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Facebook Threatens To Delete Users' Photos If They Don't Install Moments app (betanews.com)

Mark Wilson, reporting for BetaNews: Not content with forcing people into using its Messenger app, Facebook is continuing its aggressive tactics and driving users to install its photo-sharing app, Moments. The social network has warned users that their photos face deletion if they fail to use the Moments app. Unsurprisingly, this has led to a huge surge in interest in the app, pushing it to the top of the download charts. Facebook says it is going to delete Synced Albums and Synced Photos if Moments is not installed by July 7, sending warning emails to a number of users. This has understandably led to panic installations of Moments as people sought to protect the photos that have been automatically synchronized from their phone. It's important to note that it is only these synced photos that are at risk, but it's clear that there is an element of confusion about what Facebook is planning to delete.

3 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. You are the product, not the customer by NotInHere · · Score: 4, Informative

    For facebook, you are the product, not the customer. I don't get it why people think otherwise and then first use it and after that get upset if they get treated like a product.

    Don't make a facebook account, that's it.

  2. Re:Why does this cause surprise or panic? by reboot246 · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's clear that you should not use Facebook for anything. Ever.

    I can't really feel sorry for the ones who do lose their photos. They take photos with a crappy cell phone camera and then Facebook compresses the hell out of them. What? You didn't save them somewhere else? Tough. Even if you save them from Facebook, all you have is tiny little files that are masquerading as photos.

    My bother's two daughters, both college educated, are like that. They never back up the photos from their phones. They just depend on Facebook. The photos look okay on a phone, not so much on a 24" monitor. And forget about printing them.

  3. Re:What this actually means..? by Christopher+Fritz · · Score: 4, Informative

    As I understand it, the Facebook app had a feature to synchronize photos you've taken to Facebook. This feature has been removed from the Facebook app, and put into a separate app (which probably has extra features related specifically to managing synced photos, I'm guessing). If you used the synchronization feature in the Facebook app, you need to install the Moments app to continue to use that feature. Anything synced from the Facebook app will be deleted, unless "transferred" to synchronizing from the Moments app. A feature from one app is being branched off to another app. If you want to use that feature, there's a more specific place for it now.

    I've never used any of these apps, so I don't know how accurate this is. It's just what I gather from reading some articles on this.