A tough couple of days for Facebook

[SeijiSensei]

Facebook is the subject of three different stories this week, and none of them is favorable.

First, a French court ruled that France had jurisdiction over Facebook in the case of a Parisian whose account was pulled for allegedly posting "indecent" material. As it turns out, the offending image was actually a painting of a female nude by Gustave Courbet that hangs in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. The French court ruled that Facebook's Terms of Service which require that all disputes be litigated in California's courts was "abusive" and violated French consumer law, by making it difficult for people in France to sue.

Meanwhile Mark Zuckerberg has been scrambling after a board member, Marc Andreessen, tweeted that anti-colonialism had retarted India's economic growth. This arose in the context of Facebook's recent efforts to launch Internet services in India.

When Marc Andreessen dismissed India's decision to block Facebook's "free" mobile internet scheme as "anti-colonialism", he stoked the fears of those who believe Zuckerberg's stated philanthropic ambitions are actually a front for his desire to dominate the internet in the developing world.

Finally the BBC reports that secret groups on Facebook have become hangouts for pedophiles where they share photographs of young girls found online, some from other Facebook pages. "We found pages specialising in pictures of girls in school uniform - accompanied by obscene posts," the BBC reported. It appears that the photos themselves are largely ones of clothed schoolgirls, and Facebook has refused to remove some of them as a result. "In one secret group called 'cute teen schoolies', we found a picture of a girl in a vest, aged 10 or 11, accompanied by the words 'yum yum.' Facebook responded that it did not breach 'community standards' and the image stayed up. Children's Commissioner for England Anne Longfield said: 'I'm shocked those don't breach community standards, any parent or indeed child looking at those would know that they were not acceptable.'" Some of the photos did portray girls in "highly sexualised poses."

Obviously Facebook's actions in these cases contrasts rather strongly with its decision with respect to the French painting.

[Urzu 7]

Ha...yeah, that doesn't look good for them at all.

Some antique painting showing a nude woman? Facebook says "Sorry, but it's over for you".

Pedos sharing pics of 10 year old girls in school uniforms and saying things like "Yum Yum"...Facebook says "Nah, it's cool, you guys are fine".

Yeah, that is never gonna look good for a corporation or anyone really.