No Way to Treat “Friends” Facebook Nation gets its Magna Carta
No Way to Treat “Friends” Facebook Nation gets its Magna Carta
This historic move, in effect a granting of Facebook nation’s Magna Carta by King Zuckerberg, is the result of a popular revolt that nearly instantaneously spread globally among its 175 million netizens and tsunami-like throughout all media channels, forcing the company to reverse its revised “terms,” which appeared to give it perpetual ownership of members’ contributions to the service, within just three days of issuance.
In case you missed the brouhaha, on February 6, the company quietly changed its terms of service, to say that users were now granting "Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense)" to do whatever it wanted with anything they posted. When the Consumerist blog offered a pithy, however, inaccurate, summary of the terms, "We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever," the revolution was ignited.
On the Barricades
Clearly embarrassed, Chris Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy officer (the title itself a horribly malignant anachronism in these days when he might more auspiciously be dubbed “Chief of Transparency, which, however, would surely require a 180- degree change of mindset) characterized the event as a misunderstanding that resulted from a clumsy attempt by the company to simplify its user contract.
Further, in a capitulation message to members, the Palo Alto, Calif., based company, said it would collaborate with members (read netizens) to create a more easily understandable document. In reversing course, Facebook recognized that it might find that, collectively, its users can help it write a clearer, simpler contract, just as Wikipedia's collective editors have produced some of the Web's most frequently cited documents.
Beyond Conversation – Collaboration Web 3.0
And what is the great lesson for communicators, both of the corporate and of the PR stripe, of this latest tempest on the Internet? We now find ourselves living in an era of instant conversation, of the instant constituency, of immediate citizen action. Any misstep will provoke an immediate reaction, which can lay low a company, brand or institution, seemingly within days if not hours.
As PR professionals we now have the responsibility of actively engaging clients and their constituencies in the brand building process. We must take a hands-on, town hall approach to soliciting comment and collaboration from key publics or risk raising their wrath faster than we can imagine.
So welcome to the age of consumer collaboration, of a more democratic approach to building community, online and off, where brands must seek our approval if they hope to win our support in the form of our purchasing power.
No Way to Treat Friends Facebook Nation gets its Magna Carta - To learn more about this author, visit Len Stein's Website.
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“Reacting to an online swell of suspicion about changes to Facebook’s terms of service the company’s chief executive (24 year-old Mark Zuckerberg) moved to reassure users on Monday (Feb. 16) that the users, not the Web site, ‘own and control their information.’” Brian Stetler, The New York Times
This historic move, in effect a granting of Facebook nation’s Magna Carta by King Zuckerberg, is the result of a popular revolt that nearly instantaneously spread globally among its 175 million netizens and tsunami-like throughout all media channels, forcing the company to reverse its revised “terms,” which appeared to give it perpetual ownership of members’ contributions to the service, within just three days of issuance.
In case you missed the brouhaha, on February 6, the company quietly changed its terms of service, to say that users were now granting "Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense)" to do whatever it wanted with anything they posted. When the Consumerist blog offered a pithy, however, inaccurate, summary of the terms, "We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever," the revolution was ignited.
On the Barricades
Clearly embarrassed, Chris Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy officer (the title itself a horribly malignant anachronism in these days when he might more auspiciously be dubbed “Chief of Transparency, which, however, would surely require a 180- degree change of mindset) characterized the event as a misunderstanding that resulted from a clumsy attempt by the company to simplify its user contract.
Further, in a capitulation message to members, the Palo Alto, Calif., based company, said it would collaborate with members (read netizens) to create a more easily understandable document. In reversing course, Facebook recognized that it might find that, collectively, its users can help it write a clearer, simpler contract, just as Wikipedia's collective editors have produced some of the Web's most frequently cited documents.
Beyond Conversation – Collaboration Web 3.0
And what is the great lesson for communicators, both of the corporate and of the PR stripe, of this latest tempest on the Internet? We now find ourselves living in an era of instant conversation, of the instant constituency, of immediate citizen action. Any misstep will provoke an immediate reaction, which can lay low a company, brand or institution, seemingly within days if not hours.
As PR professionals we now have the responsibility of actively engaging clients and their constituencies in the brand building process. We must take a hands-on, town hall approach to soliciting comment and collaboration from key publics or risk raising their wrath faster than we can imagine.
So welcome to the age of consumer collaboration, of a more democratic approach to building community, online and off, where brands must seek our approval if they hope to win our support in the form of our purchasing power.
No Way to Treat Friends Facebook Nation gets its Magna Carta - To learn more about this author, visit Len Stein's Website.
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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