I didn’t get my driver’s license the day I turned 16.  My parents made me wait until later in the summer when I had logged more hours of practice on highways and they were more certain that I was capable of making intelligent, split-second decisions before they placed me behind the wheel of a two ton instrument of death.  Okay, so cars aren’t actually used in that manner — they aren’t a weapon built to mow down unsuspecting people — but they can be used in that manner by the very nature of their defining characteristics.  They are heavy, they are powerful, they are controlled by people.  Was I cranky at 16?  Of course.  But now I understand why my parents made me wait (and am sort of grateful that they did).

I hope the twins equally understand why I probably won’t allow them to start various social media accounts when they turn 13.

We’ve been allowing them to practice drive on the Internet on sites with user-friendly terms of service (TOS).  We’ve had a few social media fender benders — learning incidents about what not to upload, as it were — so we’re lucky that we chose sites wisely for their first forays into online communication.  It was pretty low stakes, and we were able to undo the problematic postings.  The same won’t be true when they get to the biggies: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest (let’s call them FTGP for this post, pronounced fit-gip).

Just as cars aren’t actually weapons but have the potential to become a lethal object, FTGP are not image license sellers in the same transparent vein as Getty Images, but they have the potential to become an image license seller with their TOS.  Am I making you gulp?  Good.  Then read on because I think TOS and release forms are so important to understand and read before you create an account or sign them.  And most people I know start accounts or sign forms without reading them and understanding them completely.

Get that?  You’re in the majority if you create an account without reading the TOS first.  I am in the minority with my extreme anal-retentiveness.  This post is not about judging; it’s about arming you with information so you can make good decisions on current or future social media sites (and frankly, this information is applicable to the release forms you often sign with activities and events).

Let’s start with some keywords that we always want to notice in regards to a contract when it comes to images:

• transferable (meaning, they can give someone else the same rights they have to your photo*)
• sub-licensable (meaning, they can license your image to a third-party vendor and collect a fee)
• royalty free (meaning, that money they could get for sub-licensing will not be passed along to you)
• worldwide (meaning, this is as broad as you can get)
• adapt (they’re allowed to change your content)
• modify (they can really really change your content)
• perpetual (the contract is self-renewing)
• irrevocable (you can’t end the agreement)

Those are all the words I scan for immediately, and if they appear, that’s my cue to proceed with caution.  Which doesn’t mean that I don’t use the site.  I just proceed with caution.  I have an account with most social media sites.

So which of the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest TOS contain some of those key trigger words?  The answer: all of them**.

• Facebook: 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).

• Twitter: By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).

• Google+: When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. (This new wording is a step up from their old wording: “You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.”  But I have to be frank, even if the wording has changed, the idea is still there.)

• Pinterest: you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, display, reproduce, re-pin, modify (e.g., re-format), re-arrange, and distribute your User Content on Pinterest for the purposes of operating and providing the Service(s) to you and to our other Users.

(Side note: the TOS are obviously much longer than this and contain a lot of other information.  I’ve pulled out these sections to explain what rights you grant the site when you create an account.)

Do I truly fear that FTGP is going to sell my image to a third-party vendor, and then the license for that photo will be purchased by an online magazine to use as the visual in an article titled “Ten Kinds of Women You Want to Avoid?”  No.  I think it’s a very remote possibility.  But do I believe that FTGP gave themselves the ability to do just that if I post my pictures to their site, well, yes, that is clearly part of the contract.  And that raises my red flag because unless that possibility is something they foresee doing in the future, there is no reason to include it in a terms of service.

My philosophy is that if someone tells me they might do something in the future, believe them.***

Of course, even if you choose not to participate in the medium, it doesn’t mean you’re actually protected.  For instance, if I am on Facebook and I take a picture of you this summer and upload it on Facebook, I have just given Facebook the right to sub-license this picture of you.  That picture could be sold to a third party vendor and used in an advertisement.  So it’s of you, but someone else owns the picture because they took it, and they uploaded it to Facebook and set this chain of events in motion.

And THAT is exactly what I think of when I talk about uploading pictures of my children online.  I realized in reading reactions to those posts that we’re all working with different information, and I am focusing solely on those TOS and what they mean in the largest sense of the word.  In that last paragraph, it was between me and you, me making a choice for you and you being cranky with that choice.  Which is why I don’t place the twins in that position, making a choice for them that cannot be undone (remember the words perpetual and irrevocable).

I don’t post ANY pictures without asking the subject in the picture if they are okay having their picture uploaded to my blog or another site.  When I ask an adult, I expect them to be able to make a sound decision thinking through the possible consequences of having their image out there.  But I can’t ask a child and receive an answer that takes into account the possible consequences.  I can only get an answer that boils down to likey/no likey.  So I personally err on the side of posting nothing because they can always make the choice in the future to post something.

Which goes back to that age 13 threshold — I just don’t think most 13-year-olds can comprehend what I wrote above and understand how far-reaching small decisions can be.  Once I think they truly understand it (and aren’t just reciting it by rote), I’ll let them have an account on a social media site that has broad TOS.  Until then, they need to stick to sites that don’t use this sort of language in their TOS because there are sites that do a lot to protect their younger users, proceeding with the knowledge that kids don’t always make the best decisions.****

So why do I believe that sites put this language into their contracts even if utilizing it is a long shot?  My guess is that because all of these sites are businesses who need to turn a profit in order to keep the people who run it employeed.  Just as brick-and-mortar businesses have assets such as tangible property, YOU and your content are the assets of FTGP.  Social media websites need more avenues for collecting revenue beyond advertising, and I actually support being used in a bunch of ways.  Facebook gives me an online space to socialize for free, so I don’t mind if they include me as a number in an information roundup that they sell to big business.  I consider it my payment for using the site.  But while I don’t mind non-identifying information to be used to help soda companies market their products to me, I do mind my images being possibly sub-licensed.  So I don’t upload them.

See, simple solution.

You may have read this post and still come to the same conclusion that you are perfectly comfortable posting your images on these sites, and I fully support that.  We all have different comfort zones, and I know that I am on the far end of the spectrum.  I always liken it to emergency room doctors who won’t allow their child to skateboard.  We both know the skateboarding casualty statistics but where I feel comfortable accepting the risk, that doctor does not because he has seen the damage firsthand.  And perhaps as a social media editor, I have seen the damage firsthand from people who have had their image sub-licensed and were upset with the results and while the risk is the same for you and for me, I make a different decision based on my experience.

And just as that emergency room doctor deeply respects my parenting choices to allow skateboarding, I deeply respect your decision to upload your image or your child’s image online.  It really needs to be a case of to each their own, with everyone being mindful of their own comfort zone.

The point of this post is not to make you scared, but to make you knowledgeable.  To turn you into a TOS ninja and make you social media savvy.  Now go kick ass.

And actually, show of hands: how many people learned something new from this post and what was it?  I ask this because I may do a mind-dump of all sorts of other things like this that I use to make my decisions if this is enlightening as opposed to annoying.

* Of course, they have no rights if you don’t use their site.  But once you use their site, you are agreeing to their conditions.  Let’s put it this way, nothing in this world is free even if sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest look like it on the surface.  They need to make money, and that money needs to come from something more than just advertisers.  Remember, you — the user — and your content become an asset.

** Anything you put out there can be taken and utilized in a way you don’t like.  But this is about giving permission to use any image you upload.  When you agree to the terms of service and build your account (or keep your account open after the TOS changes), you give these rights to the site.

*** I recently had two experiences with photo releases.  The first place allowed me to remove that clause from their contract so I signed it.  The second place wouldn’t allow me to remove that clause so I didn’t sign it because I had to question why that clause was important enough to them that they would rather lose my business than change it.

**** I was really pleased, for instance, to see that Pottermore does not allow kids to choose their user name therefore ensuring that kids don’t use their real, full name online.  Then again, they lost points from me when they told kids to enter their birthdate.

Photo Credit: Slosada via Flickr.

You know how Tosh puts 20 seconds on the clock and rattles off as many responses as he can to a video?  I’d like to try that with a quote from the recent Jezebel article about fundraising for IVF.

For most of us (devout Catholics aside), it doesn’t have anything to do with the actual procedure, since undergoing IVF has become a very common practice. It’s more that being asked to fund someone else’s fertility treatment feels a little bit, well, annoying—like being asked to give money instead of gifts at a wedding. I think it’s because IVF seems so entirely optional and personal. While chipping in to someone’s adoption can be seen as an altruistic act, paying for a friend’s IVF seems closer on the spectrum to being asked to help pay for a chin implant to help make their dream of not hating their face a reality.

And… go.

Aside: my feeling is that we walk a very slippery slope when we deem some personal fundraising as altruistic or admirable (or understandable) and others as gauche because the worth is always in the eye of the asker.  All receivers of the message can choose to ignore.  I’m all for the author pointing out that all money requests make her uncomfortable, but think it just makes her look heartless to write about how this request like… gags her with a spoon.

Last week, Tertia posted about the Warrior Eli story, namely because her children’s pictures were utilized in the hoax.  Hoax.  I actually don’t know if the story is fully fiction, a fake life and a fake death for Dana Dirr.  I spent the weekend trying to reconstruct the chain of events and characters since so much of what had been posted online is now gone excepted in cached form.  Combing through deleted Facebook pages and pictures taken from other people’s blogs and Flickr accounts, I tried to understand how someone could create a dynamic, somewhat-involved Internet trail that is… fiction?

It began with two people… or characters (depending on how much of this is fabricated — I truly don’t know): Dana and JS Dirr.  The couple had Facebook accounts linked to numerous friends, who may also be fictional.  They also had ten children (with an eleventh on the way), one of whom was a son named Eli who was experiencing childhood cancer.  Dana connected with other mothers blogging about their children’s experiences with childhood cancer.

I am not sure how many people interacted with Dana Dirr prior to her death, or whether they only became sucked into the story during the events on Mother’s Day. (There were definitely people who followed Dana Dirr’s story prior to the death because donations to cancer organizations in Eli’s name stretch back several months.)  Last weekend, Dana Dirr died in a car accident, but not before delivering the child she was pregnant with at the time.  The story made the rounds on Facebook — it was simply too cruel for people to comprehend.  A family who was already dealing with the tragedy of childhood cancer had now lost their mother — on Mother’s Day.  The family insisted they needed nothing but if people were moved to do something, they could make a donation to one of several childhood cancer organizations, including Alex’s Lemonade Stand.

I only learned about the Dirr family because two of Dana Dirr’s children were portrayed with pictures of Tertia’s children from So Close.  I’ve read Tertia’s blog for about six years and have watched her twins grow up in photographs.  So what is truth and what is fiction in this story remains to be seen, though what is fact is that the photographs of two of Dana Dirr’s children — Lily and Jade — are an infertility blogger’s children, Kate and Adam.  And in poking around, other people have stepped up to claim ownership of other photos used on Dana Dirr’s pages.

Since people started noticing their images stolen, all of the pages from the Warrior Eli Facebook page to their fundraising page on Alex’s Lemonade Stand have been removed, which doesn’t bode well from a truthfulness standpoint.  And that’s about all I’ve been able to figure out from reading the various blog posts by people who were sucked into Dana Dirr’s story.  It doesn’t have the closure yet of a Beccah Beuschausen nor does it have an explanation for how the images of others ended up being the visual aids for someone real, therefore, the story lingers in truthfulness purgatory.  Who really knows what to believe?

Deep breath.

Fraud on the Internet is hardly a new invention.  We’ve seen the same scenario come up time and time again: a tragic story (more often than not  involving a child and/or a woman) gains traction on the Internet.  No red flags are raised because the only things asked of those emotionally involved are prayers, attention, or donations to a well-known organization such as the American Cancer Society.  At some point, the story takes a very upsetting twist and people start feeling as if something is amiss.  And then it is revealed that the entire situation was fabricated — there is usually no mother and/or child at all, and if there is, the mother and/or child is not exactly in the situation portrayed.  From Little April Rose to Kaycee Nicole* and other  Münchausen by Internet cases.  The fraud is usually perpetrated not for financial gain, but for the attention, support, and care the person creating the hoax receives.  The situation may not be real, but the love flowing towards the fictional story is.  And real attention, support, and care are all desired human wants (and some would say needs) that cannot be bought.

Some people respond that the damage done by fraud on the Internet is hardly on par with the damage inflicted by people such as Bernie Madoff who destroyed lives with his scheme.  But just because life savings aren’t wiped out doesn’t mean that Internet fraud doesn’t inflict irreparable damage to the trust that is the foundation of the online world.  From trusting WebMD to provide us with useful information akin to what we’d gain from our face-to-face doctor to building friendships over time-space via blogs, we spend every single one of our online minutes walking a trust tightrope without a safety net in place.

When we’re in the face-to-face world, our body actually has a physical reaction to things that don’t seem right.  But the Internet is a medium that restricts almost all of our senses from in-taking useful information.  Imagine conducting your face-to-face relationships without your sight, smell, taste, or touch.  The only thing you’d have is the ability to hear without tone or inflection — the equivalent to words on a screen.  The Internet places us at a very large disadvantage, and therefore, all we have to go on is that foundation of trust.  And when it is broken, we realize just how vulnerable we are every time we accept information from a computer screen.

Even knowing this, some of my closest friendships have come out of the Internet.  And I trust them.  Even knowing that there are people in the world who would take someone else’s photographs and construct an online existence for themselves out of them.  I can’t really explain how or why I can make this leap beyond pointing out the fact that there are deceitful people who exist in the face-to-face world, and yet even after our core is shaken from their deeds, we still are able to love, to trust, to connect with others afterward.  Because we need to as humans.

I think it’s important to go into the Internet with an open heart as well as the remembrance that you are unable to utilize so many of the senses you use in your face-to-face world to make those gut decisions.  And therefore, proceed with caution.

* In a heart-stopping moment as I wrote this post, I found something that Theresa Erickson wrote back in 2009.  Completely missed that until now, but it makes the surrogacy scandal that came to light last year all the more chilling.

Welcome to MFA Sunday School, a once-a-week, free, online writing workshop. MFA Sunday School posts are uploaded on Sunday mornings, though you can read them or participate any time — the comment section is always open for people to post a link to their work or ask a question. You can subscribe to blog posts via the RSS feed, or look for them under the category heading “MFA Sunday School.” If this is your first time in “class,” you may want to jump back to the first post in the series in order to understand how things work, or peruse all of the past lessons as well as a glossary of terms by reading the MFA Sunday School Glossary and Course Archives.

Hopefully you’ve tried your hand at writing a sestina, the first fixed form poem we’re going to work with (after we get a few fixed forms under our belt, we’ll switch to looking at imagery, sound, etc) even if you haven’t posted one yet.  Surely with several thousand tuning in for this series every Sunday, there are more than four smart, brave souls willing to post their poem?

Moving back into the world of fiction.

Brian Christian wrote a book called The Most Human Human about the Loebner Prize Competition’s version of the Turing test which pits humans against computers to determine whether or not a “blind” third subject can accurately label which is the computer and which is the human as he/she communicates with both.  The computer that is able to most closely imitate human communication receives the label, “the most human computer” and the human who is chosen most often as sounding like a person is labeled “the most human human.”

Okay, so I haven’t actually gotten to reading the whole book (though baby steps — I’ve downloaded it for iBooks), but I love this concept of a contest to determine who is coming across as human, and I think it is something that all writers need to grapple with in creating characters.  Are your characters believable?  Do they make very human choices (which usually means complex choices) or are they more two-dimensional and go for the obvious?  Do they have tiny, unique traits — especially in their voice — which help the reader keep all of your characters straight in their head?

Let’s take the Harry Potter series as an example since it’s a widely read series, and you’re likely familiar with the characters.  Who said: “I enjoyed the meetings, too. It was like having friends.”  There are only two characters who could have uttered that line: Neville or Luna.  Certainly Harry has never struggled to find friends.  And noticing a lack of friends isn’t very Ron-like or Hermione-like.  Can you imagine Draco Malfoy saying that?  And now, having narrowed it down, you realize that Luna is much more blunt, much more self-deprecating, much more likely to say exactly what she is thinking than Neville.

I’m certain I could write out twenty more random quotes, and you’d be able to identify the speaker even without a tag.  That is because Rowling creates characters that would win in my version of the Loebner Prize for “most human character.”  There are plenty of other very human characters in literature to television writing: from Ramona Quimby to Foreman on House.  And there are also plenty of characters who would fail the test and have their two-dimensional “characterness” come through more than their ability to imitate a real person.  They’re the characters that just don’t ring true.

So how does one construct the “most human character?”  Through observation, retention, and utilization, or what I’ll keep returning to as ORU.  Note to self: create a glossary of all my made-up writing terms*.

So what is ORU — it’s the process that writers go through for bringing elements of the real world around them into their fiction.  (1) Writers observe.  They notice the small details.  If you don’t naturally notice the small details yet, you can hone this skill with the practice homework below.  (2) Writers retain information, filing it away for later use.  Some writers can do this in their brain, other writers keep notebooks or notecards with tiny details they want to use in a story later.  (3) Writers utilize those tiny details to create believable characters.  That is ORU in a nutshell, and we’re going to be returning to this concept and practicing this concept over and over again throughout this online course.

Later on, we’re going to go on an observation field trip to observe space (because you also want to create believable settings), but right now, we’re just focusing on people.  And we need to narrow this down even further: today we are only looking at how humans move; what their movements say about their internal state.  See, there are dozens of tiny working parts to observe, so it helps to narrow our focus for the moment to just one aspect of being human.  No extra points will be given if you diffuse your focus and try to write about how humans sound or how humans choose words — you are only looking at how humans move.  Ready to start your homework?

Homework: Go out to a public space with a partner — a restaurant, coffeehouse, park.  Leave all distractions at home (especially… I’m sorry Wolvog and ChickieNob… kids).  Set the timer for twenty minutes and without talking to each other (and try not to even look at the other person), write down everything you notice about the people’s movements around you.  Does someone keep scratching their neck?  Tapping their pen?  Rubbing their hands over their eyes?  What are you picking up from their small movements?  Can you sense that the neck scratcher is nervous, the pen tapper impatient, the eye rubber trying to hold back tears?  What small traits are you picking up on that give you a piece of information about the sort of person you’re viewing.  After twenty minutes, match up what you observed based on what your partner observed, and like Scattergories, you get no points for the things you both observed and processed similarly.  You get one point for the things that you both observed but processed differently. (For instance, if you both noticed the neck scratcher but your partner thought he looked as if he was nervous whereas you thought he looked bored.)  You get two points for everything you observed that the other person didn’t observe at all.

If you ended up with the low score, ask yourself whether it was due to where you were sitting (if you’re facing the person, you’ll notice more about them than if they’re behind you and your partner is facing them) or if you were distracted.  Did you check your Twitter feed during the 20 minutes?  If you did, you probably missed noticing small moments.

This exercise is about:

• Seeing how good you are at seeing the small movements. [OBSERVATION]
• Recording/remembering the small movements for later use (along with what information they convey.  A note might look like: “people scratch their necks when they’re bored and distracted.  If I have my character scratch her neck in the scene coupled with the right words, I will be able to convey boredom without ever using the word bored.”)** [RETENTION]
• And in the future, you’ll utilize these notes to create believable characters. [UTILIZATION]

See?  ORU — observation, retention, utilization.

If you get more time this week, additionally do this exercise on your own.  While you’re waiting in line at the grocery store, while you’re talking with a friend, while you’re looking for books at the library.  Keep a notebook with you at all times so you can jot down these small observations and have them in a single place to use later.

* I paused from writing this lesson in order to compile terms and past lessons on a single page which you can now find here and will be linked to on my right sidebar as well as the top of each MFA Sunday School post. Now you can quickly see a lesson where each term is used so you don’t have to wrack your brain trying to remember what ORU means the next time I use it.

** We’ll come back to this concept, but it’s a popular idea in writing: showing and not telling.

Perhaps it’s because I’m the blogging & social media editor for BlogHer as well as a sap for a wedding, but I totally jumped when I saw that Mark Zuckerberg married his longtime girl, Priscilla Chan, today.

What do you give as a gift to the founder of the largest social network and the newly-minted doctor?  Since it’s near impossible to think up tangible gift ideas for twenty-something billionaires and newly-minted doctors, and since we could all use each other’s collective wisdom ourselves… leave your best piece of marriage advice.  What makes for a successful marriage?