Facebook Privacy Statement Hoax

Have you seen posts on Facebook like this?

Better safe than sorry. As of January 3rd, 2015 at 11:43am Eastern standard time; I do NOT give Facebook or any entitles associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or post, both from the past, in the present, or in the future. By this statement I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute or take any other action against me based on this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308-11 308-103 and 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 If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version if you do not publish the statement at least once it will be tactically allowing the use of your photos, as well as information contained in the profile status updates. DO NOT SHARE you MUST copy and paste this. I will leave a comment so it will be easier to copy and paste!

First, simply ignore it.
Secondly, PLEASE do not follow its instructions!
Thirdly, if you already posted it, DELETE it.
Lastly, ask others to delete their post and link them to this page so they’ll know why.

Here’s some links to other places with information on this topic:
http://www.snopes.com/computer/facebook/privacy.asp
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/facebook-copyright-hoax-copy-paste-copyright-facebook-message/story?id=17811357

Essentially, this hoax is just to scare people into doing something useless in order to clutter up newsfeeds. The blanket statement carries no weight. Your use of Facebook constitutes a form of continuing agreement with Facebook’s term of use. Facebook HAS to use your pictures and everything else you put on here in order to do anything you expect Facebook to do. Your a la carte actions also trump any general statement (liking, sharing, accepting invites, allowing apps to connect with your profile, etc), so you’ll immediately render such a statement moot anyway. Lastly, Facebook does not monitor individual content in such a way that would make your post put them on any kind of notice, so unless you send Facebook Corporate the notice directly, they will not even know you did it.

Facebook privacy policy, like everything else in the world (bank, credit company, websites, airlines, gas station, and anything else that you give information to), is changed/updated all the time. The only difference is that ‘Facebook’ is a buzz word and makes people pay attention. The reason we’re told to copy/paste the message versus sharing it, is so no one can verify anything or discover who started it (plus it makes it look more trustworthy because it is coming from a friend versus a share).

Make the internet better by not re-posting the hoax, and ask your friends to delete their post so the hoax doesn’t misinform others.