We heard the resounding answer yesterday: NO!!

Instagram and Facebook have “clarified” the new privacy settings for Instagram after a furor caused by the original announcement of the new rules.

The original announcement indicated that Instagram and Facebook had the rights to all of your content including the right to use your photos in ads:  “A business or other entity may pay” Instagram to display users’ photos and other details “in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.“

Today Instagram “clarified” away advertisers ability to use your pics… Clearly Facebook backed off its original plan due to the swell of protests.

Why does Facebook have one PR disaster after another with regards to privacy or other changes in its service. One answer is the clash between the freemium model used throughout social media and the desire of these companies to grow revenue. (More about this in my next post.)

But I think Facebook is a special case because of the corporate DNA from founder Zuckerberg. We all know the famous stories:

• Developing FB while telling the Winklevoss twins he was working on their Harvard-only social network,
• Disputes with his former roomate and co-founder,
• His famous reply to why clients gave FB access to their private data: “They trust me…dumb f***s”,
• The change in algorithm that reduced viewing of FB pages posts just as FB started pushing promoted posts for FB pages,
• Strange  and confusing changes in privacy settings,
• Etc.

I discussed this issue in a previous post: The Social Network – The IPO. I believe that a lack of ethics and disregard for privacy is central in the corporate DNA and corporate culture of Facebook. (Sorry to mix metaphors.) I believe that FB’s corporate slogan should be:

Customers trust us, the dumb f***s!

If you rely primarily on your Facebook page for your organization a good question for you might be:

Would you trust your business to Zuck?