Social media rumors were taken far too seriously this weekend, as word spread around the globe that Snapchat's recent privacy policy update gave the company ownership over user content, which includes photos, videos, and text messages.
"When you do that, you retain whatever ownership rights in that content you had to begin with," read Snapchat's Terms of Service, in reference to content that is uploaded onto the company's servers.
While Snapchat continues to maintain a policy of not sharing message contents with advertisers or other business partners, its Terms of Service does give it significant usage rights over content sent over the app.
"We need that license when it comes to, for example, Snaps submitted to Live Stories, where we have to be able to show those Stories around the world-and even replay them or syndicate them," the company added in the statement.