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Well, someone could certainly take your photo and post it on Facebook without your knowledge and that could lead to serious consequences, however, one's photo could just as easily end up on reddit, imgur, HN or any other internet community. Incidentally, the photo posted on Facebook would at least not be indexed by google.

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Not only post your picture, but friends can tag it with a name along with time and location, and now association with certain circles of friends. You are probably not going to get that kind of context with a picture on reddit or imgur.

What specific serious consequences could it lead to? Maybe Facebook has my photo through a friend, maybe it doesn't. I have no idea and have never needed to care.

I'm speaking generally, maybe you don't have to care, but that might not always necessarily be the case and certainly isn't the case for many people. For example, maybe you're supposed to be at work but a photo is taken of you at the beach. Maybe you're not supposed to be drinking (for legal or marital or personal reasons) but someone takes a photo of you at the bar. Maybe you told someone something that's not true but a photo ends up showing that to be a lie. I'm not saying these or similar scenarios will ever apply to you, but it's easy to see how someone who doesn't use Facebook could face serious consequences for a photo that they did not upload.

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