Can we please stop falling for this Facebook privacy hoax?

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 gibberish 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 If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tactically allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates.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.

 

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.

Despite increased privacy concerns, Facebook users are sharing more personal information.

Carnegie Mellon University conducted a study following more than 5,000 Facebook users over six years, from 2005 and 2011, and found that changes in the social network's privacy policies caused users to share more -- not less -- personal data. Lest you think this means that users suddenly trusted the site more, Carnegie Mellon says that Facebookers became more and more protective of their personal details as the social network grew in membership -- and that the uptick in shared information is a result of increasingly granular privacy settings. If you recall, Facebook introduced new in-depth privacy controls in 2010, and the study found that the release of these new settings corresponded to users sharing more personal data, both within their network of friends and with strangers and third-party applications.

It's been quite some time since the new privacy policy was introduced, but the university says the sample group didn't reduce the amount of info shared with non-friends on the network, even as of 2011. The takeaway? Well, it's safe to say that more privacy controls doesn't equal more vigilance in protecting personal data, and it's certainly not a stretch to call Facebook's settings confusing. The researchers' comparison of the struggle for privacy to the eternal plight of Sisyphus? That might be a touch more dramatic.

Source: Engadget