Abstract:

It is common for people to open an account on social networks and start uploading content to make it available to family, friends, clients or wider groups. However, when such an account is opened, it is not clear that these images are, in any sense, beyond the control of the account holder. The aim of this article is to identify the points at which the use of images by the Facebook social platform gives rise to ethical problems, by linking this identification to an underlying question: are users sufficiently aware, when they consent to their images being used by the platform, of the way in which they may be used?

The article first reviews the ethical implications of the relationship that generally exists between a user and a platform. In the second part, it focuses on this user-platform relationship in the specific case of analyzing the content of Meta's (formerly Facebook's) data privacy policy and some complementary texts, and our analysis also goes further and tries to understand how the user receives the information needed to control such use. Although the documents are clear enough for anyone with legal expertise, there are several inconsistencies and ambiguities. For example, there is a desire to retain a certain technical vocabulary, which prevents a non-specialist user from clearly understanding the rights transferred to the platform. In addition, there is a non-obvious differentiation in the levels of explanation, between the way in which an attempt is made to summarize a friendly approach to the new user and the actual explanations of the rights granted, which follow, and which are highly technical.

The third part presents our proposals arising from this research on how users should be informed and given a better understanding of the use of their personal data by a social media platform such as Facebook.