Up until recently I’ve had an image in a public work album on my facebook page, a photograph that’s been widely published in the national and international press. The image is fully lawful, accurately reports on a news event and is from a public place. The publication would be widely considered to be in ‘the public interest‘, ethically justifying the distribution and use of the photograph even if there were other concerns.
The photograph, from March 26th protests in London, was incidentally widely infringed during recent riots; published under claims that the image was taken in Birmingham, August 2011. This infringement by a major news agency is an ongoing matter.
This photograph, that was removed from the work album on my account, allegedly violates facebook’s ‘rights and responsibilities’ statement.
The only sections of this statement that seems to possibly apply are:
“5.1 You will not post content or take any action on Facebook that infringes someone else’s rights or otherwise violates the law.”
“3.7 You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.”
Except, UK law is clear: there is no right to privacy in a public place, especially not whilst involved in a news event. Furthermore consent is not required for editorial & journalistic publication. This image neither violates any individual’s personality or privacy rights nor any known law.
As for the description of this image as ‘graphic or gratuitous violence’, I take issue. In comparison to many photojournalistic images, this could hardy be described as graphic. And if accurately reporting on violence that occurred during a major news story is to be considered gratuitous then I would suggest their priorities are somewhat skewed. Their individual moral judgement regarding what’s taking place in the image has nothing to do with it’s publication. All the photograph is doing is reporting what took place comprehensively and accurately, in full accordance with clause one of the american NPPA‘s code of ethics:
“Be accurate and comprehensive in the representation of subjects.”
After seeing this message, I continued and was made to re-agree to their terms as well as being threatened with account suspension if I repeated my actions.
This bemuses and worries me. A piece of accurate journalistic material that has no legal issues has been deleted without warning, hardly the great firewall and yet a form of internet censorship I find hard to swallow.
I was annoyed and immediately phoned the Facebook UK press officer to express my concerns, following up with emails to the press team in the UK and the abuse reporting team in the US, requesting the image to be restored along with an apology. I still await their response in writing.
I’d consider this to almost be a form of censorship, incompatible with freedom of expression and accurate reporting principles. The photo was in a public place, reporting news and shows what happened. Just as removing a factual paragraph from a news story prevents the piece from reporting events wholly and accurately, the removal of one image from a set presents the same issue.
If visual news is to be sanitized in this way, with the distasteful elements considered inappropriate, surely it is impossible to present an accurate record of what takes place in situations of any disorder? Whilst Facebook is not a major outlet of my work, but rather one of several social networking websites that I use, like most, to share & display small samples of content with friends & colleagues, this still concerns me.
To describe this image as somehow too graphic or violent for public consumption is an insult both to the abilities of the public to understand news and to the photojournalists who document far more unpleasant and serious situations in their day to day work. This picture is nothing more than a factual, visual record of what took place; reporting on a news story using a photographic medium. There would be rightful uproar if web hosts and social networks deleted written accounts of news because they objected, so why is it acceptable to destroy visual journalism? Social media is arguably part of the fabric of communication and society, companies have responsibilites to their users and the public. Are they properly taking them into account when making this sort of decision?
Could it be something to do with this one…
For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.
Maybe your (c) notice in the picture conflicts with their claim to be able to use your content.
Posted by Keir. | 16 September, 2011, 3:08 pmHm, that’s a good point. The only image deleted was this one, leaving all my other (watermarked) work images up so I presume that couldn’t be the reason, but interesting suggestion.
Posted by julesmattsson | 16 September, 2011, 5:36 pmI’m in total agreement with you Jules.
I’d love to know who facebook think they’re protecting.
And from what.
And what sort of sanitised fiction they’re promoting.
And why.
If we can’t see and talk about the reality of the situation, what hope is there of changing it?
Good luck with making them see sense.
Posted by Martin Phelps | 16 September, 2011, 5:47 pmi think your overreacting. the police are here to help us y’know!
Posted by bill kenny's orchard | 11 October, 2011, 4:57 pmI’m not sure I see the relevance of that point there to what I’ve written?
Posted by julesmattsson | 11 October, 2011, 6:45 pmOwwww! That looks so painful! I do hope you gave the poor chap a cuddle after!
I think the Facebook TOS is plain enough and IMO kicking an unarmed copper in the nuts is gratuitous, violent and could POSSIBLY incite someone to do the same.
It’s a great news shot without doubt, but I don’t really think it suitable for FB or even my little site where I post up news stories – in fact I cant understand why a pro news tog would want to use FB to showcase their work at all. FB is for people who like to chat about x factor and TOWIE and thats not for me which is why I closed my account and would recommend you do the same if your’e not happy with them.
I am not surprised your stuff has been lifted from FB by the MSM, they view FB as fair game(another good reason to leave) Hyperlocal bloggers are also quite used to them cruising by and helping themselves to stories,copy and pics etc
Posted by Stephen Slominski (@Eastleigh_news) | 2 November, 2011, 7:39 pmIt does look quite painful, although he escaped from the fight and was pulled out by officers before suffering any major injury. I disagree completey, saying an image of what happened is gratuitous or could incite is ridiculous and applying the same logic to, say, having the pic in a paper etc. would make no more sense. I don’t use facebook as a showcase for my work, as I said in the post I use it to communicate with friends and colleagues and to share small bits of work with them. However, many photographers use facebook like twitter or any other social network as part of their online work presence, and they have the right to do so without things like this.
What people talk about on your fb depends entirely on who you connect with using it, as with any other social network. The content wasn’t actually lifted from facebook, it was taken (watermarked) from my website by a major agency who, of course, will be paying damages. As for websites/papers etc. stealing content, I run regular checks using google image search etc. and anybody who does gets an invoice, if they fail to pay the invoice then I pass it to my solicitor, simple as. Everything is watermarked but if someone decides to use anyway then they will pay (small and hyperlocal or major company), anyone who views fb as fair game has never read the CDPA legislation!
Posted by julesmattsson | 2 November, 2011, 7:50 pmI had my Facebook account suspended a bit over a year ago with the suggestion I had made a post that infringed on Facebook’s restrictions. Since I had at that time an account but had never made a single post (status update) to it, I remain completely bemused. It was eventually reopened with a warning about ‘if I ever did it again’. I never did find out what “it” was.
Posted by Simon Gardner (@Simon_Gardner) | 9 December, 2011, 5:15 pmFacebook, is a US site, its subject to the l,aws of the US.
I’d say it has more to do with publishing a persons face, a police officer in this instance, without his permission.
I haven’t studied Faceaches T&C’s, but there’s a few other US sites that wont allow photos on thier without the written permission of the person concerned.
I have to agree with the question why would you want it on there anyway? I’d not take anyone seriously who uses it.
Posted by Bernie | 12 December, 2011, 4:42 pmBut in the US, what law prevents the editorial publication of a photograph showing person’s face without permission? I agree it’s a US hosted and based site, which I should have picked up more on in this post, but the image breaks no laws there either. And why put it there? In this case it’s more a point of principle argument but facebook, along with other social networks like flickr or twitter, are part of a web presence. Why shouldn’t I more to the point?
Posted by julesmattsson | 13 December, 2011, 11:54 pm