Lessons learned from Facebook’s Instagram photo flap

When the picture-sharing social media outlet Instagram updated its terms of service this week, a clause granting itself the right to license users’ photos without any compensation touched off a public relations firestorm, as angry users who felt taken advantage of threatened to stop using the service – owned by Facebook – entirely. So much so, that some called the new TOS “Instagram’s suicide note.” But what this privacy flap says, really, is how little people trust Facebook when it comes to privacy. Making money off of social media users is how social media operates. Doing it in a way that keeps the users happy, however, is the challenge.