Guide to Social Sharing & Fair Use on Facebook

The Account Management team here at Compendium put together a rough guide for fair and appropriate use of the most prominent social networks, as it relates to business use.  In these short guides, we cover what you can post, what you can share and what is inappropriate.  In addition, we've also published a legal guide for marketers interested in the legal background.

When determining what is appropriate, or fair, to share via Facebook and other social networks, there are plenty of things to consider in the realm of common sense.  Will this offend someone? Is the content illegal? Would what I’m posting damage my company’s reputation?  The list of ‘common sense’ practices goes on but there are also acceptable use practices that Facebook outlines and businesses should follow, regardless of if they appear to fall into the ‘this makes sense to me’ bucket.

With that said, Facebook is different from Twitter in that it is truly a social network.  You request friends, they appear in your network and there is some form of mutual understanding that you want to keep in touch.  As a business or as someone with a fan page, you have ‘followers’ similar to those on Twitter.  Those who have liked your brand or page have some interest in keeping up with your brand and therefore, you need to take into consideration what is appropriate, or not, for posting and sharing.

Now, reading the actual Terms of Service for Facebook is a daunting task as it has grown over the years but there are some good pieces to take into account when sharing.  Some of their sharing policy is as follows:

You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings.  In addition:

1. 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.
2. When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).
3. When you use an application, your content and information is shared with the application.  We require applications to respect your privacy, and your agreement with that application will control how the application can use, store, and transfer that content and information.
4. When you publish content or information using the Public setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you (i.e., your name and profile picture).

Facebook also makes sure to address issues where conflict may arise.  In their ‘Protecting Other People's Rights’ section, they address fair use and issues that may arise:

We respect other people's rights, and expect you to do the same.

1. You will not post content or take any action on Facebook that infringes or violates someone else's rights or otherwise violates the law. 
2. We can remove any content or information you post on Facebook if we believe that it violates this Statement.
3. We will provide you with tools to help you protect your intellectual property rights. To learn more, visit our How to Report Claims of Intellectual Property Infringement page.
4. If we remove your content for infringing someone else's copyright, and you believe we removed it by mistake, we will provide you with an opportunity to appeal.
5. If you repeatedly infringe other people's intellectual property rights, we will disable your account when appropriate.
6. You will not use our copyrights or trademarks (including Facebook, the Facebook and F Logos, FB, Face, Poke, Wall and 32665), or any confusingly similar marks, without our written permission.
7. If you collect information from users, you will: obtain their consent, make it clear you (and not Facebook) are the one collecting their information, and post a privacy policy explaining what information you collect and how you will use it.
8. You will not post anyone's identification documents or sensitive financial information on Facebook.
9. You will not tag users or send email invitations to non-users without their consent.

With that, and all that is happening lately regarding SOPA, it’s important to understand where the line is drawn in social sharing and social networking. As a steward or your brand or company, it’s important to maintain industry best practices when sharing and understand guidelines of each vehicle you use to share.