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Dear Helena,
When someone posts an embarrassing picture of you on Facebook after a party, is it wrong to ask them to take it down? What’s the best way to deal with it? —Overexposed
Dear Overexposed,
Facebook’s public relations team turned down an interview on the subject, so I asked some of the site’s users for their thoughts. For the uninitiated, Facebook allows users to identify people in photographs posted to their profile pages, a process known as tagging. When people are tagged in a photo, their friends are notified, so everyone can go check out the picture. That all happens before you can approve the photo.
Most people I spoke to say they deal with embarrassing pictures by quietly removing the tags themselves. It’s easy to do if you have a Facebook account: Simply click on the Remove Tag link below the photograph. This makes it harder for people to find pictures of you, and avoids drawing unnecessary attention to the pictures. Nobody can retag you.
However, the original notice has already gone out at that point, and as Daniel Castleton*, a product manager in San Francisco, notes, removing tags doesn’t stop other people from commenting on the picture. When they do, their comments appear next to the photo, as well as in updates to their own profile pages: “Bert commented on Ernie’s photo: ‘Boy, Daniel C was trashed that night!’” And after a comment has been posted, the commenter’s friends will all receive an update about it in their news feeds. The comment can only be removed by either the person who wrote it or the person who posted the picture, so you’d have to ask for help from one of them if you’d been unwillingly outed.
You can also ask people to remove the offending picture altogether. Facebook friends of mine say they have been asked to remove pictures, and they didn’t mind. But if there are other people in the picture, you might feel bad about asking for its removal. And you also have the problem of explaining why you don’t want anyone to see it. It’s easy enough if you’re clutching a giant psychedelic bong, but what if you just don’t like the picture because you look fat? You risk appearing vain. Recently, I asked a friend to take down a picture from her birthday in which I looked, well, sloshed. She complied, but I felt like I was asking her to rip a page out of her photo album.
You might want pictures censored for personal reasons that are awkward to explain. If you tell your brother you can’t go to your nephew’s birthday party because you’re ill or out of town, you don’t want to be tagged doing a keg stand on the day of the event. Or if you went to a party that not all of your coworkers were invited to, you don’t really want them checking out the pictures on Facebook on Monday morning.
Of course, you can also avoid having embarrassing photos taken in the first place, but that means acting as if you plan to run for office: Never get drunk, never lose control. Oh, and make sure you always eat your food elegantly, lest someone snap you with strings of pizza cheese hanging from your mouth. But where’s the fun in that? I have one friend who always throws a hand up in front of his face when a camera appears, and it never fails to get an eye roll from his friends.
Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the person posting pictures to use good judgment in the first place. If he has a number of similar pictures, he should post the most flattering of the bunch. If he suspects the subject of the photo might not want it made public, he should ask permission before posting it. And if he posts an album, he can vary the privacy setting so that the pictures are only available to specific groups. For instance, he can make an album available to his friends but not to his friends’ friends, thereby minimizing exposure.
Finally, it’s always best not to post pictures when your mind is clouded by a hangover. Once, recalls Castleton, when he was feeling groggy from a bender the night before, he “accidentally posted a picture of a friend where her nipple was showing. ... I took it down once I was notified, but a lot of people got an eyeful for the 12 hours it was up.”
∗This name has been changed at his request.
A person I thought was a good friend, now seems like a total frienemy after posting terrible photos that make me appear fat, bloated and drunk.
Very poor behavior.
I had a boss once that taught me never to be photographed with alcohol in your hands. put the beer bottle/martini/ wine glass down before the photo
The comments above mine align with my own thoughts: we're really straining to come up with etiquette topics relating to food, aren't we?. I'm rather annoyed that Helena trots out with an article about Facebook, of all things, while my own ever-so-slightly-off-topic but relevant-to-the-discussion posts have been removed from the boards. I think it's time for this column to be retired as clearly...+READ
The comments above mine align with my own thoughts: we're really straining to come up with etiquette topics relating to food, aren't we?. I'm rather annoyed that Helena trots out with an article about Facebook, of all things, while my own ever-so-slightly-off-topic but relevant-to-the-discussion posts have been removed from the boards. I think it's time for this column to be retired as clearly all food related social dilemmas have been solved.-COLLAPSE
This brave new world of social networking is going to have to develop its own rules of conduct. Until then, common sense says that of course you can ask to have your picture taken down, and you shouldn't be required to justify your request. If there are other people in the picture, then you can be cropped or photoshopped out -- what technology causes, technology can also fix. Anyone who refuses...+READ
This brave new world of social networking is going to have to develop its own rules of conduct. Until then, common sense says that of course you can ask to have your picture taken down, and you shouldn't be required to justify your request. If there are other people in the picture, then you can be cropped or photoshopped out -- what technology causes, technology can also fix. Anyone who refuses is an asshole who should be dropped from your friends list -- if they don't care about your feelings, or ridicule you for being "too sensitive" or a killjoy, then they aren't the kind of person you need as a friend.
Social ostricism is a time-honored remedy for etiquette lapses, and just because the medium changes doesn't mean the underlying principles of social interaction change.-COLLAPSE
For those that said, "don't act like an idiot and you won't have to worry about this," I defy you to tell me you've never had an unflattering picture taken of you in which you weren't actually doing anything to be ashamed of. I know there are pictures of me out there where I look like I'm trashed but am just tired or mid-blink.
And while you can control your own settings, you can't control...+READ
For those that said, "don't act like an idiot and you won't have to worry about this," I defy you to tell me you've never had an unflattering picture taken of you in which you weren't actually doing anything to be ashamed of. I know there are pictures of me out there where I look like I'm trashed but am just tired or mid-blink.
And while you can control your own settings, you can't control those of your friends, so if they take a picture of you and choose to make it public, even though you can un-tag yourself you can't do anything to keep other people from seeing it except for asking the person to take it down (but as they say, what happens on the internet stays on the internet-- forever).-COLLAPSE
There are a few more things you can do to keep a low profile on Facebook, other than removing your tag from a photo: go into your profile privacy settings and limit who can see tagged photos (e.g., you can keep those photos from showing up on your profile at all; someone could still see it from the poster's page, however). Then change how Facebook notifies your friends when someone tags you in a...+READ
There are a few more things you can do to keep a low profile on Facebook, other than removing your tag from a photo: go into your profile privacy settings and limit who can see tagged photos (e.g., you can keep those photos from showing up on your profile at all; someone could still see it from the poster's page, however). Then change how Facebook notifies your friends when someone tags you in a photo. You can set things up so that those annoying alerts aren't published to everyone online, giving you time to take care of the photo how you see fit.-COLLAPSE
I'm a bit miffed. I've had posts removed because they were "a bit off-topic." This post should be removed and an apology issued.
1- MySpace is not better than Facebook, except for bands.
2- This has nothing to do with food.
3- It's perfectly fine to ask people not to post photos of you.
Anything else?
The real issue here is personal responsibility. How someone can think that everyone else is to blame, when it's their own actions that embarrass them, is beyond me - period.
While the behavioural answer is to exercise some self-control & decorum, my interwebs social notworking advice is not to post pics on Facebook. Use flickr, it's a purpose built photo hosting site & Facebook users can link into it through one those fcbk application gizmos.
If you don't want a picture of yourself acting lick a dumbass on the internet, don't act like a dumbass when people are taking pictures. I cannot believe that this is actually an issue. "is it wrong to ask them to take it down? whats the best way to deal with it?" are you over the age of 15? you should be able to figure this out for yourself.
Okay, totally off topic, but here's another example of why MySpace is better than Facebook; on that site, the tag-ee has to approve before it can happen. You don't like the pic, you don't permit your moniker being attached to it. Why Facebook cannot duplicate this, I don't know. Seems the courteous thing to me.
Oh and I think that is how this thread got in here is that this is an etiquette...+READ
Okay, totally off topic, but here's another example of why MySpace is better than Facebook; on that site, the tag-ee has to approve before it can happen. You don't like the pic, you don't permit your moniker being attached to it. Why Facebook cannot duplicate this, I don't know. Seems the courteous thing to me.
Oh and I think that is how this thread got in here is that this is an etiquette column :)-COLLAPSE
It says pizza in the story - there's the Ob. Chow reference...
back to the original query from julietg...what the heck does this have to do with CH?
If you're worried about any of those reasons, you should not be there, acting in such a manner in the first place. There's an old saying that if you wouldn't want it on the front page of the newspaper, you shouldn't be doing it. I think that applies perfectly here. I have never removed a picture I've been asked to, nor have I ever asked for a picture to be taken down.
Maybe this should be a monthly feature instead of a weekly one.
"....it is the responsibility of the person posting pictures to use good judgment..."
Facebook and "Good Judgment" are usually not in the same zip code.
I heard the next one will be about Twitter.
OK, here's the answer Helena should have given: No, it is not wrong for someone to ask to have a picture taken down from Facebook.
Do people really need advice on this?
Seems a little off topic- did I miss the part about food?