> According to Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities:
> You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content (such as a brand you like) served or enhanced by us. This means, for example, that you permit a business or other entity to pay us to display your name and/or profile picture with your content or information, without any compensation to you. If you have selected a specific audience for your content or information, we will respect your choice when we use it.
I cancelled my Instagram account when they added those terms in the early 2010s. At the time it was mostly photographers reading them and closing accounts but it wasn’t exactly a secret.
Many years ago (back when Facebook still had sidebar ads), my sister was presented with a dating ad for "Hot Christian Singles" accompanied by a photo of our brother.
It was hilarious, but also mind-boggling. In what scenario would pulling in a friend's profile photo create a useful ad?
Don't get hung up on this specific example of the dating ad.
There's a difference between awareness campaigns and click / conversion campaigns and if there's some ads for a garden chair and your friend is sitting on it you'll definitely remember it more than some random model. Or clothes that are advertised on your body. Not saying that's the future we want, but it would definitely work for a while.
wouldn't "useful ad" imply either 1) clicking through and buying the product or service, or else 2) building up a positive brand association to help increase sales later?
remembering an advert correlates but is different to it being valuable.
Is Meta abusing its users a problem? Yes. Does the TOS allow for it? Yes. Can people decide to just create a shell account and not actually participate? Sure.
One of the real insidious problems with Instagram and to some extent Facebook is that they provide a free, low friction way for business to communicate with current or potential customers. As a result many small businesses use Instagram as replacement for a public facing website and perhaps a blog or email newsletter. Many small business in my region depend on Instagram for this purpose, its nearly universal. It helps keep you stuck in Instagram so that you can see a business' hours, menu, or special events. I guess a shell account is the answer but you're still going to have to navigate the skinner box feed.
U a manequin head. Add hair and moles. It mightbtake more than one try but it works.
Eventually, people who make shell accounts will be declared creepy child predators, but that isn't the case, yet.
Something similar happened to me a few years ago. my photo was used in an ad, making it look like I was selling stuff and promoting a page I’d never even clicked on... absolutely mind-blowing....
Yes people frequently fake screenshots on social media. I'd want either a screenshot from a credible person, reporting from a journalist, trusted blogger, company statement etc.
which is a german language scam site. i have no explanation how this happened, whether it is xcancel.com doing this or something loaded from twitter that caused xcancel to do this. never seen anythin like it before, would like to know more.
btw any further reloads of the xcancel url to that tweet totally work as expected.
Didn't Facebook do this years and years ago?
Yes, 2013: https://mashable.com/archive/facebook-ads-photo#ggcKnNfAUaqy
> According to Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities:
> You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content (such as a brand you like) served or enhanced by us. This means, for example, that you permit a business or other entity to pay us to display your name and/or profile picture with your content or information, without any compensation to you. If you have selected a specific audience for your content or information, we will respect your choice when we use it.
So it's not new. If you don't want this, delete your facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/privacy/dialog/delete-your-informat...
Those are incredible terms that no one read.
I cancelled my Instagram account when they added those terms in the early 2010s. At the time it was mostly photographers reading them and closing accounts but it wasn’t exactly a secret.
Speak for yourself.
“Few”, maybe.
I mean, I read them, but just goes to show the majority of people skipped this important reading.
If anyone actually read them it's typically a unlimited unrestricted pipe of data they can use for anything.
99% of people don't read terms and condition.
We’re saying the same thing.
> If you don't want this, delete your facebook account
What? I thought I could just paste a paragraph of all-caps legalese to my profile, and it would solve this!
To be fair it seems like it should be equally valid in contract law.
This made me laugh and cry at the same time...
Many years ago (back when Facebook still had sidebar ads), my sister was presented with a dating ad for "Hot Christian Singles" accompanied by a photo of our brother.
It was hilarious, but also mind-boggling. In what scenario would pulling in a friend's profile photo create a useful ad?
> In what scenario would pulling in a friend's profile photo create a useful ad?
Exactly in the scenario you just described. You still remember it and you are actively talking about it years after the fact.
Sounds like the viewers were highly unlikely to have clicked through. Cost the advertiser a view but lost the conversion.
Useful ad for Facebook. They made money on it. The advertiser didn't.
But it didn't bring clicks to the website nor goodwill toward the company.
No one remembers who ran the ad. Even if we did, it would only be in a negative light due to a weird and off-putting advertising approach.
Don't get hung up on this specific example of the dating ad.
There's a difference between awareness campaigns and click / conversion campaigns and if there's some ads for a garden chair and your friend is sitting on it you'll definitely remember it more than some random model. Or clothes that are advertised on your body. Not saying that's the future we want, but it would definitely work for a while.
wouldn't "useful ad" imply either 1) clicking through and buying the product or service, or else 2) building up a positive brand association to help increase sales later?
remembering an advert correlates but is different to it being valuable.
This shouldn't really be surprising. It's very similar to what they did ~1.5 year ago when they started to use users' photos to promote Meta AI
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42615538
Is Meta abusing its users a problem? Yes. Does the TOS allow for it? Yes. Can people decide to just create a shell account and not actually participate? Sure.
One of the real insidious problems with Instagram and to some extent Facebook is that they provide a free, low friction way for business to communicate with current or potential customers. As a result many small businesses use Instagram as replacement for a public facing website and perhaps a blog or email newsletter. Many small business in my region depend on Instagram for this purpose, its nearly universal. It helps keep you stuck in Instagram so that you can see a business' hours, menu, or special events. I guess a shell account is the answer but you're still going to have to navigate the skinner box feed.
Every time I try to create a shell account, it gets banned with no reason given. Even if it's just to follow a few influencer accounts.
Well there you go, there is no reasonable way to be a non-participant while also staying up to date on businesses that choose to use the platform.
You can't create shell account on fb/meta anymore. They will ask to turn on camera and rotate your head.
Print out a face of someone on Facebook and use that?
U a manequin head. Add hair and moles. It mightbtake more than one try but it works. Eventually, people who make shell accounts will be declared creepy child predators, but that isn't the case, yet.
I feel like having an account on a Meta site is today’s equivalent of being a smoker.
There isn't better analogy. I hope it spreads and we will see the same effect and social pressure as smokers faced.
Vaping is the new smoking. Except you knew what was inside a cigar, while vape liquid is a generic term for anything inside a bottle.
Comment on that thread:
> This seems entirely counter-productive and creepy.
Apt description of Instagram in general.
Something similar happened to me a few years ago. my photo was used in an ad, making it look like I was selling stuff and promoting a page I’d never even clicked on... absolutely mind-blowing....
Ten years ago maybe this causes outrage, but I'm not sure anyone cares in 2026 including potential customers.
Is there actual proof that they are doing this. Theres not much to go on in the tweet.
Besides the proof in the screenshot? What more do you want?
Do you think this user is faking it?
Yes people frequently fake screenshots on social media. I'd want either a screenshot from a credible person, reporting from a journalist, trusted blogger, company statement etc.
yes, it happened to me recently.
The photo wasn't mine, but showed a profile photo of one of my facebook friends, and it had the glasses and said "On my way!"
And they have a history of doing this. And their privacy/ToS allows it.
"I'm uncomfortable"
Should have read the terms and conditions
What percentage of people read those? They’re even unitelligible to the layman.
I don't know what's worse - this, or all the ads/commercials for Meta Glasses featuring Kylie Jenner, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yYQO8exxaU
why are people using these products exactly?
signing away their rights to their photos? making psychopaths filthy rich?
if the surveillance glasses are coming, these people will also have signed away the commons, which are not theirs to give away
https://xcancel.com/venturetwins/status/2071277885646868536
i edited it to the same url before opening as i usually do for twitter urls so that i can see the full conversation without being logged into twitter.
for some reason the url rewrote iteself to this: https://themenspiegel.click/c/de/52_merzchrupalla/?method=po...
which is a german language scam site. i have no explanation how this happened, whether it is xcancel.com doing this or something loaded from twitter that caused xcancel to do this. never seen anythin like it before, would like to know more.
btw any further reloads of the xcancel url to that tweet totally work as expected.
Throwing an additional anecdote into the bucket, this did not happen for me. Any chance you have a dodgy extension installed?
Sure you didn't just make a typo and hit a squatted domain?
The XKCD for this exact scenario is 14 years old.
https://xkcd.com/1150/
Kind of a stretch, these days can't imagine anyone that views instagram as a place to store their cherished photos also.
Some reason that strip doesn't load for me.
It is just saying that if you don't pay for something, you are the product. I think it still fits well here.
I mean, what would you expect from company with morality of tobacco and slot machines producer? This is the least evil they are doing.
This thing resurface from time to time. It's the small text you never read. In this case, small part in ridiculously and intentionally big eula.