Tag Archives: social networking

BBC stance on pulling images from social networks

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The ease of availability of a picture does not remove the BBC’s responsibility to assess the sensitivities in using it, according to the editor of BBC News online.

Writing on the BBC Editors Blog, Steve Herman stated that the question of the ethics of pulling pictures from social networking sites has bee raised by colleagues during an editorial standards meeting.

As a result of that meeting a newsletter is produced, he wrote, summarising  discussions circulated to staff to offer guidance.

The advice offered to BBC reporters is that because material has been put into the public domain does not necessarily give the media the right to use it, primarily because the BBC would bring significantly greater public attention than would normally be expected.

The newsletter added that consideration on the original context and the impact of re-use to those who may be grieving or distressed must also be applied.

Legal, copyright and accuracy of the image should also be at the forefront of reporters minds when considering use of images from social sites.

Spinvox launches voice to social network application

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Spinvox is launching in Europe an add-on to its voice-to-text technology that will allow voice-driven social networking from any mobile phone.

The new gizmo will allow users to file post to Facebook, Jaiku and Twitter, according to a post on the relaunched Spinvox website:

“Social Networks through SpinVox is launched today as a key element of the new, state-of-the-art SpinVox website. People can create an account on www.spinvox.com, where they can manage one, two or all three of their networking sites from one, personalised page. In addition, accounts can be set up so that one voice-powered contribution can be posted automatically to all three networking sites. SpinVox expects to extend this capability to other well-known social networking and micro-blogging sites in the coming months.”

News organisations and images from social networks

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The use of pictures from social networking sites to illustrate news stories seems to be a growing practice among news providers across the media.

Yet an internal memo from the BBC, quoted by Media Guardian, raises the ethical and legal implications of using these images:

1) context: these images are published by users for the intended audience of friends and others within their network and not for the wider world to scrutinize.

2) copyright: who owns the copyright to these images – the user or the host site? Not likely the news provider.

While Steve Herrman on the BBC’s Editors’ blog has been posting for a while on the ongoing ethical debate around this issue, many social network users may not be aware of what happens to their copyright when they submit photos to networks like Facebook and MySpace.

Facebook’s terms and conditions on user submitted content are initially rights-grabbing (the emphasis below is mine):

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

Yet the terms go on to state:

Facebook does not assert any ownership over your User Content; rather, as between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms, you retain full ownership of all of your User Content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your User Content.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this means while the user still ‘owns’ content, such as the photos they submit, Facebook can license these images out. As such news organisations would do well to steer clear of using these images without a licence and tempting Facebook into a legal battle.

For the user, however, it comes down to trust: trust that their content won’t be licensed in this way by the social network. Shouldn’t Facebook be doing more to ensure that this doesn’t happen with or without licence, for the ethical reason stated above?

Poynter to launch online groups network

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Poynter Online – the digital offering of journalism training centre the Poynter Institute – has announced that plans are underaway to launch its own network of online groups over the next few months.

According to the Poynter Evolution blog the groups will be ‘not exactly social networking, not exactly professional networking’, but tailored to Poynter Online’s audience. Content will come from users of the site as well as resources produced by Poynter staff.

The idea is to associate the groups with Poynter’s columns, blogs and seminars so that regular readers and contributors have a space for discussion. Other groups dedicated to broader issues in journalism, as well as those connecting journalists by geography, ‘beat’ and reporting interests will follow.

However, the blog post suggests that nothing about the groups has been finalised as yet, and Poynter’s existing group on Facebook – which has 5,848 members and counting – will be used to sound out ideas.

NUJ report gets a hold on new media

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The NUJ has finally published its Shaping the Future report looking at the effect of cross-media conversion and the adoption of internet publishing on its journalist members.

The report is intended largely to raise concerns that newspaper groups are committing to newsroom conversion by increasing the workload of journalists, asking them to work harder and longer without any great recompense, all the while continuing to reduce the size of the staff.

However, the report balances this through its recognition that the industry was in a ‘transitional period in which many employers are still undecided on the level of investment they are prepared to put into new media…in the long run staffing should stabilise with proper job allocation and training’.

It also highlighted that many national and some of the leading regional publishers – particularly Johnston Press and Trinity Mirror – were already engaged in planning ‘seriously for better resourced “web first” operations’.

The final section of the report, entitled The Future offers an informed look – somewhat away from the tendency toward doom and gloom of the questionnaire findings – at the development of the industry against a backdrop of Web 2.0 developments, suggesting that the industry has to grow into a word of social networking, widget technology, greater personalisation, mobility and communication.

Despite these allowances, the report raises a worrying set of issues, highlighting often how professional standards are compromised in the name of cross-media production. How corners are cut and publications are often seem as product, to be filed at a lower editorial standard, rather than focusing fully on more established news values.

“Instead of seizing the opportunity to enhance journalistic content and build and maintain quality media, many simply seized the opportunity to reduce costs and boost profits, viewing the erosion of quality journalism as a necessary sacrifice,” Jeremy Dear, NUJ general secretary wrote today.

The report singled out what it saw as examples of poor practise, with the Telegraph coming in for stern criticism:

“It panicked and tried to transform their news operations overnight, imposing large-scale redundancies in the move to a 24/7 multimedia operation,” the report stated.

It quoted – anonymously – journalists working on the integrated newspaper:

“We are regularly expected to file for the internet after [an event]. This sometimes means missing out on vital parts of the story or important interviews just so we can file a substandard version for the web.”

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