So You Want To See A Social Media Law Final? (2019 Edition)

The 2019 Law & Social Media class ended back in May, but I totally forgot to share the final exam with everyone until now.  My apologies, and here you go.  How would you answer?

QUESTION ONE

No sooner have you graduated law school, passed the bar, and opened your own Social Media Law Practice when the phone rings.

“Billy McFarscam here,” the voice on the phone tells you. “I need your help!”

You listen to Billy’s tale of a music festival he wants to hold on a remote tropical island. He says the festival will have so many bands and rappers and singers and mimes and A-list celebrities that it will no doubt be the hottest event on the planet. It will be so hot, he tells you, that the air around the festival will combust with hotness. So he has decided to call this the BUST Festival.

“First thing’s first, we have to create a ton of buzz about the event. So I’ve hired every influencer I can find. Some have millions of followers, some only have a few hundred. One account is only followed by my mom. I’ve told them to all post a blank black screen tomorrow on every social media platform they can. The only caption will be a mention of my Instagram account, @TotalBustFestivalRocksSoHard. I’ve also told all my employees to do the same, along with the five agencies I’ve hired to help promote the event. So many influencers and employees posting away, we’re going to get so much attention, right? I think it’s a guaranteed hit, but then I thought maybe there’d be some legal issues here so I’m wondering if you can advise me on my campaign.”

What advice do you give Mr. McFarscam about his campaign?

QUESTION TWO

Billy McFarscam is so pleased with your legal advice he immediately retains your legal services with a check for $300,000 (with strict directions not to cash the check until next February 30).

Billy’s latest idea is around a contest he’s going to hold as part of the BUST Festival. Billy has buried a treasure chest filled with valuable prizes (he won’t say exactly what but you think he said something about “$50 worth of kazoos”) on the island. His plan is to have people post on social media about the BUST Festival. Every time they post about the Festival they’ll earn points–plain text posts using the hashtag #TotalBUST get 1 point, regular pictures that tag the festival’s Instagram account earn 3 points, pictures with Bust Festival shirts earn 10 points.

After two weeks, people who have entered the contest will receive clues based on how many points they’ve received. 1-20 points gets a general clue, 21-50 points gets more clues, etc. And whoever digs up the treasure chest first, wins the prize.

Mr. McFarscam is convinced this is the greatest contest ever invented or that ever will be invented, but he wants to make sure that he’s covered against any potential legal issues since he’s never done a contest (or a music festival) before.

What advice do you give him about his contest?

QUESTION THREE

The day of the BUST Festival has quickly arrived. Although Billy offered you free tickets to the event, you politely declined and stayed home to work with other clients, ones who pay. You start seeing some news alerts on your phone and computer about the BUST Festival and the coverage is entirely negative.

Stories about shoddy tents instead of promised luxury villas are on CNN. Reuters ran a report of all the bands that have cancelled their appearances leaving only Nickelback and a Christian metalcore band to play all three days of the festival. MSNBC posted pictures taken at the festival showing the advertised gourmet meals are nothing more than a packet of string cheese and a sleeve of crackers.

Billy calls you, his voice in a bit of a panic. In the background of his phone you hear screams and crowds of voices. Billy is livid over all the negative press and wants to know what can be done to take it down, take it all down. He says that all tickets required BUST Festival attendees to assign the copyright in any picture or video taken at the festival to Billy so he wants all the pictures and videos taken down immediately. He doesn’t care as much about the text posts because he doesn’t think people read anymore.

What do you tell Billy you can do about these posts?

 

So You Want To See A Social Media Law Final? (2018 Edition)

Another year of my Law & Social Media class at the University of Texas School of Law is in the books.  The grades have been entered and now I can share with you all this year’s final exam.  Let me know your thoughts/answers in the comments!

QUESTION ONE

It’s your first day on the job at Maramountal Bros. studio, makers of every movie you’ve ever seen and quite a few you haven’t. You’ve been lucky enough to join their newly formed Social Media Division, and while they plan on eventually extending the department to more people, for now the entire staff consists of you and a laptop. And the laptop doesn’t have a law degree.

The Head of Marketing bursts into your office like his hair is on fire. Which is impressive, since he’s bald.

“We’ve got a situation!” he yells with an exclamation point. He goes on to describe how the latest movie in their massive hit franchise is about to be released. The series of movies is based on superheroes who drive around the world in exotic cars and fight crime or each other. While the cars are typically turbo charged by NOS (nitrous oxIde), in this latest film a new Totally Hyper Active NOS (or THANOS) has been developed. It’s incredibly powerful but has a good chance of killing people so it must be stopped.

Your head of marketing is upset because some people at advance screenings are starting to post spoilers on social media. The studio is concerned that if these spoilers continue to spread then nobody will see the movie.

“I mean, I want it to be a surprise when [REDACTED] dies or when [BELOVED REDACTED] bites it,” he mutters, while actually saying the word redacted as he speaks.

The majority of these posts are appearing on the hot social media platform, MADE-UP. The platform was created a year ago and continues to serve the needs of fictional social media users and social media law professors everywhere. And, your head of marketing points out, it’s a platform where you spend several million dollars a year on advertising.

MADE-UP’s terms and conditions do say that “Content may be removed at the sole discretion of MADE-UP for failing to contribute to our community.” But so far, MADE-UP has refused to remove any of the posts Maramountal Bros. has flagged.

The head of marketing would like you to compose an email to the MADE-UP General Counsel to try and convince them to remove the posts. And since time is of the essence, he wants you to anticipate their responses so you won’t have a lot of back and forth. But he’s willing to give you an hour to write it. So hop to it.

QUESTION TWO

No sooner do you hit Send on the email to MADE-UP when your head of Human Relations comes storming into your office. Which is impressive because there’s actually a storm cloud floating around her head.

“You’re the Social Media lawyer, right?” she says as lightning strikes her chin. You nod, a bit afraid to speak. “Yeah, so it turns out some of those spoiler leaks for the new movie, Endless Skirmishes—you know, the one about THANOS—came from our employees. Our own employees! It makes me so mad!” A small tornado emerges from her left nostril and violently recedes.

“It turns out we don’t even have a social media policy! How is that even possible?” she screams as a hailstone falls out of her ear. “Listen, I know one hour is way too short for you to draft a social media policy for our whole company, but I have a meeting with some important people in 60 minutes. Really important people whose names and positions I can’t think of right now. But I’m going to need to tell them about what we’re going to do for a social media policy.

“Can you give me some highlights of what we can and can’t do for our employee’s social media policy?” she asks while a rainbow bursts from her eyebrow. “And please make it easy to understand—I’m not a lawyer and none of the actual, real-life people I’m meeting with that I didn’t just make up are lawyers either.”

You sit back, open the umbrella you conveniently packed in your laptop bag, and turn back to your laptop. Compose something easy for non-lawyers to understand about what your social media policy for employees should and shouldn’t have in it.

QUESTION THREE

You’ve just handed off your material to the head of Human Relations when the Vice-President in Charge of Movie Development and Overly Long Job Titles sits down at your desk. Which is impressive, because there isn’t a chair on the other side of your desk.

“Social Media and movies, who would think those go together, am I right?” he says while you wonder how he hasn’t fallen down. You nod, afraid to upset his balance.

“So listen, turns out we just acquired the rights to two old movies: Chef and Catfish. My people tell me those movies have some good social media lessons in them—as if people would actually watch movies for social media lessons! I want to combine the two movies and call it Cheffish and I want to make it super educational about social media. You know, really tell people about the risks they or their company may face on social media.

“I’m going around to all the departments and asking them what kinds of lessons I should include in the new movie. I’m definitely interested in what you learned from the movies—wait, you watched the movies, right?” You nod, because of course you watched the movies. It was listed on the job requirements the whole semester…um, job interview process.

“Would you mind telling me what kinds of lessons I should put in the new movie? Feel free to reference the old movies, or make up whatever you want. This is the movie business, after all.”

He stands up, making you wonder again how he was sitting, and casually strolls out of your office. Just as he passes the door he yells back “Anytime in the next hour will be fine!”

Grinning wildly because you totally watched both those movies, you write out your proposed lessons for the new film.

So You Want To See A Social Media Law Final? (2017 Edition)

It’s that special time of year again when I have just submitted the final grades for my Law & Social Media class at the University of Texas School of Law.  Hard to believe that I’ve been teaching it for five years now but every year brings something new to the area.  This year’s exam was inspired by some recent events, the Gabbing Geek podcast, and a few too many detective movies (well, really, all the Dresden Files books).  How would you have done?

Question One

She keeps looking out the dirty windows to make sure her Tesla isn’t being broken into. Your office is in that part of town, a part that she normally won’t be caught dead in. But here she is now.

“Mind if I smoke?” she asks, tapping on a silver cigarette holder that you thought only existed in black and white hard-boiled detective films.

“Yeah.” You toss your thumb to point at the giant “NO SMOKING” sign on the wall behind you. Right next to the “Social Media Fixer, Inc.” sign you used to hang on the outside door but too many people kept marking it up.

“They said you could help me,” she says in disbelief. Looking around the threadbare office, she looks like she’s been the victim of an online prank.

“Maybe,” you tell her. “Don’t judge me by the offices. I’m a big deal on Instagram. That was a joke.” You offer the last part because you’re not sure if she’s ever heard a joke, judging on the look she’s giving you. Or maybe you’re just telling it wrong.

“Fine,” she settles back into her chair. An impressive feat because you know how uncomfortable that chair feels. “I run an incredibly successful social media platform called Modular Academic Dreams Exist, Uniquely Personal. But everyone just calls it MADE-UP. We have hundreds of millions of users around the world. We allow them to share content with each other, interact with their friends’ posts, and even schedule events.”

“So, like Facebook,” you respond.

“Yes, but MADE-UP. Anyway, when we first launched we had one sentence for our Terms of Use: ‘Be cool.’ But now we realize that we need a more…robust document.”

“Might help,” you offer.

“Right. But I’m really not sure where to start. And I need to convince my Board of Directors to make the change. Could you give me some advice? Maybe start with three of the most important parts of the Terms of Use we should create, and some kind of strategy for rolling out those changes? Something I can take back to my Board because…” she glances out the window, “I doubt they’ll want to come here.”

“No problem,” you tell her. She leaves. You crack your knuckles and start typing.

Question Two

Six months later, the MADE-UP CEO is back in the uncomfortable chair. She left the Tesla at home this time, electing to take a taxi since Uber and Lyft still haven’t come back to this part of town. She looks about as comfortable as last time but just the fact that she’s back means you gave her good advice and she knows it.“Those Terms you wrote are great,” she says. “Okay, more than great. They’ve

“Those Terms you wrote are great,” she says. “Okay, more than great. They’ve really helped us out of some problems and our outside counsel say that without those Terms we would’ve been in a lot of trouble.” You try not to look too hurt to discover she’s hired other lawyers.

“But the one argument our other lawyers” ouch “keep facing is when users claim they never saw the new Terms. So we want to make a giant, splashy campaign all around the Terms. We don’t just want people to see them—we want them to WANT to see them!

“So I came up with a plan and everyone tells me it’s brilliant,” she smiles. Probably because you’re the CEO, I think, but wisely don’t say. She continues, “I want you to give me some honest feedback. It’s a two part plan.

“First, I want to create a graphic novel out of our Terms of Use. We’ll hire artists to create pages that copy other comic books, only instead of people talking or thinking or whatever they do in comic books, it’ll be our Terms instead. Since the pages will look like the most famous comic book heroes everyone will want to read it. We’ll use all the best heroes: Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Madame Xanadu—the true icons of the industry!

“And then second, we’ll do something similar but with video. I know some digital artists who say they can take video clips from the hottest movies and TV shows and then alter the characters’ lips to show them reading our Terms. We’ll hire some celebrity impersonators to do the characters voices so it’ll look like these people in The Walking Dead or The Magicians or Better Call Saul are reading our Terms!”

You grimace. She notices.

“What?” she asks. “Tell me what’s wrong with that plan. Or tell me what works. Just tell me!”

You take a deep breath and tell her what you’ve been thinking.

Question Three

Another six months, another taxi drops off the MADE-UP CEO at your doorstep. Well, your landlord’s doorstep. She eyes the chair warily before sitting back down in it. You’ve been meaning to get a more comfortable chair. But you haven’t.

“I should have come to you sooner,” she starts. “Especially since you’ve given me such great advice before. But I’ve learned my lesson. We fired our General Counsel over this mess—help us fix this problem and the job is yours. I’m guessing it pays…” she adjusts herself in the uncomfortable chair, “Slightly more than your current wages.

“Our marketing team started working with the most influential users on our platform. People with tens of thousands of followers. We would connect those users with brands wanting to promote their products. It was a win-win situation, the marketing team told me.”

“Marketers,” you nod knowingly.

“Right. So we had this program. Brands pay us a few thousand dollars, we pass most of that money along to the users, and the users would post pictures and videos of themselves using the products. And we would help promote that content by giving it preferential viewing for anyone on our MADE-UP platform.

“About a dozen of the brands and the influential users in the program got some letter from the FTC. And now those brands are upset with us because we never told them about some need to disclose? Is that really a thing? I guess it is.

“Now we need to change our program so that our brand partners and influential users are following the disclosure rules. I need you to draft some kind of rules or communications or training or something so that I can make everyone understand what they need to do.

“Tell me what to do for our brands, for our users, and for my marketing department. Fix this and you’ll be our new General Counsel.”

You stand up and remove the “Social Media Fixer, Inc.” sign from the wall. You won’t be needing it anymore after you give her your advice.

Facebook’s Responsibilities As A Content Platform

It is time for Facebook to look itself in the mirror and decide who it wants to be when it grows up.

In the wake of the 2016 US elections there are volumes of conversations taking place over our possible future, the ongoing tension and conflicts, and the root causes of the election.  The causes are numerous and not simple to categorize–your perception of the election’s results may make you view one cause as a positive or a negative, for example.  But the causes are out there and, if they did not have the impact they desired, then the results of the election compel those causes to re-examine their purpose and impact.  Facebook is one of them.

The New York Times ran an excellent article about Facebook’s possible impact and how different groups within the organization are thinking about the issue.  If you’re unable to read that article because you don’t have a subscription to the New York Times, I’d suggest you subscribe.  The article also points out the conflicting viewpoints even within Facebook, as Mark Zuckerberg has publicly posted that he believes Facebook’s involvement is minimal.  Unfortunately, I believe Mr Zuckerberg’s comments have missed the forest for the fake tree.

Mr Zuckerberg’s post talks about the potential impact of fake stories that circulated on Facebook.  He believes those stories had no impact, but that also once you go down the road of trying to mark stories as true or fake you get into dangerous territory.  Even mainstream reports may omit details or sometimes get stories wrong.  That is entirely valid criticism and it is entirely hogwash.

Certainly you can draw the line at marking what is a real or fake story and you can argue about moving that line.  Right now, no such line exists.  That allows completely fabricated stories to gain widespread circulation perpetuating their untruths.  Once that bad information has taken hold it is almost impossible to eliminate their impact, as Facebook well knows with the constant resurgence of Facebook untruths (Facebook is going to start charging you, if you post something then you keep control of your content, they now own all of your photos, etc.).  Even if another true story circulates right after the original fake story you will still have a large number of people who think the fake story may have had a detail wrong but the overall theme is true.  And of course that has an impact.

Facebook and other social media sites have become widely popular for lowering the barriers of distributing content.  We can now connect with people and share information with simplicity and ease.  That has powerful positive effects but it also has some drawbacks.  The widespread dissemination of fake news is one drawback and that can be addressed by Facebook if it wanted to do so.

But there’s a bigger picture here, one that I fear Facebook is missing by only talking about fake news.  Because the true impact of Facebook and all of social media isn’t just about fake news but rather that these platforms designed to increase communications between people may be doing the opposite.  There is a wealth of articles and research about how the same technology that gives us access to so much content may also force us into a bubble of only content that we agree with.  The most recent iteration is how this may have impacted the election, such as this New York magazine article points out, but this is an older concept as this fantastic 2011 TED talk points out (carve out 9 minutes to watch it if you can).

 

This is where Facebook can best start looking in the mirror.  Because Facebook doesn’t just set up bubbles for its users, it is a bubble generating machine.

Facebook stays successful by making sure you keep coming back.  It wants to give you content you find compelling and enough new material so you visit the site many times a day.  It also can’t give you too much content or you’ll get frustrated and leave.  And it also can’t give you content that will make you never come back–whether because you found it offensive or distasteful or any number of reasons.

This is the entire reason for Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm and why you sometimes see articles complaining how Facebook users don’t see all their friends’ posts.  Facebook constantly tweaks and plays with this program to maximize your time on Facebook.  More time on Facebook means you keep coming back and you’ll see more ads that they can sell to fund the platform.  That makes sense from a platform and business perspective.

But as a content and media company, Facebook also needs to ask if maximizing user bubbles is truly in the best interests.  Compare this to a snack food company that discovers if they add more sugar then people like the snacks more, they consume it more, they buy more of it.  That makes sense from a business perspective and yet it may not be the best possible outcome.

Facebook and others need to look themselves in the mirror and decide who they want to be.  They can take the all business approach of doing what is the best for profits or they can decide there is a greater responsibility at play.  I don’t know how to burst those bubbles if Facebook chooses to do so.  I do know that Facebook has some of the most brilliant content engineers, data scientists, and platform designers on the planet.  If they want to address this problem, they can start coming up with solutions.  Because bursting those bubbles may be vital in helping to bring people together, to help us increase understanding of problems and come up with solutions.  Popping those bubbles may help heal the polarizing partisanship that has only grown over the past years.

Those bubbles may be nice to live in, but they may choke us in isolation.  It’s time to figure out whether they’re worth keeping.

Either way, Facebook needs to look at their role in defining public conversations and make a decision.  Sticking their head in the sand and pointing at the other causes is irresponsible.  No, Facebook isn’t entirely to blame.  It also is not blameless.  Where it goes from there is entirely within their control.

The EU Just Expanded Copyright Infringement In A Really Confusing Way

It’s all about the links.

Nudity + Bad Content Laws = Confusion.   While not as popular as the equation E=MC², N+BCL=C is a useful equation for describing a recent decision out of the European Union dealing with copyright and social media.

Copyright and social media are frenemies at best.  On the friend side, social media has given authors powerful ways of reaching audiences that were never previously possible.  Many people make decent livings based on creating cartoons, movies, or audio files that are distributed via social media.  On the enemy side, social media has wrecked havoc with authors’ abilities to control their creative works–the entire purpose of copyright.  Find any image on the Internet, right click on it, and save the image.  Odds are you just infringed on someone’s copyright.  But whose copyright?  And did you actually infringe it or is the author fine with you saving the image?  What if you re-use that image on a Facebook post or blog article?

There are numerous issues with the (lack of) progression in our copyright laws and the rapid development of technology which easily infringes copyrights.  One set of those issues deals with the ability to link to other content on social media.  You may post a link on a blog post or on Facebook that can take a reader from your content directly to other content.  What happens when the content you link violates someone’s copyright?  The issue just became more complicated because of a recent decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union, the top appellate court for the EU.  To understand the implications of that case, let’s dive into the details.

First, the good news: the case deals with nudity as I mentioned at the top.  That’s usually good to keep people interested.  In this case, the nudity at question were naked photos of TV personality Britt Dekker which were taken for publication in the Dutch version of Playboy.  Eleven of those photos leaked prior to publication by being placed on a file hosting site.

GeenStijl (Dutch for “No Style”) is a website that posts stories about current events and scantily clad or naked women in varying ratios throughout the week.  The day that the photos were leaked online, GreenStijl received an email with a link to the photos.  Also on that day, Dutch Playboy, aware that the photos were online, attempted to take down the photos on the file-hosting site but also reached out to GeenStijl asking them not to post the photos.

GeenStijl did not respond to the request.  Instead, the next day, GeenStijl published an article that included one of the leaked photos.  They also included a link at the end of the article which directed users to the file-hosting site that had all of the photos.  Dutch Playboy again wrote GeenStijl asking the article to be taken down.  GeenStijl did not respond.  But the web site that hosted the eleven leaked photos did respond to Dutch Playboy’s request and the photos were removed from that site.

One week later, Dutch Playboy sent another letter to GeenStijl demanding their original article be taken down.  GeenStijl did not take down the original article, instead they published a new article talking about the legal dispute they now had with Dutch Playboy.  The end of this second article contained a new link to another website that had the leaked photos.  Dutch Playboy contacted the website hosting the leaked photos linked in the second article and that website also removed the leaked photos.

Ten days later, GeenStijl published another article with yet another link to a website hosting the leaked photos.  Users of the GeenStijl site filled the comments section of the article with other links to the leaked photos on various hosting services.

All three of these articles were published prior to the actual issue of Dutch Playboy for which the photos were commissioned.  Dutch Playboy brought a lawsuit against GeenStijl regarding these links that made their way through the court system before finally landing at the top appellate court.

Let’s get one thing clear: GeenStijl was a jerk in this case.  That’s not to say they were, at the time and under their understanding, breaking the law.  But they were definitely provoking a publication through their pattern of activities.  And that’s okay–cases dealing with content and speech are often filled with jerks who help bush the boundary and test the limits of the legal system so that the rest of us non-jerks benefit from a greater understanding.  But that may be important in understanding that the courts in this case may not have been inclined to help out a website acting like a jerk.  Unfortunately, their decision may have punished a jerk while also muddying the waters for all legitimate social media users.

By the time the case reached the highest court there was a set of three questions that all dealt with whether GeenStijl had “communicated to the public” (or what we in the US call “distribution” which is one of the protections afforded an author of copyrighted material) by virtue of posting links to protected content.  And here the court ultimately answered the questions with a rather convoluted statement (to be fair, it might be simpler in the original Dutch) which I will attempt to untangle.  By the way, it’s important to note the court didn’t decide the case–rather they were asked to answer some questions and now the answers will be used to resolve the case.  They said it will be hard for GeenStijl to overcome this test given the facts at hand, but another court will have to look at all the details.  Here’s what the court said:

• To determine if a link to protected content is a communication to the public you must first determine if the link was posted by an individual.
• If the link was posted by an individual, but they did not post the link for financial gain, and they had no reason to know the linked content was protected, then it is not a communication to the public
• If the link was posted by an individual for financial gain, or by a non-individual (such as a website), then there will be a presumption that the link was known to point to protected content
• This presumption of knowledge about the protected nature of the content can be rebutted

Like I said, this probably makes more sense in Dutch.  But for us English speakers, there are two really big problems for this kind of test to determine if a mere link to protected content is a legal violation.

Problem 1: The ruling sets up different tests depending on whether the links were made “with pursuit of financial gain.”

Copyright protections are supposed to protect authors so that we encourage people to become authors.  So it makes sense to stop people posting copyrighted content without the permission of the author because that could financially injure them.  If we are at all concerned about the next level of activity, other sites linking to the unauthorized posting of copyrighted content, then the motivation behind those links should be absolutely irrelevant.

The Court’s test here creates two different tests–one which applies to individuals who are posting links online but not for financial gain, other test for anyone posting for financial gain (which seems to include all websites or activity by more than one individual).  These tests shouldn’t be relevant if we’re concerned with protecting the author.

Consider this hypothetical.  I make a movie.  It’s a really good movie with time travel and robots and aliens and a hilarious road trip in a spaceship and then there’s a big fight with a giant space-Octopus.  I’m in the process of taking this movie to various festivals, maybe seeing if I can sell it to Netflix or some other distribution channel.  Someone working at one of the festivals takes my movie and makes a copy, then posting it on YouTube.  This person posted it on their own site and didn’t give it a descriptive title so nobody watches it.  Then a website stumbles across the YouTube movie and posts it on their website under Movie You Must Watch Of The Day.  A million people watch the movie and now all my interested distributors don’t want to talk to me because my movie is available for free.

At this point, I wouldn’t care one iota whether that website that posted the link is a commercial venture, newspaper, educational institution, or message forum.  Their motivation for posting the link is irrelevant–I have been damaged.  Granted, I’m also upset at the person who posted it in on YouTube in the first place, but if we are going to extend those protections to people who link to protected content why should we even consider their motivation?  Setting up a separate test for sites based on whether they pursue financial gain (because in this day and age more sites pursue a profit than actually achieve it) doesn’t make sense from the perspective of preserving the incentive for authors.

Problem 2: The court presumes that websites pursuing financial gain have magical knowledge

The court’s test says that a post made for commercial gain will be presumed to know that content they are linking to is authorized or unauthorized.  This presumption doesn’t make sense.  From the court’s perspective, such a site should know that content is protected and should therefore have better judgement in posting links because they will know if that linked content was authorized or not.

But here’s the thing: despite certain US Supreme Court decisions hinting otherwise there is no such thing as a corporation that can exercise judgment.  Corporations, websites, any organization is composed of people.  So if one person can’t be presumed to know whether any piece of content on the Internet is properly authorized, how would five people running a website have that breadth of knowledge?  Or even a hundred?  Or a thousand?  Certainly larger organizations with more resources might identify protected content and be able to ascertain if the posting was authorized, whether by virtue of more eyeballs seeing the content or being able to afford some tools to help it identify content, but none of those are perfect.  Trying to substitute the pursuit of profit with having enough resources to presume knowledge of content status just doesn’t make sense in our digital world.

US law on this issue is similar but has an important difference: a website could be liable for linking to unauthorized content if it knew the content was unauthorized but there is no presumption of that knowledge simply because the website is trying to make a profit.  That’s the key distinction.

Also, when the EU court made this a presumption that can be rebutted, they left open a huge loophole.  Let me give you a psychic prediction on approximately 100% of the cases involving this test moving forward: the website that posted the links will say they didn’t know the content was posted without authority in an attempt to rebut the presumption.  That’s 100%, plus or minus 0%.  And the only websites that won’t be able to make this argument will be the ones who, like in GeenStijl’s case, were sent an actual communication by the copyright owner that the content was posted without authorization.

If that’s the court’s intent then they should have just flipped the test.  Instead of presuming knowledge, make a copyright holder tell the website that posts links.  If that seems like too much to ask–because why should a copyright holder have to do the extra work of telling everyone not to violate their rights–that’s because it is too much to ask.  But that’s exactly what the test will ultimately end up doing.

Maybe the court just isn’t as psychic as I am.

 

 

How long this decision by the court is upheld remains to be seen.  Perhaps it proves so unusable at a practical level that it is refined or reversed within the next few years.  Perhaps courts try to cobble together a patchwork quilt of decisions that mostly follow this test but make it workable.  But as it exists right now there are serious problems applying this test to Facebook, Twitter, Google, or any site that hosts a blog (Hey WordPress, what’s up?).  And there are even bigger ramifications for those hosting platforms on trying to set up a process to handle this new test.  Right now, websites that host content are accustomed to having a process where copyright onwers can assert ownership and take down offending content.  Will that system need to be expanded to then impact other sites that link infringing works?  Will a failure to do so make these sites contributing to the unauthorized communications to the public, allowing an additional expansion of copyright protection?

The EU’s decision is too recent to see how it will play out, but keep your eyes peeled.  This could get ugly fast.  Although the court may have been swayed by not wanting to let GeenStijl get away with being a jerk, they may have inadvertently overcorrected the issue and caused more problems than they solved.

So You Want To See A Social Media Law Final? (2016 Edition)

Cower before my mad shop skillz.

Another year in my Law & Social Media class is in the books at the University of Texas School of Law.  Having just submitted my grades today, I’m now pleased to share with you this year’s final exam.  I had to look around for the right inspiration for this year’s final, only to realize it’s been staring at me for over 15 months.  Let me know in the comments what you think, or what issues you spotted in the final exam.

And now, the final exam:

QUESTION ONE

Your dream has come true. Not only have you passed the Bar but you have landed a job with famed Broadway production company Eat The Cheesecake! (ETC). ETC is getting ready to launch a new hip-hop musical about a little known figure from American history: President James A. Garfield. Garfield: An American Musical has been anticipated by theater goers and critics alike for months. The cast has been intensely rehearsing and they are quickly approaching the first few performances.

Although the musical theater crowd all knows about Garfield, ETC management is concerned that few people generally know about President Garfield. The original poster for the production, a picture of the actual President Garfield, tested poorly with focus groups because nobody recognized the photo. To develop a poster that would appeal to more people, ETC launched a pair of contests to come up with a new, consumer friendly mascot that could be the marketing face of the musical. They launched these contests one month before they hired you and they are now about to close.

The first contest allowed individuals to upload an image of the proposed new mascot. The second contest allowed individuals to submit names for the mascot. The online crowd quickly responded with thousands of entries. Unfortunately, despite the high volume, more than 99% of entries in the first contest consisted of a well-known cartoon cat by the name of Garfield. While over 99% of the entries for the second contest all named the new mascot “Garfield McGarfieldface.”

ETC doesn’t want to use these images or name and want to know their options. They eagerly point out to you that, really, they can do whatever they want because it won’t break the rules–they didn’t post any rules for the contests. They just said the winning entries would get a pair of tickets to the show every week for a year (a prize with an approximate retail value of $15,000). ETC would like you to brief them on what their options are for moving forward with the contests and, if they want to run any more contests in the future, what they should keep in mind when creating new promotions.

QUESTION TWO

ETC firmly believes that if they can just get people to hear about some of the exciting aspects of President Garfield’s life then everyone will want to buy tickets to their new musical. To get that message to the masses, their head of Marketing has decided to create a program called Garfield Lovers And Supporters And Generally Nice Announcers (LASAGNA).

Participants in this program would be selected based on their sizable social media following. They would then be invited to a special performance of the musical and they would all leave the show with a collection of pictures and interesting facts about the cast and crew. Program participants would then be instructed to post about the show on social media. For every post LASAGNA members make on social media platforms, ETC will pay the author $10. If the post receives over a thousand interactions (comments, shares, or simple interactions such as Likes) then the author will receive a bonus $20 in celebration of President Garfield being the 20th President of the United States.

ETC has already identified 200 potential influencers for this program–one for every day President Garfield was in office. The only requirement they want to impose upon the participants is that every post needs to have a link to a website where people can buy tickets to the musical.

The head of Marketing would like to know if there are any potential legal concerns over the Garfield LASAGNA program and, if so, how they could be corrected.

QUESTION THREE

Based on your advice with both the contests and the LASAGNA program, Garfield has now been open for a month and the crowds love it. Ticket prices have soared, the cast are swarmed every time they visit a convenience store, and you are officially sold out for the next six months.

One downside to the sudden popularity of the show is the amount of pirated material that is showing up online (YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram mostly). Audience members have been recording some of the songs from Garfield such as “Rosencrans’ Right-Hand Man,” “The Election of 1880,” and “I’ve Been Shot!” While ETC loves their fans’ enthusiasm, the online videos are grainy, shaky, and with horrible audio quality typical of a pirated video from a smartphone. ETC is afraid people might see these videos and think badly of the show.

The cast is also unhappy at seeing so many phones being used during the show and would like for something to be done about it. But the cast is also loving the attention from their fans. One of the stars of the show, Keslie Otum Sr., has said that he would like to schedule some live streams from behind the scenes using Periscope. The live streams would mostly be about hidden details from the show that audience members can’t see, but he’d also like to stream what the cast does backstage when the show is being performed—especially their now nightly ritual of everyone getting together right before the show and singing an inspired cover of “Baby Got Back.”

ETC would like you to let them know what their options are concerning the videos being posted online by audience members and what they should tell Keslie about his live streaming idea.

Oh Hey, Want To See A Great Social Media Law Final Answer?

This is the fourth year I’ve taught my Social Media Law class at the University of Texas School of Law and each year I’ve posted the final exam here on the blog.  I’ll be doing the same for this year’s exam later in the week, but I wanted to do something I hadn’t done before: post a model answer.  I presented this answer to the class this year after getting permission from the writer, the top score in the final and class last year.  Worth Carroll wrote the answer so all credit to him.  If you want to re-read the questions he’s answering, here is the final exam from that year.

Would you have answered differently?  When I went over the answer in class there were certainly points that came up that weren’t in this answer, and this answer also had points that the class hadn’t considered as well.  Taking a law school exam is always a difficult task so it’s hard to say what you could do in the three hour situation, but this was a fantastic set of answers to the questions.  Take a read after the break and see if you agree.

7 Signs Of A Bogus Facebook Privacy Change Post (and why your status update has no impact on Facebook)

Every September it emerges like a cloud of locusts but far more annoying.  The posts.

Facebook has changed its privacy policy and is going to start charging you tomorrow unless you post the following UCC provisions and use some really strong words to say you DO NOT ALLOW THIS!  It might help if you stomp your foot too.  And you have to copy and paste this, for no good reason other than its funny as hell that people believe this nonsense.

It’s a hoax.  A chain mail joke.  And every year it flies around because people don’t remember it from the year before.  I tried blogging about detecting these hoaxes almost three years ago and the same points hold true.  This year even Facebook got in on the action by publicly telling people it was fake.

But I decided to make it easier for people to detect these hoaxes with the following list of bogus nonsense that can help you find the next Facebook hoax.  Some of this is a bit of tough love if you’ve been one of the people spreading this rumor–but it’s time for you to put your thinking hat on.  Yes, even while using social media.

The next hoax may take a different form or say it’s for some other reason, so I’m giving you all the ammunition you need to find and kill hoax posts.

1. It asks you to copy and paste something into your status update.

Look, I know your status update is really important to you as a Facebook user.  It’s where we tell people about how much fun we’re having and the great deal we got on something and how we’re really, really tired.  But it isn’t a Magical Contract Box.  You don’t get to put text in it and have that conjure some mystical legal impact like changing your terms with Facebook (check reason number 6) or giving yourself some extra degree of privacy (check reason number 5 below) or avoiding some bogus charge (check reason number 4).  That’s not how Facebook works, that’s not how contracts work, that’s not how life works.

2. It cites some source of information without a link.

You are a sophisticated Facebook user once you’ve been using the platform for more than a day.  So you know how easy it is to link an article, a video, a picture, or many other forms of information.  If a status update starts off by citing some source of information like a Channel 13 or WXYZ or some newspaper you’ve never heard of and it doesn’t contain a link to that original information then I want you to use some critical thinking skills.  “Are they not linking this information because it’s common knowledge or because it doesn’t exist?” I want you to ask yourself.  And then I want you to realize that you have no idea who Channel 13 is and why should you trust them.  And then I want you to ignore the status update.

3. It pretends to be legal by mentioning the UCC or Statute of Rome or some such nonsense.

Look, I get that the legal system can be a bit mysterious because lawyers want to keep a reason for suffering through law school for three years.  So part of this is on us–you don’t know what the UCC is except now I’m going to tell you.  The UCC isn’t a law.  It’s a code that is recommended to states to make a law and have it be common across all states (the U stands for Uniform).  But it isn’t a law.  So any status update that cites the UCC like it’s a law?  Immediately bogus.  Also if you see something that vaguely sounds like a law, like the Statute of Rome, think to yourself “Do I live in Rome?”  If you do, I want you to get on your scooter and go drive around a bit.  If you don’t, I want you to ignore the status update.

4. It says Facebook is about to start charging you.

I’m not saying that Facebook will always be free–that’s up to Facebook.  They said they are always going to be free (see that post at the top) but they could change their mind.  But even if they did change their mind, let’s think about it for a second–if Facebook were going to start charging its 1 billion plus users do you think you would find out about it the day before it happens?  And do you think you would find out about it from a status update?  An unsourced status update with no link that likely comes from one of your friends who, let’s face it, don’t post any technology news ever?  Nope.  If Facebook were going to start charging everyone you can be sure every news outlet would cover it and Facebook would be getting ahead of the message by alerting every user the moment you logged onto Facebook.

5. It tries to use anything but the Privacy settings to, you know, impact your Privacy settings.

Facebook has an incredibly robust Privacy settings page.  It’s grown over the years, partially as a reaction to users asking for more Privacy settings.  But while you can access many settings when you post something (like who can see it, what information it includes, whether it has a location, etc.) and you have many more global Privacy settings available via that funky lock icon in the top right corner of every Facebook page ever, one of the few places where you can’t change your privacy settings is by posting text in your status update.  Because I know how important your status update is to you and your friends–but Facebook isn’t reading everything you post.  Nor are they setting their computers to constantly monitor your status update to see if you’ve signaled some new relationship between yourself and Facebook.  This is mostly because you’re being paranoid, but it’s also because…

6. You don’t get to modify your agreement with Facebook

Well, okay, that’s a bit harsh.  You do have one way of modifying it–you can delete your account.  Although even then the Facebook terms you accepted when you signed up have some applicability, namely as in what happens when you delete your account.  But those terms you accepted when you signed up?  Yeah, those were actually a contract and you don’t get to modify them without Facebook agreeing.  Just like if you pay your rent by sending a check to your landlord and write a note on it saying “I hereby change my monthly rent to $5” that’s not going to work.  The terms apply to you.  The fact that you chose to accept them without reading the document?  Guess who’s fault that is?  Hint: not Facebook’s.

7. It says you must copy and paste, not share.

It seems silly that I’m even listing this one but it irks me.  Besides the notion of having any status update with a legal impact, why would anyone think that copying and pasting is somehow more impactful than sharing?  Have you ever signed a contract, ever?  Of course you have–you’ve agreed to terms, you’ve signed up for cell phone plans, maybe you’ve bought a house or leased an apartment.  Were you handed a paper to sign or told to check a box?  Of course you were.  You were never  asked to write out a paragraph word for word so that it would apply to you.  That’s just silly.  Stop being silly.

 

There.  Seven ways to detect a hoax post about Facebook’s privacy policy or a lot of other topics.  We don’t need to do this again, do we?

Sigh.  Yeah.  See you next year.

 

So You Want To See A Social Media Law Final? (2015 Edition)

Readers who were smart enough not to attend law school (congrats on that!) may not realize that a law school final is serious business.  The vast majority of your classes during those three years will have you reading and discussing cases and listening to a professor for an entire semester; then you get one test and that’s your grade.  No repeats.  No making it up down the road.  One and done.  Scary stuff.

Readers of this (increasingly infrequent, sorry) blog also know that I teach a class on Social Media Law at the University of Texas School of Law.  This past year was the third time I offered the class and it’s always interesting to see the issues that have emerged from year to year or even during the year I’m teaching.  I also spend a lot of time thinking about the final, both because I want it to be interested and because I want the students to have ample opportunity to show what they’ve learned over the entire semester.

Below is the final from my 2015 class.  (Here’s the final from last year and here’s the final from 2013 if you’re curious.)  I wanted to post it now to give you some time to think about it (or discuss in the comments).  Later I’ll post what ended up being the top grade in the class’ answer (yes, I asked for and received permission to post it).

Before I get into the text of the final, let me thank the inspiration for elements of these questions: my work SMaC team for pulling social media lessons from the movie Chef, the movie Real Genius, my youngest son Isaac who thinks “Poo-poo” is the funniest word ever (he’s not wrong), and many real world examples that I tweaked for this exam.

And now, the final exam:

QUESTION ONE

Fresh out of law school and after passing your Bar exam, you are quickly snapped up by a hot new company called Pop-Up Pop-Ups (PU2).  PU2 has a unique business model where they partner with other companies to create mobile marketing experiences.  In the past, PU2 has worked with a volleyball company to hold an impromptu volleyball tournament in the middle of a city block.  PU2 has also worked with fashion companies to hold flash mob style runway shows in unexpected locations such as rooftops and swimming pools.  PU2 prides itself in organizing events that shock its audience and get people talking.

PU2 picks the locations for its events by identifying certain key social media users and targeting an experience around this individual, hoping that the individual will then be the origin for a cascade of social media posts that gets the word out about the event.

The CEO of PU2, Mr. Knowslittle, lets his staff handle the social media elements of the business.  This past year he saw the movies Chef and Catfish and now thinks social media might be a risky area for him but he knows his team relies on social media to conduct their business.  He has asked you to advise him on any practical or legal risks his business might face due to social media and to put them in perspective with the potential benefits his company could receive.  Since he has never used any social media platforms but really enjoyed the movies Chef and Catfish, he would like you to use examples from these movies to help illustrate your points.

Compose an email to your CEO advising him about his company’s social media risks and potential rewards.

QUESTION TWO

PU2’s latest marketing stunt involved building a giant pyramid in Times Square.  An actor wearing sun-god robes stood on the top of the pyramid while a hundred other actors stood at the base of the pyramid and threw little pickles at the sun-god.  Your CEO is unclear what this event was supposed to promote but it did receive a lot of attention on social media.

During the event, the well-known action movie star Arnold Schwarzeblecher (“Arnie” for short), was filming Total Recall 2: Totaller Recall nearby.  Seeing all the commotion, he came to Times Square and proceeded to take part in the event.  He laughed, he cried, he said it was better than Cats as he stood and threw little pickles.  Several bystanders saw Arnie participating in the event and they all took pictures and videos and posted their content to social media.

When Arnie returned to his trailer he had several urgent messages from his public relations team.  They saw all the posted content and, even worse, so did a number of entertainment websites who are now running articles that Arnie is working with PU2 to promote…whatever the pickle throwing event was supposed to promote.

Arnie’s team is demanding you pull down all content using Arnie’s image.  Your CEO, Mr. Knowslittle, has received some of these demands as well.  Not only does he want to keep the content up but he’d also like to start posting some of these pictures and videos directly from all PU2 social media accounts (“Whatever those are,” he says, because he still doesn’t really get it).

Compose an email to your CEO addressing the demands from Arnie’s public relations team as well as Mr. Knowslittle’s desire to post this content from PU2 accounts.

QUESTION THREE

Your CEO, Mr. Knowslittle, has sent the head of Human Resources to speak to you about an employee matter.  The Marketing Department had extended an offer to a new Event Manager, Helen Clueless, a week ago.  Helen accepted the offer almost immediately and the team had been thrilled to bring in their newest team mate.

Some of Helen’s strengths which carried her through the interview process were her extensive social media skills and ability to build online communities.  She had built her personal brand on Twitter and had an account with over 20,000 followers at the time of her interviews.  The hiring manager, unsure of how to handle Helen’s Twitter account during the interview, was especially careful not to read the content of Helen’s tweets and ensured that everyone involved in the hiring process did the same.

After the Times Square pickle throwing, Helen tweeted out several messages that are highly critical of PU2.  Some examples include:

• I cannot believe I’m starting a job next week with this company. #picklethrowing
• Sure, the job pays well, but am I going to work on stupid events like this for the rest of my life? #picklethrowing #worstjobever
• Please, Twitterverse, find me a job before I start working for these morons. #picklethrowing #willworkfortweets
• Just wish my last gig hadn’t fired me for that drug bust. #justpot #legalizeit

The last tweet caught the attention of HR in particular and they then reviewed the content of her Twitter account.  They discovered dozens of tweets referencing drug use and other behaviors that are clear violations of your Code of Conduct.

To make matters worse, now other people are starting to reply to Helen’s tweets and including PU2, asking your company if they really hired someone who is just going to insult her employer before she even starts her job.  HR would like to know what options they have regarding Helen.

Compose an email to your head of HR and CEO advising them on what they can do about Helen and if there is anything they should change in their hiring practices to mitigate this risk in the future.

The Sky Is Not Falling: Your Guide To The New Facebook Terms

The internet has a mild explosion every time Facebook announces a change to its terms of service.  The shockwaves are just now creeping out with questionable articles and scary exposes bemoaning the upcoming changes and a slew of people posting those bogus copyright or privacy notices because they think those matter.  Bogus notices which I blogged about two years ago–a fun little post called You Owe Me $2 For Reading This Blog Post Title (And The Three Signs Of A Social Hoax)–but are still going around.

But what there hasn’t been too much of is an actual comparison of the differences with the old Facebook terms and the new ones.  Because that would be rational and probably not get many clicks.  All the current articles seem to take for granted that the current/old Facebook terms are fine–but change is SCARY!

So here, in the closest way I can be not rational and get lots of clicks, even though it doesn’t matter since I don’t put ads on this site  (wordpress may because I have the free service), is my fear-laden analysis of the actual section-by-section changes to the Facebook terms.  If you want to check yourself here’s a link to the old (or current) terms and the new terms that go into effect in January 2015.  Otherwise, just trust in me and BE AFRAID!!!

1. Privacy

Facebook doesn’t have a Privacy Policy–did you know that?  No, that isn’t a change with the new terms–they haven’t had one in years.  Instead they’ve had a Data Use Policy.  Which is actually a better name for what the policy covers anyway.  But now the policy will be called the Data Policy.  The word “Use” has been obliterated, it’s a whole new world of darkness and evil!

Oh, that’s the only change to the Privacy section.  Try to quell your horror and move on to section 2.

2. Sharing Your Content and Information

If that one change in the Privacy section didn’t terrify you then surely the two, yes TWO changes to the content sharing section will make you crawl under the bed and Instagram scary flashlight pictures all night.

Change 1: Data Use Policy is now Data Policy in the third item.

Change 2: the word “them” has been changed to “your feedback or suggestions” in the fifth item. Which is what “them” referred to anyway only now it’s clearer.

Steal your heart and move on to the next block.

3. Safety

The ninth item (“You will follow our Promotions Guidelines and all applicable laws if you publicize or offer any contest, giveaway, or sweepstakes (‘promotion’) on Facebook.”) has been removed.  It’s like they don’t even want us to be safe anymore!  Or it’s like they moved it to another page and link it later.  Either way: EVIL!

4. Registration and Account Security

Registering is when Facebook first sinks its evil tentacles into your personal information and account security is how you keep your own account out of the hands of other people.  So it should surprise nobody that Facebook took this entire section and did nothing at all with it whatsoever.  My goodness, does their evilness know no boundaries?  They’re like a Sbarro restaurant to your lower intestine–pure, fast-moving evil!

5. Protecting Other People’s Rights

The old version mentioned how you couldn’t use Facebook trademarks except as provided in a Brand Use Guideline and it gave examples of what those trademarks were.  Now it doesn’t give examples of Facebook marks.  AT ALL.  Except it makes Trademarks a defined term and gives the examples near the bottom of the document.  THE BOTTOM.  Dracula himself couldn’t be scarier if he was in High School Musical 6: No More Mirrors!

6. Mobile and Other Devices

We all know how important mobile devices are to Facebook users and the company.  Knowing that, can you guess what they did with this section?  NOTHING!  It’s like the moment when the full moon comes out and the guy turns into a werewolf.  Except there’s no moon and no werewolf.  Run!

7. Payments

This section used to force you into the draconian and horrible Facebook payment terms–terms so horrific I dare only utter their name and make several hand-wards to keep the demons away.  The new terms say that you will still be subjected to them–unless other terms are listed and then those apply.  And those terms could be…better?  No, they will be worse!  They will demand your unborn baby and require you to listen to Justin Bieber music non-stop for months!  How dare those…other payment providers besides Facebook make other terms available to you when buying things!

8. Special Provisions Applicable to Developers/Operators of Applications and Websites

This section links to special provisions that were totally in the same document before–you didn’t even have to click last time but NOW YOU DO!  Oh, and they combined this with providers of social plug-ins as well, just to MAKE THINGS SIMPLER/EVILER FOR YOU!

9. About Advertisements and Other Commercial Content Served or Enhanced by Facebook

Oh yeah, here’s the beefy stuff.  Because we all know that Facebook wants all your data to sell to people so that you’ll buy Snuggies and knock-off Legos and flavor injection kits that totally DO NOT INJECT FLAVOR NO MATTER HOW MUCH TERIYAKI SAUCE YOU USE!  (ahem)

Hmm.  They didn’t change anything here.  Or maybe they did–IN INVISIBLE INK!!!  (insert evil laugh)

10. Special Provisions Applicable to Advertisers

Do you put ads on Facebook, you evil bastard?  Then you should know these terms have moved to their own document!  And that document is totally possessed by an evil doll who wants to steal half your socks.  Not all your socks, just one of each pair.  I hate those dolls.

Otherwise, no changes.

11. Special Provisions Applicable to Pages

No changes here…

12. Special Provisions Applicable to Software

No changes here…

13. Amendments

BAM!  Oh, just when you were lulled into a false sense of security, Facebook done Amendment changed you, son!  And do you know what they did?  Do you know what they did?  Why, they clarified when they may make changes to the terms but still said they’ll give you notice!  That’s like McRib evil right there.  They even took away the seven day requirement for posting changes to the terms meaning they could totally post term changes MORE THAN SEVEN DAYS AHEAD OF TIME!  Not like they’ll ever do that though.  I mean, it’s not like we’re analyzing term changes four weeks before they go into effect.

Wait, we are?  THAT’S HORRIFYING!  This is like the BuzzFeed list of 13 Kittens Who Are So Scaredy-Cat They Cannot Even Handle Right Now!

14. Termination

This is the section that says what part of the terms would still apply even if you don’t use Facebook anymore.  And they made LESS terms still apply.  If that isn’t the legal equivalent of the Alien chest burster, I don’t know what is…shudder.

15. Disputes

But what if you have a disagreement with Facebook?  This is where they totally take advantage of you, right?  You bet they do.  And they do that by changing a typo (it said “or” when they meant to say “of”) and they also changed three instances where the limitation only said HIS or HIM and changed it to HIS OR HER or HIM OR HER.  Wait, so these terms apply to women now too?  What is this, Facebook, the women’s suffrage movement of the 1910’s?  Because time travel is scary or something.

16. Special Provisions Applicable to Users Outside the United States

People outside the US don’t get to use Facebook anymore.  Oh wait, that was an early draft.  NO CHANGES?!?!  Why, the implications of this are staggering.  Has anyone told Kim Kardashian yet?  She may need to delete her Facebook page in protest!

17. Definitions

There are so many changes here I can’t even begin to list them.  Actually, there are four and they’re boring.  Kinda like the Blob.  Maybe a long time ago that was scary but now I’m just eating popcorn and waiting for The Fly to start.

18. Other

Obviously Facebook has saved the best for last.  Other is the giant catch-all, the monster cornucopia of platform terms and conditions that lets the giant corporation eat your toes and drain your bank account.  So it should come as no surprise that Facebook changed NOTHING  here.  Because that’s how evil they are: pure evil.  Like pure maple syrup if maple syrup was evil.  Which is crazy talk because maple syrup is pure goodness.

 

And…that’s it.  My goodness, I’m surprised we made it through all of that.  I believe the only rational response is to post a status update about the Burner convention and then delete our Facebook accounts.  Instead let’s go over to WhatsApp.  I hear the guys that run that app are super cool.