Facebook Removes Cover Photos-Your Photo might Disappear!

Although I have been noticing few profiles without a cover photos recently, it never clicked that there is a story behind. It has been revealed that Facebook is removing the Cover photos of specific profiles without informing the users about the change. While I talked about a friend of mine to ask what made her remove her cover photo, assuming that she might be worried about the security issues as the cover photos are visible to public, She told that it just disappeared!

It sounded interesting and left me with an idea to explore the reality, whether it is a bug or a crack, a policy or plan and finally here is what the research showed.

Facebook Deletes Specific Covers

If you are in love with a brand and have uploaded an image related to it, then you can be a victim, if you hadn’t been by now. Say, if you are way too fond of McDonalds’ and have placed its photo as your cover photo, Facebook is going to remove your picture assuming that it has been placed there for promotions. It seems that the server is turning into a real smarter one, where the robots are actually monitoring thousands of Billions profiles, keeping an eagle’s eye.

Since the day of its birth, Facebook Timeline has been an irritating one for most of the users, where few of them actually hated the privacy issues that were linked to the cover photos. Even in My social circle, there are 90% of the friends, both male and female who avoid uploading their personal snaps as their cover photos to avoid being a victim of cyber crime. However, a cover photo also gives an attractive look to the profile, speaking about the attitude, likes and mood of the user, users often choose their favorite brands, quotes and epic photos.

How to Know why the photo is removed?

If your profile has experienced this, you might know what we are talking about here. For the readers who are still confused about the reality, let us tell you here that if you are having a sort of ‘promotional photo’ of your favorite Brand, celebrity or movie, it might disappear in nights. The next day you would find your photo missing and been replaced by an empty white space, without being notified about the change. The naïve users are not noticing it by now, but such an antique disappearance never goes unnoticed by the tech savvy ones. If you try to reload the same image as your cover photo again, The following message is prompt, making the things clear:

Pick a unique photo from your life to feature at the top of your timeline. Note: This space is not meant for banner ads or other promotions. Please don’t use content that is commercial, promotional, copyright-infringing or already in use on other people’s covers.

What Made Facebook Do This?

Facebook always carried its commercial touch, that is, it has been money oriented one from the very first day and the team is wise enough to realize all the possibilities that can affect their sales in any way possible. Facebook has yet not spoken about its plan openly, but while replying to one of its customers regarding the same issue, The team said that it is been done according to the terms of services. You might be interested to know what clause is now been used from the terms of services, and to make things easier, a summary is here.

According to the terms, the image been used as a cover photo must be a unique image that is only used to represent the particular user and should not hold any promotional touch, as Facebook has offered a separate program for promotional activities (that is, the Fan Page). It seems genuine too as people can actually use their profiles for the promotion of goods and services avoiding the payments required for the Fan Pages, making Facebook’s service to suffer.

If you have a brand oriented photo as your cover, then we advise you to replace it with something more appealing to avoid inconvenience.

Best Wishes

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