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Ever change your mind while composing a video to post on Facebook? If you used Facebook's tools, they kept it anyway.
Earlier this week, like many people around the world, my sister Bailey downloaded her Facebook data archives. Along with the contact lists and relationship statuses was something unexpected: several different videos of her attempting to play a scale on a wooden flute in her childhood bedroom. Each video, she discovered, was a different "take" — recorded on Facebook, but then, she assumed, discarded before she posted the final version to a friend's wall.
[...] Facebook's current data policy says that the company can "collect the content and other information you provide when you use our Services, including when you sign up for an account, create or share, and message or communicate with others." "Create" is the operative word in there. By that logic, Facebook technically could save any video a user filmed but did not publish because you created it on the platform.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Friday March 30 2018, @05:06PM (1 child)
Bailey changed her mind, sure. She recorded some videos, decided not to use them, and then found a take she liked and posted it. Everything worked.
Later, Bailey was surprised that the videos she recorded on Facebook were still stored on Facebook. (Ignoring how obvious that might seem to some, let's focus on the fact that Bailey was apparently in fact surprised that the videos were retained.)
However, a similar situation could have gone, Random_Person records some videos, decides not to use them, then later says, "my goodness, this recording videos thing is harder than I thought. I think the second or third try I made was probably the best one and I should use that after all. I hope they still have it!" or words to that effect.
That person, on looking to see what all Facebook keeps (everything) vs. throws away (they don't even have garbage service at their headquarters, I heard*), will be happy to find that there is that sucky-but-maybe-not-so-bad-after-all second take, sitting right there. No unpleasant surprises.
Now, the expectations of a Random_Person and of Bailey are opposites here in my example; and both seem reasonable from their particular points of view.
The question is, which should Facebook choose to do, according to the principle of least astonishment [thefullwiki.org]? Keep everything? Or keep everything except for recorded but yet unposted videos?
I submit that the answer is the former.
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* sarcasm. I have actually not heard any reports on whether they have it or not.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @06:25PM
The videos shouldn't require downloading all of your data to know that they're still retained. If it isn't actually in a place where the user can find it without going through extra steps, it shouldn't be retained.
It should be perfectly reasonable for people to assume that if they can't see it from their account that FB hasn't had it. Especially in the case of unpublished drafts. It should be reasonable to assume that FB isn't retaining those as most operators don't, it's just too expensive to retain extra copies of videos that the end user doesn't like enough to publish.