June 14, 2011 - 9:13am
Business
Insider reported this week that Mike Doughty from the band Soul Coughing had
encountered a reprimand from Facebook for “liking” too many birthday wishes
from his friends. He was shown the following message from the social networking
website:
Block! You are engaging in behavior that may be
considered annoying or abusive by other users.
You have been blocked from using the like
feature because you repeatedly misused this feature. This block will last
anywhere from a few hours to a few days. When you are allowed to reuse this
feature, please proceed with caution. Further misuse may result in your account
being permanently disabled.
In its
terms of service, under the heading “protecting other people’s rights”, Facebook
says the following things:
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.
Judge yourself
how Doughty could have infringed anyone’s rights.