You must download your old Facebook Live videos by May 24 or apply for an extension.
In its announcement, Meta says: “We are launching new tools to make downloading your previous live videos easier.”
A simple fact: The big tech companies don’t care about you.
You cannot rely on the companies behind social networks to be there forever. You can’t trust those companies will keep your content active in the long haul. You can’t trust the companies AI algorithms to show your content fairly.
For example, local governments often use Facebook Live to broadcast public meetings. The resulting videos have served as a formal public record of the meetings and also provide a way for those governments to comply with US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Previously, they could send a link to an old Facebook Live video in response to a FOIA request.
Now, with Facebook Live videos disappearing after 30 days, local governments must download all their historical records from Facebook and find another way to host them and share them, costing time and requiring the use of taxpayers’ money.
There are many examples of other large social networks suddenly abandoning content.
In December 2015, Vine, a video sharing app, had over 200 million active users (including me). The service was purchased by Twitter and shut down in early 2017. Tough luck to the many people who had a popular presence on Vine. I used Vine and found it to be a fun way to share 6-second videos. Many people invested way more time than me, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of hours creating and curating a social presence on Vine.
If you built a following on Vine, it was all lost in an instant.
These days, X actively skews the app’s AI in favor of the type of content favored by the app’s owner, Elon Musk. If you spent more than a decade building a following on X and your tweets differ from what the AI shows loves for, your tweets aren’t shown as widely. And if you are critical of Musk, watch out: A New York Times analysis found people who feuded with Musk saw their reach on the social platform practically vanish overnight.
So much for the “free speech” Musk says he cares so much about.
And then there’s Google Plus. Launched in mid-2011 G+ became the fastest growing social network in history. However, in 2019, less than a decade after launch, the service was shut down. All the content tens of millions of people had posted on G+ disappeared.
Tough luck if you built your business using Google Plus.
Yes, social networking sites are excellent ways to host content and to showcase products and services. Depending on your marketplace, any of the large social networks or many thousands of smaller social networks might be right for you. But for long-term marketing success for your business and your personal brand, you need your own website, blog, or similar permanent content site that you own and control.