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Famous For Fifteen People: Is Everyone a 'Facebook Celebrity'?
An anonymous reader writes "In the Stanford Law Review Online, authors Frankel, Brookover & Satterfield discuss an ongoing lawsuit against Facebook where plaintiffs claimed the social network's 'Sponsored Stories,' displaying advertisements on Facebook including 'the names and pictures of users who have "Liked" a product,' violated the law. Facebook responded by asserting that '(1) Plaintiffs are "public figures" to their friends, and (2) "expressions of consumer opinion" are generally newsworthy.' The authors discuss the substantial impact this case might have on online privacy going forward: 'The implications are significant and potentially far-reaching. The notion that every person is famous to his or her "friends" would effectively convert recognizable figures within any community or sphere, however small, into individuals whose lives may be fair game for the ever-expanding (social) media. If courts are willing to find that nontraditional subjects (such as Facebook users) are public figures in novel contexts (such as social media websites), First Amendment and newsworthiness protections likely will become more vigorous as individual privacy rights weaken. Warren and Brandeis's model of privacy rights, intended to prevent media attention to all but the most public figures, will have little application to all but the most private individuals.'"
If you "Like" something on Facebook, Facebook has every right to let your Facebook Friends know you liked that thing. This is crazy to say this specific thing is a privacy invasion. Don't "Like" things that you don't want your Friends knowing you like!
Waaaah! How dare someone make public things I do...in public!
Why would you Like something on Facebook if you didn't want people to know you liked it? This is like complaining that when you make a comment on a Friend's wall, Facebook shows that comment to your friend.
I'm a huge facebook celebrity but you basement dwelling virgins probably don't even like facebook.
...why in the world are they on Facebook?
My blog
So don't "like" things? What would be the point of "liking" something if you didn't expect others to see that? This is a really stupid lawsuit.
there can be no expectation of privacy in information that is willingly broadcasted into the void.
IANAL, but since when does lawyer mean "someone who reinterprets every word in a new and twisted way, just to make profit"? But hey, If they make this new definition of "famous" stick, then we can redefine "lawyer" to mean whatever we want. I'm proposing to redefine it as "Anser fabalis", given that to me the sound of a lawyer is a loud honking, which has the side-effect that we would be legally entitled to cooking them.
My opinion on this matters on one detail that I am not seeing in the summary, and can't seem to find in the TFA. If they use myself for an advertisement. Is it an advertisement only seen by people I'm friends with or everyone?
If the former, it sets a disgusting precedent, that along Google's new social search, might be just barely ruled legal depending on the judge. This would be a step from going from losing privacy to a creep of losing even control of your own identity to corporations.
If the latter, this isn't just a creep. This is full blown jumping off the ledge. There is no way in hell a Judge could find this legal. At this point FaceBook needs to be slapped down hard, very hard.
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
No.
On one hand.. this should require an opt-in the likes of which ANY company needs to "share" a customers data.
on the other hand.. If you act like a fool in public, expect to end up on the news... and probably in it's advertisements.
I know the officially sanctioned slashdot view point is that the user is a stupid worthless victim, or even the product (derp), but I think that when a company acts in a way the majority of users wouldn't expect, despite that they agreed to the incomprehensible terms and conditions, and despite getting the service for "free", then there is something amiss, and buyer beware isn't enough.
Stronger data protection laws are needed to prevent the total rape of people's privacy. In some countries for example, it is illegal to have a box ticked by default to opt into something, and what social networks can do with people's data needs to be ring-fenced.
There is a difference between liking something, endorsing it and shilling for it. For instance, I like my Honda and the dealer from which I bought it, but I made them remove all the dealer stickers from the vehicle as a condition of the sale. They're not paying me to advertise for them.
Facebook is making money from the advertising they push out to users and, presumably, from the advertising they stick your photo into, but where's your cut for use of your likeness? Yes, one can simply not "like" a product, but that's besides the point. Even though I might actually like a brand of Vodka and want to tell my friends about it, I don't really want a picture of me shilling for it - unless I specifically agree (and get paid) for it.
I'm sure it's all covered in the Facebook "terms of service", but that doesn't make it right. It's actually a moot point for me as I don't have a Facebook (nor Twitter) account - and never will. (Though there's probably a "shadow" Facebook account - bastards.)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Lawyers please chime in, but as I understood it the right of publicity is for celebrities, who stand to make money from endorsements(advertising). Why would FB want to argue that users are public figures?
You certainly wish you were.
At issue is not the silly "like" button. As most of you point out, my friends know what I like and don't like anyway. Also, the accusation is fairly lame. What is interesting is the defense, however. They don't just say "if you don't like your friends to know all your likes disable and enable them individually", which would have been very natural. They go one gigantic step further. They say: "everybody is a celebrity to their friends. Therefore, the limited privacy rights of celebrities apply as long as the results of our aggressive "journalism" is only disclosed to these friends". If that defense goes through, then they can turn the robo-paparazzis loose and publish everything that data mining can produce to somebody's FB "friends", of which quite a few people have hundreds; and they have friends..... That's what I'm concerned about - not the "like" button.
Just say you like 20% of the things you don't care about, and don't click on 20% of the things you do secretly like, and you are statistically invisible, because 40% of people are even bigger phonies than you are. Occasionally, you will still get a car ad when you really were interested in a car. Big big whoop.
Gently reply
What is it with all this excuses for defending any new 'feature' they roll out? Wouldn't it be enough to state in the Terms that they can do whatever they want? Then no worries.
If I "Like" Cheez-its on Facebook, and they use that information in an advertisement, aren't I entitled to compensation for my endorsement?
bah.
All this misses the point.
The lack of privacy used by FB violates the Privacy rights of Citizens of Canada and the EU who live in the US, under the Data Privacy treaties that the US is signatory to.
No amount of pretending people are public figures will change that basic fact.
Even for those of us who may or may not be infamous on the Net. Not that I'm admitting anything.
You can't make me sign away my Canadian Constitutional Rights.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Being a friend to someone outside of facebook does not give me the right to break privacy laws with those people. Being my friend doesn't make them a public person.
Why would FB be any different.
One problem with the way things work now is that some companies use deceptive means to get "likes." For example, Duracell sponsors ads saying "Love Star Wars? Click 'like' here!," with "sponsored by Duracell" in small type at the bottom. I'm sure if someone clicks that they'll soon show up on their friends page in ads that imply that they are endorsing Duracell.
I got a little lost in the summary, but this entire case seems to hinge on a Venn Diagram.
(Circle) "People and context I expect to see my post"
(Bigger Circle) "Context that Facebook actually uses my post, including Truman Show style ads to show that FREDDY LIKES SCHLITZER HOT DOGS!"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Otherwise they will owe FB a zillion dollars in attorney fees. The law they are suing under, Cal. Civil Code Section 3344, is one of a very few California statutes that provide for a mandatory attorney fee award against a losing plaintiff or plaintiffs.
In nearly all other types of lawsuits brought under California law, there is no award of attorney fees against losing plaintiffs unless there is an attorney fee clause in a contract, or the lawsuit is deemed legally frivolous.
Worse than shadow profiles, there is a publicly viewable profile with my full name on it in Facebook. No idea how it got there. It has *no* information in it. Nada.
While I would prefer it was not there, the process to remove it is ridiculous.
You have to give them:
Full Name
Address
Phone Number
email address
And a scan of your government I.D.!!!!
Why the hell would I give them all that information to remove a profile that has no information associated with it? So, there it stands, mockingly.
"Ha, ha, what are you going to do about it?", they say. If I actually go through their process to remove it, who's to say the next time they create this fake profile they won't populate it with all the information they collected to remove the blank one?
Even if Congress writes privacy laws to cover this kind of data collection, misrepresentation, use of likeness, etc. it will be chock full of loopholes and exemptions specifically written in by - you guessed it - Facebook! As well as advertisers, big Pharma/Retailers, and any number of big pocket, lobby rich corps.