Twitter’s ‘New’ ToS Unimpressive

Twitter is making some minor changes to its terms of service for users outside the US this October and a lot of people are rather upset about them.

What seems to be the trigger here is that these “new” terms are going into effect for the rest of the world on October 2 and Twitter is likely notifying its users of this update now.

The new ToS takes out a few things specific to the US and adds a new European address. That’s pretty much it, but because most users probably never read the old terms of service, they seem to assume that everything in the “new” terms of services is actually “new,” Tech Crunch reported.

The main issue here is over a section where the ToS mentions Twitter’s ability to offer up the use of user-generated content and embedded tweets to other companies for promotion and distribution.

This would apply to news organizations that may want to broadcast that content during a syndicated show, for instance, or ranybody who wants to embed a tweet.

It says that news organizations and other companies and individuals can use content found on the site, as that content is public and is already considered “fair use”.

Changes that will actually go into effect with these new ToS include changes in the language around the right to remove content that violates Twitter’s user agreement.