Why Is Facebook Stealing My Baby Photos?

Why Is Facebook Stealing Baby Photos?

Is Facebook Stealing Baby Photos?

Recently, some people discovered a community Facebook page called Babies.
On this page may appear photos of your children or your friend’s children.
Many parents have been quite worried since their children’s photos have been appearing in a place where they did not upload them - naturally they are quite concerned about who else can see these private images.
Luckily there is a simple and safe explanation as to why privacy protected baby photos are appearing on this page.
And no, Facebook is not stealing them.

Ownership of Facebook Community Pages

Facebook owns and operates these pages, no one else!

What Type of Page Is This? – Community Pages

Facebook has a special type of page called a Community Page which it uses to display generic information relating to general topics. A community page is on a topic too broad to have one particular editor or owner. Examples include town names and topics like “Toast” or “Flowers”. These pages don’t do updates, but can be “liked”.
Usually a community page will have an extract from Wikipedia giving a brief description of the topic. It will also show friends who like that topic (this can also be because they have listed it as an interest in their profile.) The page will sometimes show an aggregated feed of any post or photo relating to that topic that has been mentioned by your group of friends or posted to a group you are a member of.
These pages are pull their content – both Wikipedia and feeds – automatically. They cannot be edited or changed other than by Facebook. The only thing that can be edited by a user is to suggest a change in the category the age is in or to suggest an official related page (for instance to associated the Coca Cola official page with the Coca Cola community page.)

Facebook Community Page on Babies - Before It Was Removed!

Source: Source: Facebook

Highlighted Red Box

The text in the highlighted red box reads:

"This Page is automatically generated based on what Facebook users are interested in and not affiliated with or endorsed by anyone associated with the topic"

Why Are My Baby or My Friend’s Baby Photos on A Community Page

This page uses a very simple aggregation (information gathering) algorithm to display any photo your friend has taken with the word “baby” in the photo description.

Who Else Can See My Baby Or My Friend’s Baby Photos?

The only people who can see these photos on the Baby Page (or any other similar page) are those who you allow to in your privacy settings.
For instance:

• If you post a photo with the word baby in its description with the “friends only” privacy setting on, anyone who is your friend will see that baby photo on the baby page.

• If you post a photo with the word baby in its description and your content is set to “public”, all your friends and anyone who follows you (if you have the follower option enabled) will be able to see the photo.

• If you post a photo with the word baby in its description to any group you are a member of, any person who is a member of that group will be able to see the photo on the community page.

To understand how content aggregation works, take a look at your newsfeed. You can see dozens of updates from friends – but only you and that person’s friends can see those updates. Essentially, this community page is like a “newsfeed” of all your friend’s baby photos.
Don’t worry – your images can only be seen by those who you’ve set to see them in your privacy settings, or those who are in groups you’re a member of where you have posted personal photos!

Did You Know

If you have tagged anyone on any of your photos, EVERY friend of that person can potentially see it too; subject to your friend's privacy settings.
The ONLY images that will show in the photo feed on these pages are those images that you have allowed your friends to see and your friend's friends based on their own privacy settings. Also any photos posted to a group that you are a member of!

Facebook Guides

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Does Facebook Own Your Photos, Videos and Content?

IMPORTANT!!
You will be very surprised to see just who owns your online content and what you are actually signing up for when you join Facebook and other social networking sites.
What is important however is that you have complete control over who sees your content.
If you are not sure how to check your privacy settings, or want to update them to restrict them, take a look at this quick guide!

The Essential Walk Through Guide: How To Check and Adjust Your Facebook Privacy Settings

This is a MUST READ guide on how to check and set your Facebook Privacy settings. Keep this and refer to it regularly as a way to maintain your control!

Similar Community Pages

Are you aware that there are many similar community pages on Facebook of the same nature.
Here is one on dogs which shows friends who like dogs and related pages, plus photos of friends and dogs.
And another on Motorcycles!

Are you being added to Facebook groups without your permission?

Did you know that you can be added to a Facebook group without your permission! Yes, you can. This is potentially a huge invasion of privacy. And unless you are notified about it, you may never know. Make sure you read this guide on Facebook Groups!

Important Update

Update: It appears that Babies community page may have been taken down, probably due to Facebook's automatic reporting system, not because of its content. There are a number of other pages appearing with similar content. Make sure you adjust your privacy settings, remove tags off photos you do not want shared, remove all comments from the photos and THEN delete those you want to.

1. This article was written by a mother based on her knowledge of Facebook and is in no way associated with Facebook or have direct contact with them.
2. Although some of these baby topic pages have been taken down, there are different ones in different languages.