Thursday, March 28, 2024

Facebook Deletes The Shade Room’s Account for Copyright Violations

The Shade Room*Fans of the popular gossip outlet The Shade Room were shocked to check in with the site on Monday, only to find it had been deleted without explanation.

The Shade Room is one of the biggest gossip news sources (initially launched via Instagram), and known for breaking news about black celebs, wannabe’s, has-beens and flunkies. Some wonder if the folks who run the site have a life outside obsessing over celebrities, as they keep a keen eye on EVERYTHING black entertainers do, including the most trivial and mundane.

Last December, BuzzFeed profiled TSR founder Angie Nwandu, in a piece that highlighted the site’s “increasing popularity,” and its “increasing potential” for being sued over copyright issues.

READ RELATED STORY: Instagram Blogger Makes Time’s Most Influential People List

Now that “potential” has become a reality, as Facebook deleted TSR’s account for “copyright violations”

Most of the photos it posts are from celebrities’ social media accounts, but The Shade Room also posts photos without attribution – a move that could result in hefty legal fees.

“Sometimes we’ll use Getty and things like that,” Nwandu said. “We try to stay away from using the professional photos all the time, but we want to get to a place where we can just buy photos.”

After the Facebook deletion, The Shade Room briefly set it’s Instagram page to private, and for a short period, links to Instagram from their Twitter account led to an error page.

A Facebook rep confirmed that The Shade Room’s account was deleted because it violated Facebook’s standards. The rep also stated that TSR can go through an appeals process to have its page restored.

Having a page removed temporarily or permanently can have a tremendously negative affect on a brand, as many publishing companies and bloggers rely on distribution on Facebook to help increase visibility.

Check out The Shade Room’s tweeter response to Nieman Lab’s inquiry about the deletion:

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