign it will die soon enough. I guess it's hard to have all your social networking needs met by only one web site.

How about you? What's your favorite Social Networking Site? Please tell me by living a comment to this post and also remember to specify your country.


Related Posts:
Friendster, Hi5 and Orkut
Perfspot - Yet Another Social Networking Site
Meeting People Online - Part I

Perfspot - Yet Another Social Networking Site

Perfspot is a social networking site that I've recently discovered. I consider it to be the turkish-beta-version of Friendster.

As in Friendster, there's the fake "hotel manager" from Canada who wants you to come and work at her hotel (omni hotels). I have no idea why it always has be Canada I guess it's because it's the same person. Read this forum thread about this fraudster (or someone like him/her).

[Here's the message she sent to me:
Good day, I am Rose from Canada, the manager of Omni canadian hotel, pls i want to inform you about the vacancies in our hotel, The management needs men and women, married and not married, who will work and live in canada .The hotel will pay for his flight ticket and assist him to process his visa in his country, if you are interested contact us via E-mail : omnihotels_international@yahoo.ca And the Hotel informations will be sent to you immediately. Thanks. From the Hotel manager. E-MAIL : omnihotels_international@yahoo.ca ]

The worst part is that this person is using someone's pictures on his profile. My guess, this person is not a woman but a man and probably located in an African country not Canada.

I wrote to one of the site's officials and told him about it. The spammer's profile is no longer on the site.

Guess what? I've had two Haitians wanting to add me as their friend on Perfspot, one of them even wrote me a message... It's usually a good sign when you find Haitians on a web site. Why is that? Because there aren't too many of us online, so if a web site has succeeded in having active Haitian members it means that the site has a hole lot of people from other countries and is (potentially) a popular success.

Crisscross Network

I've [finally] found another website to meet people online for free, Crisscross Network. It allows you to have a detailed profile with photos. You also can search their database to find people you'd be interested in. The "network" side of it allows you to add people as contacts/friends. It reminds me of Friendster except that it's much more sober and it's not designed to build a network with people you already know but to actually find new people. At the time of writing this, the service is 100% free and without any ads.

As for my own [unusual] experience with it. I joined, created my brief-not-well-thought-out-photoless profile and within minutes (or was it hours???) someone wrote me. On the very first day we wrote each other twice, promising isn't it?

What does the Crisscoss website have that the others don't? First of all, it's free, many website will offer you the exact same service only with a paid membership. It's not crowded with commercials like many other sites offering these services for free. It's coupled with a news site from which you can get news from the USA or Japan. You can write down your goals and check when you've achieved them. I'm only discovering the features since I've only been a member for a few days but the interaction among the members seems promising.


Tags: crisscross friends