Facebook slaps media: Angry at use of massacre victims’ postings:
It seems that Facebook is pissed, and rightly so, at the media for taking the pictures of the Virginia Tech victims that were posted on their Facebooks and using them for their stories.
“We absolutely do not support how the media has been using Facebook in many cases,” Brandee Barker, a Facebook spokeswoman told the Herald. “We see this as a violation of user privacy.”
Facebook is objecting to the use of quotes and information taken from user profiles. “That user should give the permission to any media organization for that information to be used,” Barker said.
From the New York Daily News and The New York Times [NYT] to The Washington Post and the Herald, newspapers, along with broadcast outlets across the country, are publishing material from Facebook profiles and tributes.
The Washington Post published a full chronicle of mournful posts that Virginia Tech students posted on Facebook this week.
Barker also took issue with the way reporters sending out mass messages over Facebook to solicit interviews.Several Facebook users have complained about getting messages from journalists, she said.
NBC news program “Dateline” went so far as to create a Facebook profile seeking out possible friends of the shooter Cho Seung-Hui.
Facebook shut down Dateline’s page and has deactivated a few reporters accounts, Barker said. “My main recommendation in general is that the press act responsibly around this,” she said. “They’re being insensitive and in some cases very unprofessional.”
Nothing is quite as disgusting as the media vultures in a feeding frenzy.
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