Poke

After receiving a lot of criticism for their new content policy, Facebook is backing down. Smart move, guys. Otherwise you might have had a riot on your hands.

Apparently, at first, Mark Zuckerberg responded to the outrage by mentioning company philosophy: "People own their information and control who they share it with."

Yeah. Because that makes me feel a whole lot safer.

Everyone else felt the same way, because now Facebook has to revert back to their original Terms of Use while they look over their policy.

Even so, I'm not entirely satisfied. Facebook spokesperson Barry Schnitt said:

"As Mark expressed in his blog post on Monday, it was never our intention to confuse people or make them uneasy about sharing on Facebook. I also want to be very clear that Facebook does not, nor have we ever, claimed ownership over people's content. Your content belongs to you."

Excuse me, but isn't that basically the opposite of what the revised Terms of Use statement said? Check it out:

"You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. ... (H)owever, you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."

Let's take a moment. The 'Company' = Facebook. 'Retain' = to keep in possession or use. 'Content' = that stuff you put in your profile.

So...how did they never claim ownership?

Not that I think the people at Facebook are going to waste their time searching their archives for your most unflattering pictures. It's probably just for advertising. Even so, they could at least be a little less sketchy about it.