Twitter’s new terms of service that apparently allows other companies to re-publish content on its platform has users across the world freaking out.
Basically, it allows Twitter to make content that is posted on the site “available to other companies, organizations or individuals” who can then re-publish it. To put it very simply, any content you post will no longer be yours and can be used with or without your permission.
Feels outrageous, no?
Twitter user Richard de Nooy was the first to point out the issue, and that slowly led to other users in panic mode
Your terms of service agreement is un-fucking-believable, @Twitter. This is grotesque. Especially for users posting original content. pic.twitter.com/yEE8xly0kJ
— Richard de Nooy (@RicharddeNooy) September 2, 2017
Just deleted all my tweets with creative work because of Twitter’s new terms of service. 🖕🏻 https://t.co/JFacK6ZzTE pic.twitter.com/3rLZDaRXiD
— Eric (@EricDeVette) September 4, 2017
Did ya’ll read twitter new terms of service agreement? They can sublicense anything we post; including our photos, threads, ideas etc.
— Nande N (@nandnz) September 2, 2017
Dear @Twitter & @Jack, Listen we love you. But your new terms of service are unacceptable. Make your coin selling ads, not selling my work. pic.twitter.com/OwCxzRrO65
— David Carson (@PDPJ) September 2, 2017
All photographers, Artists, and painters should stop using twitter Cause of the new terms and Conditions y’all gonna get robbed
— GG🤾🏾♂️ (@PrinceDanielv1) September 2, 2017
I really don’t like the new Twitter Terms of Service. The “we own everything now” part made me cringe so bad —
— naty (@liamaliks) September 1, 2017
Meanwhile, some others were in a more ‘realistic’ mode
** Regarding Twitter’s new ToS: rights clause is not new, I was aware when signing up, this is standard. See https://t.co/hAMUu0egvw **
— Micro SF/F stories (@MicroSFF) September 2, 2017
Lets be real we never owned anything posted on social media in the first place. Even without the new terms Twitter is still a corp.
— William J Richardson (@DecolonialBlack) September 2, 2017
However, the outrage is totally useless
The thing is these conditions aren’t actually new and they have been part of the site for quite some time. To be exact, they have actually been around since Version 2 of Twitter’s Terms of Service, which have been effective since September 10, 2009.
They only resurfaced now because Twitter made a few minor changes to its terms of service for users outside of the US. These terms will go into effect for the rest of the world on October 2nd and Twitter was just notifying its users about the same.
So, the current outrage seems to have absolutely no merit because it had always existed. Well, only if people had bothered to read the ‘old’ terms.