The Internet

It shouldn’t be a huge surprise that Facebook changed their terms of service.  Well, maybe the terms of service themselves, but certainly not the way they did it.  Facebook has a history of taking shots and calling a do-over if users raise too much of a fuss (such as the privacy feature on its news feed).  So it’s keeping in line with past behavior when Facebook changes the way users grant permission to use their material, hear the anguished cries, and then back off.

Facebook claims the changes were made to keep material like private messages in the system if a user deleted their account, so presumably that material will go away if you do indeed decide to cancel their Facebook membership.  That being said, there’s still a few things you should keep in mind when posting material to Facebook:

1. Once it goes up, it’s up.  Even if you delete your account, somebody could have copied or saved it to a different location.  If you don’t want it to live forever on the Internet, don’t post it.
2. Conversely, if you do need to save something from Facebook for a long period of time, it seems prudent to copy it to a different source.  If you need information from a message and it goes away when your friend deletes their account, what are you going to do?
3. Always be careful of what you agree to on the Internet, and make sure you know what you’re getting into.  When the terms of service change, make sure you’re willing to go along with it.

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