A privacy hoax has been circulating on Facebook.
A privacy hoax has been circulating on Facebook.
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You don't need to post a legal gobbledygook to your status

You do need to tell your friends to stop

CNN  — 

We’ve been debunking this hoax for SEVEN YEARS now, and here we are doing it again.

No, Facebook hasn’t changed its privacy settings.

No, what you post doesn’t belong to Facebook now.

A note is doing the Facebook rounds, claiming – yet again – that you need to post a legal gobbledygook to your status or you’ll lose copyright control of your pictures and other content you share with your family and friends.

Here’s part of what you’re supposed to post:

“The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308- 1 1 308-103 and the Rome Statute). NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tactically allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. DO NOT SHARE. Copy and paste.”

Please. Don’t.

We get that you don’t want Facebook to own your weird bathroom selfies, but you need to stop sharing this post.

It’s not true.

“Anyone who uses Facebook owns and controls the content and information they post, as stated in our terms. They control how that content and information is shared. That is our policy, and it always has been,” Facebook said in a statement.

What goes around, comes around

This isn’t the first, second or even third time that this post has made its rounds. According to Snopes.com, the internet rumor site, one of the first documentations of a similar post dates back to 2009.

Facebook commented on the hoax in a 2012 post: “There is a rumor circulating that Facebook is making a change related to ownership of users’ information or the content they post to the site. This is false. Anyone who uses Facebook owns and controls the content and information they post, as stated in our terms.”

If you’re still skeptical, try reading Facebook’s actual terms of service – you know that contract that you blindly agree to when you sign up.

So if you see this post popping up in your feed, put that ‘dislike’ button to good use.

And while we’re at it, no Mark Zuckerberg will not give away some of his millions to a random Facebook user.