Privacy Advocates Raise Alarm Over Snapchat’s Updated Terms of Service – Calling it “Scary”

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Snapchat related concerns aren’t new to Liberty Blitzkrieg readers. In case you missed the following previously published posts:

HBO and Snapchat are Actively Working with the U.S. Government to Create Propaganda

Snapchat Hacked – At Least 100,000 Photos at Risk

Today there’s a new controversy, related to the company’s updated “privacy policy,” which was recently unveiled along with an update to the app. Privacy advocates are sounding the alarm.

From MarketWatch:

Snapchat on Wednesday released a new update for its app and, with it, a new privacy policy that dramatically changes what the social network can do with the images users post.

First launched in 2011, the social networking app became popular among young people in particular for its “disappearing” photo messages that can’t be viewed again once they have been opened.

But an update to the Snapchat Terms of Service indicates that Snapchat has the rights to reproduce, modify and republish your photos and save those photos to Snapchat’s servers, specifically in relation to the ‘Live Story’ feature.

“You grant Snapchat a world-wide, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to host, store, use, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, edit, publish, create derivative works from, publicly perform, broadcast, distribute, syndicate, promote, exhibit, and publicly display that content in any form and in any and all media or distribution methods,” the Terms of Service state.

Snapchat users are being asked to accept the updated terms after downloading the new version of the app, but the details of the new privacy policy aren’t immediately visible. Users must go to a different page to dig into those details.

Some Snapchat users expressed outrage over the fact that their “snaps” may no longer be as private as they once were. People are saying the update is “scary” and makes them want to delete their accounts.

Instagram’s terms of service similarly grant the company a royalty-free license to use contents posted through the social network, though Instagram has never claimed to be a private or ephemeral messaging service. Facebook’s privacy policy also grants the company rights to a royalty-free, world-wide license to user’s content, but that only applies to content published under the “Public Setting.”

You have been warned.

For related articles, see:

Facebook Caught Secretly Lobbying for Privacy Destroying “Cyber Security” Bill

Video of the Day – Three Former U.S. Treasury Secretaries and a Facebook Executive Laugh About Income Inequality

Facebook Censors Feminist Author Due to “Profane” Book Title

Facebook Reveals its Master Plan – Control All News Flow

Facebook Does it Again – Company Sends Funeral Home Advertisements to Cancer Sufferer

A Very Disturbing and Powerful Post – “Get Your Loved Ones Off Facebook.”

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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