Facebook is like a search engine then. Anything goes. If we post a post on a forum & somebody takes it, that's stealing. Even if it's not plagiarism.

Their guidelines make it so confusing. They don't "own" your posts yet they can do whatever they want with them. That's a contradiction.

I never knew that about FB. Anybody know if other social media platforms are the same?

On 9/23/2023 at 10:49 AM, ZandraJoi said:

Facebook is like a search engine then. Anything goes. If we post a post on a forum & somebody takes it, that's stealing. Even if it's not plagiarism.

Their guidelines make it so confusing. They don't "own" your posts yet they can do whatever they want with them. That's a contradiction.

I never knew that about FB. Anybody know if other social media platforms are the same?

Sadly, confusing guidelines and terms are a normal anymore. 

Many websites, forums included, need to establish terms and conditions that include clauses about content ownership and license to use posted content, mainly due to the complex legal landscape surrounding user-generated content. This is to avoid legal complications and to enable the normal operation of the websites, such as allowing user content to appear in search results or be referenced in different parts of the sites, like in "recent posts" sections.

Without such terms, websites would indeed face significant operational and legal challenges, and would potentially need to obtain explicit permission for each use of user-generated content, which would be practically unfeasible and highly restrictive.

On 9/27/2023 at 1:46 PM, Uncrowned Guard said:

Sadly, confusing guidelines and terms are a normal anymore. 

Many websites, forums included, need to establish terms and conditions that include clauses about content ownership and license to use posted content, mainly due to the complex legal landscape surrounding user-generated content. This is to avoid legal complications and to enable the normal operation of the websites, such as allowing user content to appear in search results or be referenced in different parts of the sites, like in "recent posts" sections.

Without such terms, websites would indeed face significant operational and legal challenges, and would potentially need to obtain explicit permission for each use of user-generated content, which would be practically unfeasible and highly restrictive.

That's how they can get you & save their butts too. "Nobody" reads all those TOS on each website they visit. A lot of it is filler hiding the true rules.

They certainly make it a Catch 22. We need guidelines, we need terms yet I feel we need a balance. IF people were just decent human beings, we wouldn't need to worry about stealing & lying.

4 hours ago, ZandraJoi said:

That's how they can get you & save their butts too. "Nobody" reads all those TOS on each website they visit. A lot of it is filler hiding the true rules.

They certainly make it a Catch 22. We need guidelines, we need terms yet I feel we need a balance. IF people were just decent human beings, we wouldn't need to worry about stealing & lying.

 

There was a time when websites were pushing more creatively written and "common tongue" terms of service and policies.  Making them both easier to read and understand, while also making them more readable in general.  They added summaries, tones, even humor and such, but this all seems to have ended sadly.  I'd assume someone got sued and lost due to the terms be "unofficial" and now we are back to this.  This is one reason why I always tried to add concepts like Our Privacy Stance for Uncrowned Empire to make things easy to read and quick, but I will be the first one to admit that I slack off on these as policy writing is awful.