Recently, our beloved facebook has decided to start policing the links that are posted to its members’ profiles. Citing “controversies” and “ongoing lawsuits”, facebooks has unilaterally decided that links to The Pirate Bay are now banned.
Incidentally, this has nothing to do with the pirate bay and everything to do with facebook trying to impose its ethics on the wired world. The founders and operators of the pirate bay have not yet been convicted of any crimes in their home country (Sweden), and even in Canada, the legal status of file sharing remains in limbo. It also helps to remeber that not all content on trackers such as the pirate bay is copyrighted. A quick search on the websites reveals plenty of indie music, a plethora of open source software, and other public domain media.
What’s disturbing about this is that the administrators of facebook are using their clout to police the content of their users’ profiles. It’s one thing when a user is breaking a specific law, it’s another when the user is doing something that has not been ruled illegal. Facebook needs a gentle reminder that the internet is not there to be policed.
This blog entry would not be complete without a reminder to users of services such as facebook and the pirate bay to respect other peoples’ and companies’ intellectual property. If this respect was in the culture and codified in law, these problems would not occur. For now, any time you feel the need to be a software pirate, check here for a free and possibly better alternative. For music, movies and other media, substitution is a little more tricky, but that should not be a reason to break a law.
I wonder if you can still post the links using a url shortening services such as TinyURL.
Yes you can, which just the futility of this whole exercise.
There’s a whole world out there more than just TinyURL.
See my recent post on it here.
Look, just to play Devil’s Advocate here, why can’t Facebook police its members profiles?
You voluntarily use the service. In doing so, you agree to abide by their Terms of Service and/or Acceptable Use Policy. If their ToS says no links to Pirate Bay, so be it.
Whether Pirate Bay is illegal is not the point.
That’s because Facebook can block links to that site for any reason it sees fit.
Here’s a possible thorn in Facebook’s side. What if users protest this move and assemble an organic resistance via Facebook’s new open governance policies? Users could force the issue if they got enough support.
Personally, I believe that Facebook has a right to do whatever they please. Users opt to follow the TOS as Lawrence alluded to above. There are plenty of social networks out there to use if Facebook’s policies don’t resonate with you.
Lawrence,
I absolutely agree with you that facebook’s owners have the right police its content. Nowhere in my entry did I say that they do not. I am merely raising awareness of the fact that they are doing it in order to put some pressure on them.
I believe that it is wrong to limit freedom of speech in this way. Therefore, even though they have the right to do so, there is no legitimate reason for them to act. If they choose to limit freedom of speech, this choice must be met with harsh criticism and pressure on them to refrain from doing so in the future.
“Facebook needs a gentle reminder that the internet is not there to be policed”.
I have to disagree with this statement you made, at the moment the internet is wide open without ethics or morals, and unless someone takes over the policing, it is going to get worse, Right now I feel as if I have been swindled out of $997 USD, which name I can’t mention at the moment till my CC gets my money back,
and facebook has all policy rights that the believe affects their polcies