General Question

El_Cadejo's avatar

Is it unreasonable to ask people to remove pictures of you from their facebook?

Asked by El_Cadejo (34610points) June 3rd, 2014
31 responses
“Great Question” (5points)

I don’t have a facebook, I don’t have a twitter, snapchat, instagram, whatever the hell else is out there. Fluther is the closest I get to “social media”.

I try and be very conscious about what I chose to share online, if you google my full name, you won’t get any results. I had to work pretty hard for that. I’d also like to not have any images of myself online either for the same privacy reasons.

When I talk to most people about this they think I’m crazy or paranoid but so be it, it’s my choice. I’ve asked people before in the past to remove pictures of me they took(some I was aware of, some I wasn’t aware at all) and then posted on their face book.

People tend to make a big deal out of this, sometimes I have to pester the person for weeks before they take it down and in some cases it has led to a fight or two.

Am I being totally unreasonable here?

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Answers

livelaughlove21's avatar

Thinking you have privacy on the Internet is your first mistake.

Yes, I think you’re being unreasonable and paranoid. But you have every right to be.

AshLeigh's avatar

Absolutely not. They have no right to post photos of your without you persission.

Unreasonable or not, it’s your choice.

dappled_leaves's avatar

It is not unreasonable to expect people to remove such pictures. The problem is, they think they’re giving you a gift – sort of a public display of affection. It’s always hard to have someone throw a gift back in your face.

SQUEEKY2's avatar

I don’t think so, but if your not on facebook how do you know someone has posted your photo, unless they tell you.

Personally I really dislike Facebook and would really dislike it if my picture was on someones facebook page without my consent, so I am on your side, and don’t use my real name on any social web sites.

hearkat's avatar

I don’t know all the legalities of “expectation of privacy” but I could have taken a photo of you in passing at some public point of interest and posted it on the interwebz and you’d never know. I’ve found photos of me at concerts, museums, and other public events that were taken and posted by complete strangers when I went searching through the hashtags and geotags for the event and location – kind of creepy.

If you had a Facebook account, you’d be able to prevent people from ‘tagging’ you in photos, but other than asking people to take images down out of respect for your request, I don’t think there’s much legal support for doing so.

filmfann's avatar

I think you are being completely reasonable.

El_Cadejo's avatar

@livelaughlove21 I don’t think it’s a mistake to think you can have privacy on the internet, you just have to try harder. Most people don’t try at all and willingly give out boatloads of information.

@SQUEEKY2 My fiance uses facebook as well as some of my friends so it usually find out through “Hey, so I saw a picture of you online doing X…” or something along those lines

@hearkat I actually don’t mind the random shots of me in large public venues(I’ve found myself on the front of a couple cd’s before) The thing is with that, unless you really know me, it’s pretty hard to make the connection that the person in that image is me. When it’s a picture of me standing next to a bunch of people I associate IRL it’s a bit different.
I actually appear 4 times in this video . But like I said above, unless ya really know what to look for, you’ll never catch it so it doesn’t bother me.

If only we had a “right to be forgotten” law here in the states. Fat chance of that one ever passing though.

hearkat's avatar

@El_Cadejo – You gave the person permission to take the photo, yes? If they emailed it to their friends, or had a digital photo frame on their coffee table, or in their photo album, or showed it to people from their smartphone, would you be OK with that? What if it was their personal website, rather than Facebook – would that be acceptable? If their FB post is set to “Friends Only, and Friends of those tagged” as opposed to “Public”, does that make a difference? Does it matter if the photo was taken at a friends wedding, or at a bar?

From a legal standpoint, if you’re posing for a photo, you’re giving permission for the photo to be taken and shared by the owner of the device which took the photo at their discretion. The above questions are out of curiosity of what you consider ‘reasonable use’ by the owner of the photograph that you agreed to have taken. Your friends might do you the courtesy of cropping you out of pictures or just taking them down (which I would do if you asked me to), but if you don’t want photos posted, you need to not agree to having them taken in the first place.

El_Cadejo's avatar

@hearkat I’m deceptively hard to take pictures of in the first place (I have like a spider sense that tingles when a camera is around) , so no, 9 times out of 10 permission was not given and it’s a sneak attack photo. Fine, if you pulled your ninja shit to get a picture of me I won’t complain but I don’t agree that it should be going online either. In the same cases that I have given permission to have my picture taken(fiance really wanting a picture of us at x place) the caveat is always that it will not go online, though they seem to forget that 3 seconds after taking the bloody picture. I’d honestly prefer you not display it at all but in a home/photo album setting, whatever. Personal website would still bother me. One of my relatives set up a website for our family tree. I had them remove all entries about me. I do not want my information shared online, regardless of where it’s coming from.

anniereborn's avatar

I don’t think it is unreasonable at all.

GloPro's avatar

At least they can’t tag you for the world to see you by name. You would be better off avoiding photo moments if you know they are social media whores.

El_Cadejo's avatar

@GloPro What they end up doing is tagging my fiance. Just as annoying.

marinelife's avatar

No, you have a right to control the use of your image. Good for you!

MollyMcGuire's avatar

No. I have no photos of me on the internet that I know of. Someone took a picture of our family at a funeral and put it on their Facebook. I, with little tact, told her to remove it AND destroy it.

Nimis's avatar

The main reason why I even have a Facebook account is to maintain some control of the images taken of me online. At first I would ask people to remove pictures of me. But that becomes a pain—on both ends. Now I just tag myself and change my privacy settings.

livelaughlove21's avatar

I just don’t get it. Like others have mentioned, they can’t tag you. Unless the photo caption is, “This is my friend _______. (S)he lives at xx Elm St. in so-and-so city. His/her social security number is xxx-xx-xxxx,” I don’t understand where the harm is.

ragingloli's avatar

@livelaughlove21
There is facial recognition software in use that can analyse the photos. No tags necessary.

hearkat's avatar

@ragingloli – The facial recognition on FB only works if you have a FB account, and that can also be disabled in the privacy settings, just like the tagging system can.

El_Cadejo's avatar

@hearkat You’re talking strictly of Fb’s software. I suspect @ragingloli isn’t.

GloPro's avatar

^^ Always make weird faces when walking through an airport. Wear a hat that covers your forehead and eyes and really contort your face. Prepare for the pat down service.

antimatter's avatar

What happens on the net stays on the net! Sadly if you google your name you may find your footprints on the net. You have the right to your privacy so I think it’s reasonable to aske her to remove your pic.

LornaLove's avatar

I think you are right to be careful. I think, or should I say hope that Internet laws will get very strict and in the end no one will be able to paste or post anything about another without permissions. I also swing to the other side and think ‘Oh hell, who cares anyway about my photos, anyways’.

El_Cadejo's avatar

@antimatter ” Sadly if you google your name you may find your footprints on the net.”

You actually can’t, there were only a few things last time I looked and I’ve had them all removed. The closest thing you would be able to find to my internet ID is the username I used to use for everything. I’ve since changed my accounts so I have different names on all the sites I use.
The reason I changed my name here on fluther actually

chinchin31's avatar

If you don’t have facebook how do yo know they have your picture up there.

No it is not unreasonable but honestly I wouldn’t care unless I am being tagged, which doesn’t arise if you are not on facebook.

This is one of the reasons I don’t have facebook either. Privacy issues.

El_Cadejo's avatar

@chinchin31 “If you don’t have facebook how do yo know they have your picture up there.”

^

Just because it doesn’t specifically say chinchin31 is in this picture, doesn’t mean that someone couldn’t still recognize you in said picture.

Response moderated (Spam)
jca's avatar

As far as posting photos, if someone asked me to take their photo down, I would. I don’t tag people in photos without their permission, I don’t name my own child in posted photos and I don’t name other children. My FB privacy settings are set so that only my friends see my photos and info and only with my permission are my tagged photos shown on my timeline. I think everyone using FB should have their privacy settings so that only friends see their stuff. I am always baffled when I go to someone’s profile that I am not friends with and find that I can view everything.

I don’t get upset about what I can’t control. I have googled my image and find work events where I am tagged. I’m not losing sleep over it. I think people are delusional if they think there’s no info about them online. Anybody who is reasonably proficient using search engines can find home addresses, property information, groups people belong to, etc.

jca (36062points)“Great Answer” (1points)
dappled_leaves's avatar

@jca Agreed, not to mention that to some extent professionals are now expected to have online footprints that show what we are contributing to our fields. To have no online presence is, in a way, proof that one has done nothing. And that’s not good.

El_Cadejo's avatar

@jca ”. Anybody who is reasonably proficient using search engines can find home addresses, property information, groups people belong to, etc.”
Though it’s a massive pain in the ass, if you contact all those sites you can have your information removed from them. Sometimes you have to call, but in the end that’s what I did, so for me, no, you can’t.

@dappled_leaves “not to mention that to some extent professionals are now expected to have online footprints that show what we are contributing to our fields. ”

I have to agree with you there to a degree but it’s still a matter of what I’m choosing to put up. Say, scientific paper publish by El_Cadejo , great, no problems there.

Picture of El_Cadejo with a drink in his hand. Not so great. (Though just one example, I’d extend that to anything personal. You don’t need to know about my personal life to know I’m publishing papers in my field or what have you)

Response moderated (Unhelpful)
comebackkid's avatar

I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all. At one point, I had an actual stalker and was very frightened. I pulled down all the information about me that I could from the internet, and I still stress about it today, even though it was like four years ago. If your friends can’t understand where you are coming from, and won’t respect your choice, then they are the ones being unreasonable.

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