Ok fam, real talk. You need to do something with your pictures, and Facebook and Instagram are not cutting it. A picture's sole purpose on social media is meant to be able to share that picture with friends and family. But I've seen so many people who upload tons of photos, but never do anything with them, or have Facebook be a way to chronologically access them. This isn't some weird "photographer quirk" either, it's a big deal. I broke it down into three parts to help you understand why. 

#1. You don't own Facebook

     Not to be mistaken for the "I do not give Facebook permission to my photos... yada yada... post this as your status." hoax that seems to always be circulating through my newsfeed. Facebook is a social media platform. They have given you a free space for your life on the internet. What would happen if Facebook went away? Your statuses full of angst from your teen years? Gone. All the photos from high school before you understood the importance of eyebrow makeup? Gone. Heck, even all the funny memes you shared to your timeline would no longer exist in the same place you last saw them. You as an individual have no control over what will happen in the future regarding Facebook. 

#2. Bad image quality

     This one is not as apparent to non photographers, but when you upload a photo to social media it compresses. Basically what this means is in order to be able to host and view the thousands of photos online, your image needs to be smaller, otherwise it would slow down loading time for everything and everyone. People can hardly wait for a YouTube video to buffer, imagine waiting for every. single. image. to load? This also means, that if you try and save a photo off of Facebook, you are saving the poor quality image that was compressed. It will look pixelated if printed. Image compression limits the size you are able to print, and not to mention and detail will be lost on the digital copy you saved. 

#3. Image rights

     This is where the hoax of Facebook owning your photos comes into play. First off, Facebook does not own your photos. That is not how copyright works. They are still your photos, however, Facebook can use them. Let me break it down for you. In the terms of use that everyone agreed to, it says,

      " You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:

1. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.
2. When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others). "

Basically, what that means is Facebook gets a “non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license” to your photos. Let’s break it down.

A “royalty-free worldwide license” means Facebook is free to use your photos pretty much how they’d like anywhere in the world without paying you a penny or asking your permission.

“Transferable” and “sub-licensable” mean that Facebook can either transfer the license to another entity or just sub-license it, again without your permission.

Finally, “non-exclusive” means that you’re free to license your photo to anyone else you want. Just because you’ve uploaded a photo to Facebook, it doesn’t mean you can’t share it on Twitter, or do whatever else you want with it.

These are all pretty broad and scary terms but, for Facebook to work as intended, it needs this sort of vague license. Displaying the photos you post to Facebook in your friend’s News Feeds would be impossible otherwise: if you hadn’t given them a license, it would be a violation of your copyright for them to show that photo to your friends.

breakdown curtesy of howtogeek.com

So essentially, Facebook needs the image rights it has obtained to be able to work they way it does. But you've still got some control regarding over who sees your pictures thanks to the "privacy settings."

     What it all comes down to is the fact that Facebook was never meant to be "the cloud" or a photo storage. It was made to be able to quickly share bits of our lives with loved ones. There are plenty of other options out there to store your photos digitally. For example, Google drive, Drop box, the Cloud, etc! If you're asking what else you can do with your pictures, hang tight, I've been working on a future post detailing how I personally store all my photos both digitally and physically. If you have any questions regarding the matter, drop my a comment or email me at [email protected] and I'll be sure to address it in my post.