Oh boy, here we go....
So ever since this whole social media thing, Twitter in particular, started taking off, it raised a whole bunch of questions on copyright, fair use, intellectual property, etc. Is a status update saying "I just farted LOL" truly intellectual property? Is a photo posted by someone, intended for just 140 followers, fair to be rebroadcast across all of Twitter without permission? All very interesting questions, some which are still being debated.
But here's the thing about Twitter. Although anything you post on the site is inherently yours, the 140 character limit isn't enough to reach the level of creativity required for copyright protection. A series of tweets telling a longform story? Maybe, arguably. But one tweet? Not in a longshot. Case reference: Mark Cuban suing ESPN over Tweet and failing miserably. it isn't a case by case basis, it's simply case closed.
And you're right, those guidelines protect Twitter, FB, etc form not being sued. But additionally, it doesn't make it a failsafe platform for you to host content without other people using. However, anytime someone has sued a media organization for using their photo from a tweet or FB post, they have failed because the argument was that those photos were posted under the understanding that anyone on the internet could see them and use them.
Now if BuzzFeed took a photo from someone's FB page and credited it as their own, that wouldn't be ok. In this instance, they didn't necessarily credit it as their own, but didn't credit the original poster either. However, posting a tweet of a picture does not automatically assign authorship of that photograph to that user. If she posted it on her blog or her Flickr stream, then yeah, but again reaches murky territory when it goes into social media.
Hey, I enjoy debates as much as the next guy, but please don't resort to name calling or insults. I respect your opinion and what you have to say, but every time you make a "you probably shouldn't embarass yourself...," you're just denigrating yourself further. Let's communicate like adults, yes? Sounds good.