Why VKontakte will be closed on Monday. Strange VKontakte entry

Surely many of the users of VKontakte have ever thought about what would happen if social network will not. The main problem is that many users have a lot of personal information, friends, and correspondence in their accounts. So this weekend, users of the domestic "social network" were gripped by panic when news came out that "VKontakte" was being closed, and the personal data of users would become public.

The panic was provoked by one of the VKontakte users, who posted a post on his wall, sharing with friends that the social network would be closed in the near future. To protect your personal data from being viewed by other users, according to the informant, it was necessary to post his message to each user on his wall.

"Starting from Monday, the VKontakte program will not be completely removed. It will be completely removed! ((We have just a little bit left to sit on VKontakte! So, so that all your correspondence, pictures and photos are not scattered all over the Internet, throw this on your wall!" - reads in the text of this message.

The message spread very quickly on the social network. Mass publications began on social networks with hashtags # ReturnDurov # vk_live # VkNeStanet. To stop the panic, the VKontakte administration even had to make an official statement that the site was not going to be closed, and on the fact of the spread of false information, technical support conducted own investigation... It turned out that this action was just an attempt to promote one of the accounts of an unscrupulous user.

Despite all the assurances of the management, the prospect of the imminent closure of the social network frightened the majority of users who use VKontakte not only for work, but also for storing important data for themselves. The incident raises questions about the role of social networks in our lives. Note that this is not an isolated case, a similar situation took place on VKontakte just a couple of months ago.

IN recent times my friends in the social network Vkontakte began to repost a very old "duck" of which for about a year now. It starts like this: "Since Monday, the old VK program is being removed ..." After reading the text of this message, I just smiled and forgot. But when I saw a dozen reposts from friends, it made me worried and write an article on this topic ...

To begin with, here's the full text of this post:

"The social network" Vkontakte "will be closed from next week, I will leave this entry so that my photos, correspondence, etc. will not be scattered across the Internet.
In response to the new VKontakte policy, I hereby declare that all my personal data, photographs, drawings, correspondence, and so on are objects of my copyright (according to the Berne Convention). For commercial use of all the aforementioned objects of copyright in each specific case, my written permission is required.

VKontakte is now a public company. That is why all users of this social network are encouraged to post such a "privacy notice" on their pages, otherwise (if the notice is not published on the page at least once), you automatically authorize any use of data from your page, your photos and information published in posts on the wall of your page.

Everyone who reads this text can copy it to their wall on VKontakte. After that, you will be protected by copyright laws. This communique informs VKontakte that disclosure, copying, distribution of my personal information or any other illegal actions in relation to my profile on the social network is strictly prohibited. "

So, let's begin to analyze the text of this "warning" in detail. (The article is intended for ordinary Internet users, so I will not use complex terms it.)

"Because Since Monday, the old VK program has been removed, I will leave this entry so that my photos, correspondence, etc., do not spread across the Internet. " According to the author of this post, Vkontakte is one program in which all user data are located, and when this program is removed, all data miraculously scatters across the Internet .... From the first words it is clear that this message is intended for people who are not at all familiar with the structure of Web sites. All data of Vkontakte users are located on the company's servers. All programs and even the Vk.com site itself only take information from servers and display it to users. In addition, there are many programs for Vkontakte, in addition to official clients for various devices, there are also unofficial clients who work to this day.

“In response to the new VKontakte policy, I hereby declare that all my personal data, photographs, drawings, correspondence and so on are the objects of my copyright (according to the Berne Convention). For commercial use of all the aforementioned objects of copyright in each particular case, my written permission is required. "

It would seem a very serious statement with reference to such a document as the "Berne Convention". But even here not everything is as honest as the author shows. "Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works" - this is the name this document bears, signed in the 19th century and revised in 1979. Naturally, this document has nothing to do with Vkontakte and the Internet in general (it simply did not exist then).

“Everyone who reads this text can copy it to their wall in VKontakte. After that, you will be protected by copyright laws. This communique informs VKontakte that disclosure, copying, distribution of my personal information or any other illegal actions in relation to my profile on the social network is strictly prohibited.

But this paragraph of the message is just a lie, and not even covered up. And I'll tell you why. According to the legislation of the Russian Federation, the content created by the author is already protected by law and additional actions are not required to protect it (in our case, the posting of this message). The Civil Code of the Russian Federation, article 1259, clause 4 reads: "For the emergence, exercise and protection of copyright, registration of a work or compliance with any other formalities is not required."

Moreover, all user data is protected by the Federal Law of July 27, 2006 N 152-FZ "On Personal Data" and additional actions by the user are not required.

From this brief "investigation" it becomes clear that this message is a lie, or in the language of the Internet: a duck.

And you use this social network. Believe it or not, over the past week two people at once asked me the same strange, in my opinion, question.
It was about a record that has been walking on VKontakte for a long time, beginning with the words: “Since Monday, the VK program is being deleted, I will leave this record so that my photos, correspondence, etc. do not spread over the Internet ...” and so on.
The question was: does it work? Should such public statements be made?

To make it clear to everyone what this is about, I am posting the entire text of this entry, and below I will tell you what it is all the same.

« Since the old VK program has been removed from Monday, I will leave this entry so that my photos, correspondence, etc., do not spread across the Internet.
In response to the new VKontakte policy, I hereby declare that all my personal data, photographs, drawings, correspondence and so on are the objects of my copyright (according to the Berne Convention). For commercial use of all the aforementioned objects of copyright in each specific case, my written permission is required.
VKontakte is now a public company. That is why all users of this social network are encouraged to post such a "privacy notice" on their pages, otherwise (if the notice is not published on the page at least once), you automatically authorize any use of data from your page, your photos and information published in posts on the wall of your page.
Everyone who reads this text can copy it to their wall on VKontakte. After that, you will be protected by copyright laws. This communique informs VKontakte that disclosure, copying, distribution of my personal information or any other illegal actions in relation to my profile on the social network is strictly prohibited.»

Such a record is already circulating on the VKontakte social network. more than a year... I must say right away - all this is complete nonsense.
Such publications have no legal force (as well as common sense). By the way, the origin of this "duck" has already been investigated and on some forum it is indicated that this was done at one time to promote the profile of one of the unscrupulous users.
As for the legal part, it is immediately clear that the information was compiled with the expectation of the population's illiteracy in matters of copyright. Let me explain why:

The Berne Convention (the full name of the document is "Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works") is indeed still in force and is a fundamental international legal act in the field of copyright protection, but it was signed in 1886 (XIX century). The truth was later revised in 1979. As you already understood, it does not regulate any relations related to personal data, and even more so to electronic correspondence on VKontakte. This is the first blunder of the authors of our strange entry.

The second blooper is a statement that “ if the notification is not published on the page at least once, you automatically authorize any use of data from your page».

Any objects of copyright (photo, copyright records, music, poetry, literary works) receive legal protection by virtue of their bona fide creation by the author. According to clause 4. Article 1259 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, for the emergence, exercise and protection of copyright (including literary works) does not require registration of the work or compliance with any other formalities.

The absence of a prohibition of the copyright holder on the use of objects is not considered a consent (permission) - this is regulated by Article 1229 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.

What you post on your page, for example a photo of which you are the author, or your stories is nothing more than disclosure to the public - one of the ways to use the work, to which you, as the copyright holder, have every right in accordance with Art. 1270 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.
And finally, let me remind you that just like the objects of copyright, your personal data is also already under protection without your participation. The procedure for using personal data is regulated by the Federal Law of July 27, 2006 No. 152-FZ "On Personal Data".

The same applies to correspondence, which is guaranteed secrecy by Article 23 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, without any additional statements on your part.

So, friends, do not get fooled by stupid antics and do not fill the tape and head with yourself and your friends with all sorts of nonsense. You'd better subscribe to useful news. I hope that each of you who have read this material, in order not to get into such stupid situations, will go