Coosto stands for a sustainable, safe and livable digital landscape
Coosto believes in the power of publicly shared information and personal communication. That’s why we create social media tools for brands that aim to increase their brand awareness, improve their customer satisfaction or aim to create more effective social media content.
There were times when these intended applications weren’t so clearly defined. Back then the digital landscape was relatively new, the profession of social media management was upcoming, there was hardly any legislation, and the development of new functionalities for social media platforms was driven by technical possibilities.
However, in recent years the amount of societal issues about privacy and security did increase. Social media platforms are being urged to self-regulate and governments are being called upon to come up with protective legislation. We have always actively supported these discussions, because we are convinced that they serve the interests of social media users, and thereby also our clients.
That's why in June 2017 we actively restricted the use of our tools for undesirable purposes. Social media data in Coosto has always been limited to publicly shared posts, but to prevent abuse, we have further restricted the information in our tools in accordance with new guidelines from social media platforms and our own moral compass.
From today only Facebook posts from Facebook pages are available in Coosto, which will also be anonymised. On Instagram, customers can follow a maximum of 30 hashtags per account, and these posts are also anonymised. In addition, government organizations are now only granted access to these public social media posts if they have submitted a use case approved by the relevant platforms. A special compliance team keeps a close eye on developments and makes sure Coosto and its clients comply with current legislation. We try to prevent as much as possible that our tools are used for surveillance purposes. We’ve always informed our customers of these changes in both our restrictions and conditions and that of our partners.
Times have changed. We stand behind our terms and those of our social media partners. Surveillance of any kind shouldn’t have a place on social media. The online world will always be in flux, but privacy remains our top priority.
This aspect, together with the interests of our customers, social media guidelines and legislation, will always be the guiding principle on which we base our decisions. This is how we want to contribute to a sustainable, safe and liveable online environment.
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This article was published on June, 28th 2017
