Facebook should be treated as content creator, say US attorneys

The attorneys argued that the site has created user content when it mines user data to ‘create' and ‘customize' an audience for a particular advertiser

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Facebook should legally be considered a “content creator,” reasoning that the site “has created user content when it mines user data to ‘create’ and ‘customize’ an audience for a particular advertiser,” argued US attorneys involved in a case relating to the social networking giant's ad policies, according to the media reports.

In other words, Facebook is a publisher just like any media outlet — they create content and then try to make money off of it. But their content is made up of user data, assembled into packets based on certain demographics that it can then sell to advertisers. This assertion may have immediate legal ramifications and open the way for news publishers and users demanding reward from Facebook for the content that they provide, The Outline reported on Saturday.

The arguments were filed on August 14 as part of an ongoing lawsuit asking whether or not Facebook's ad policies constitute discrimination, according to a report in the New York Law Journal.

The case involves Facebook arguing that it should not count as discrimination when they only show housing ads only to a particular community.

Facebook content creator US attorneys