Recently your Facebook friends may have posted something that looks like legal jargon to their timeline There were many variations that sprung up but the majority of timeline posts read as such-
“For those of you who do not understand the reasoning behind this posting, Facebook is now a publicly traded entity. Unless you state otherwise, anyone can infringe on your right to privacy once you post to this site. It is recommended that you and other members post a similar notice as this, or you may copy and paste this version. If you do not post such a statement once, then you are indirectly…allowing public use of items such as your photos and the information contained in your status updates.
PRIVACY NOTICE: Warning – any person and/or institution and/or Agent and/or Agency of any governmental structure including but not limited to the United States Federal Government also using or monitoring/using this website or any of its associated websites, you do NOT have my permission to utilize any of my profile information nor any of the content contained herein including, but not limited to my photos, and/or the comments made about my photos or any other “picture” art posted on my profile.
You are hereby notified that you are strictly prohibited from disclosing, copying, distributing, disseminating, or taking any other action against me with regard to this profile and the contents herein. The foregoing prohibitions also apply to your employee, agent, student or any personnel under your direction or control.
The contents of this profile are private and legally privileged and confidential information, and the violation of my personal privacy is punishable by law. UCC 1-103 1-308 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WITHOUT PREJUDICE”
–taken from Facebook via slate.com
Looks impressive right? Looks can be deceiving as the majority of terms and laws cited either don’t exist or are completely misrepresented. Scopes.com explains that Facebook doesn’t own your work however, it does have the rights to use your work at any time in any way.
The message quickly went viral due to users who were trying to protect their privacy or at least that spamming the message “couldn’t hurt”. In a way they were right, the worst causalities of the scam were the other Facebook users who were bombarded with post after post of riled up users hoping to protect their media. Posts, pictures and any other content uploaded to Facebook is all in the public domain according to the agreement a user signs when they register for the site. The viral nature of the faux privacy notice signifies that users of social networks are becoming more protective of what they post online.
There isn’t way to undo your agreement with Facebook or any other social networking site. Even deleting your account doesn’t give you back the rights that you formally ceded. If you want to retain exclusive rights to your work or keep your information private, don’t share online!
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