Even Facebook is Not Immune to the Social Media Revolution

Back in the old days when folks wanted to organize a revolt it took months of planning, thousands of fliers and countless meetings to organize enough like-minded people to push social change. These days, thanks to a piece of equipment found in nearly every American home it can be done with a few clicks of a mouse.

Yet another great example recently emerged that typifies how very important and influential the interconnectedness of social networks on the Internet are. The target this time: the Web's largest social network: Facebook. As Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post writes; the Palo Alto, Calif., company revised its terms of service, which govern how more than 175 million people use the site, in early February.

Many Facebook users quickly saw things they hated in the new deal. In particular, it no longer addressed what Facebook could do with words, pictures and other content posted to the site by people who later closed their accounts.

The remaining text, in turn, granted Facebook "an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license" to "use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute" things you post on Facebook, subject only to your privacy settings.

The Consumerist blog offered a pithy, but inaccurate, summary of the terms: "We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever."

Users quickly organized, speculating furiously that Facebook was reserving the right to resell anything they'd ever posted on the site (something its standard privacy settings would have blocked). Some vowed to cancel their Facebook accounts. Tens of thousands employed one of the site's most popular features to voice their dissent; they set up a Facebook group to protest its changes.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg tried to quiet the unrest with a post on the company's blog portraying the changes as the equivalent of a minor bookkeeping adjustment. "In reality, we wouldn't share your information in a way you wouldn't want," he assured.

Users were not assured, nor should they have been. Contracts trump "we're nice people" statements. After a week or so of this public relations meltdown, Facebook gave in, reinstated the old terms and vowed to consult with its users as it rewrites what it now wants to call the "Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities."