
Posting a notice on your Facebook wall will not protect your privacy rights - recycleme
http://www.snopes.com/computer/facebook/privacy.asp
======
dfxm12
The fact is that I'm not sure that people totally believe what they are doing
will hold up in a court of law. The thought that it _might_ and it is _so
easy_ to do, coupled with the herd mentality (all of their friends are doing
it), make posting something like this seem to have no downside, but only
upside. After all, wouldn't you hate to be the one rube whose privacy is
invaded because you didn't simply post something to your wall? To someone with
little understanding of technology and law, it's like Pascal's Wager
(<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager>), right?

Of course, my opinion of these friends of mine drops, but what do they care
about that? :)

~~~
Shenglong
Your last point is actually quite alarming: I have often been told that in
order to be successful, I should surround myself with people much smarter than
I am. But, when I see all these Facebook notices and FREE $500 COSTCO GIFT
CARD shares, I can't seem to shake the feeling that I have thus failed in
life.

~~~
snowwrestler
I get some of the weirdest Facebook posts from folks who I know are very smart
--like professional musicians and Ph.D. researchers. They're very accomplished
in their fields, but just haven't spend enough time online to develop "street
smarts" about these things like we have.

~~~
jiggy2011
The same is true for me, I don't use FB but I've seen over the shoulder of it
being used by people who would be on my friends list should I use it.

These are often pretty smart people but they seem to mainly use FB for cat
memes , pictures of food and the sort of "nerd humour" you might find on
reddit.

~~~
illuminate
"These are often pretty smart people but they seem to mainly use FB for cat
memes , pictures of food and the sort of "nerd humour" you might find on
reddit."

FB does not do very well for other purposes.

------
rickmb
As a citizen of the EU and a country with strong privacy protection, my
privacy rights are protected by law, and neither Facebook's terms nor the fact
that any other entity can collect certain information from Facebook negates
that right.

The claims by Snopes are equally false: whatever Facebook terms a user may
have accepted whenever, they are trumped by the law. You can't give up your
civil rights with single click.

~~~
objclxt
> You can't give up your civil rights with single click.

Of course you can. Contracts can and do override a right enshrined in law. I
can sign an agreement that gags me from talking about something, in which case
I've given up my right to free speech (if you're in a country where such a
right exists).

You seem to be referring to the EU's Data Protection and privacy policies -
there are _explicit exemptions_ under the EU/US Safe Habor (which applies
here) that allow contractual opt-out from certain rights. I am not saying this
is the case with Facebook: merely that it is naive to assume just because a
right is enshrined in law doesn't mean you cannot give it up through a
contract.

~~~
aneth4
EULAs are "contracts of adhesion":

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract#Contract...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract#Contracts_of_adhesion)

While they are not worthless, they are not nearly as binding or enforceable as
your normal commercial contract. Standards vary and the jurisprudence is not
clear, but indeed you "can't give up your civil rights with single click."

~~~
aneth4
vavb: you appear to be hellbanned

I am from the US, and that is certainly not the case here. Contracts of
adhesion are relatively weak here.

------
wtvanhest
I just posted the following: "I declare that facebook can use any of my stuff
for any reason they stipulated in the terms of service I didn't read because I
am too lazy. I fully recognize that posting a declaration of the opposite will
have no actually effect on anything and that the only way for me to not have
my privacy negatively impacted would be to stop using facebook. Unfortunately,
this is not going to happen because google+ sucks just as bad and all my
friends are on here, so long live network effects!"

[EDIT] I probably would have been more accurate to say google+ sucks just as
bad with their TOS.

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ck2
That little thing (sometimes huge thing) people put at the end of their emails
that "this is confidential" is also pointless as you cannot enter into a
confidentiality agreement that way.

~~~
jiggy2011
That's an interesting point. A while ago I got an email that was clearly not
intended for me with some big confidentiality warning on the bottom.

So I did as it said, deleted the email and informed the sender. Got a reply
back saying "oh, sorry it was intended for xxx@xxx.com".

So then I get another one a few days later, this time I deleted it and
forwarded it to the intended recipient. Then I informed the sender again
getting no response.

Now about once a week I get this stuff into my account (which is basically a
throwaway I hardly log into).

I assume I'm not expected to somehow play secretary for these people.

~~~
steevdave
I get these too, except it's a cell phone bill for someone in Malaysia. I've
tried repeatedly contacting someone at the company but all mails to them get
returned as mailbox is full (it's 2012, how is anyone's mailbox full!?) and so
they continue. I've even tried tweeting them but no luck. At this point I just
mark it as spam, so sorry anyone in Malaysia that uses Celcom if your bills
are going in to your spam folders.

------
michael_michael
The Snopes article also links to a page on a moonshine distillery website that
claims to show you how to get diplomatic immunity:
<http://www.coppermoonshinestills.com/id53.html>

Well worth reading for kicks, and reads more like a primer on how to make
yourself a nuisance to local courts.

tl;dr You have to fill out some documents, notarize them, have state and
federal judges sign them, and refuse any case you're involved in to be heard
by magistrates in lower courts. In this way you'll be put on the "list" for
diplomatic immunity although you are (presumably) not a diplomat. They even
sell diplomatic corps car tags.

The legitimacy of the article is undermined by the fact that the author often
spells "you" as "ya".

~~~
derleth
> a page on a moonshine distillery website that claims to show you how to get
> diplomatic immunity: <http://www.coppermoonshinestills.com/id53.html>

In 1995, someone might have put this into a science fiction book. (I mean, it
_theoretically_ could have happened. To my knowledge it didn't.)

Then everyone who heard of the book would have laughed. At the author. Because
the whole idea is not just idiotic, but a kind of aggressive arm-swinging
feces-flinging idiocy that can't possibly exist in real life.

Right.

~~~
illuminate
It vaguely reminds me of this idiocy-
<http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen>

It never works, but people do make a (likely not comfortable) living selling
others on the dream.

------
pixelcort
This reminds me of the "No copyright intended" quote people would put on
YouTube videos.

~~~
rmc
That phenomenon is actual quite interesting. It shows that lots of people have
one view of what is right & wrong, and think that copyright is what they think
is right. People think there is nothing wrong with uploading a video of them
dancing in a funny way to a popular song if you don't claim the song is yours
and youre not making money off it. Thus they think its not against copyright
to do that.

The law has a different interpretation.

The fact that lots of people have a different interpretation of what counts as
unethical use might mean the law will change

~~~
quinndupont
"The fact that lots of people have a different interpretation of what counts
as unethical use might mean the law will change" -- we can dream, can't we?

But, you're right, in a perfect world, ethics and law would correspond. But,
not in this world.

------
bfluzin
The terrible thing about this: it's the sign that users have absolutely zero
clue about online privacy and facebook terms and conditions.

Some of my friends (and not the stupidest ones) posted this and really thought
they were safe after that...

------
ceejayoz
As written, the notice would forbid Facebook from even showing your posts and
details to your friends.

------
chopsueyar
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game
of chess?"

-Joshua

------
res0nat0r
Directly from newsroom.fb.com:

 _Copyright Meme Spreading on Facebook:_

 _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. They control how that content and
information is shared. That is our policy, and it always has been._

<http://newsroom.fb.com/Fact-Check>

------
quux
See also: No Copyright Intended

<http://waxy.org/2011/12/no_copyright_intended/>

------
dredmorbius
And when one side in a relationship is able to offer take-it-or-leave it terms
which may change at any time without notice simply by being published on some
arbitrary web page, but the other is not? Does this really meet conditions for
a binding contract?

------
code_duck
This is the third wave I've seen of this on facebook... at least it's better
worded this time.

This pretty much proves what many of us knew: the average person has
absolutely no idea about copyright or TOS agreements, and what rights they
have or are signing away.

~~~
bpatrianakos
I think it proves that people will post any copy pasted message you ask them
to. Its like those chain emails from back in the day except even more
pointless.

~~~
code_duck
True, I suppose people pasting the ridiculous chain letter style 'post this to
9 statuses tonight or u will hae bad luck for 10 weeks' posts don't
necessarily believe they are averting poor fortune.

------
gpvos
> HTTP Error 500-13 - Server too busy

Heh. Never had that before on snopes.com...

------
TomorrowMars
What is so disheartening about so many of my facebook contacts sharing this?
That it is a simple manifestation of the power of herd mentality. You are
talking about mature adults with not just children and property, but with
degrees of higher education not adhering to the base principles of reason. If
an "educated" person does not bother to verify perceived facts before acting
on them, what other imbecile lemming behavior are they capable of? There truly
are no innocents.

------
daenz
Random thought: When presented with a TOS to signup, if you could edit that
TOS before clicking submit, is this similar to editing a contract before
signing it?

~~~
neotek
If someone sent you a contract to sign, do you think you could scribble your
own terms all over it and sign it and have that hold any weight? You can't
unilaterally modify the terms of a contract, both parties have to sign and
agree.

~~~
daenz
Right, which is why I'm asking what kind of limbo a modified TOS would place
you in. Do they have to contact you directly agreeing to your modified
version, and until then you're not allowed to use the service, even though
you've been signed up?

------
harel
And by the way, company x will not donate a dollar to this poor cancer
suffering baby for every like the photo gets, Mr mamboto will not transfer 25
trillion dollars to your bank account, and the Microsoft lottery was already
won by the early share holders. I don't know why but every time I see those
statuses and chain emails (same thing really) I lose faith in the common sense
of humanity...

------
tolos
So is "liking" something you don't -- intentionally corrupting their business
(data) -- going to cause any repercussions?

~~~
praptak
Nope, as long as you post a magic disclaimer on your wall and also forward it
to 20 friends. Shall you forget to forward it, very bad things will happen to
you.

------
michaelfeathers
Isn't it funny how implied consent only seems to work in one direction?

~~~
eurleif
You have the opportunity to read Facebook's privacy policy before consenting
to it. Facebook does not have a similar opportunity to read your privacy
notice before allowing you to post it to your wall. It happens automatically.

~~~
michaelfeathers
They have the ability to and that's a fact worth considering.

~~~
jrockway
They also have the ability to hand deliver a big bag of cookies to your house.
The problem is, it's expensive and doesn't scale to their 3 billion users (or
whatever it is).

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TazeTSchnitzel
> Cancel your Facebook account. > (Note that in the last case, you may have
> already ceded some rights which you cannot necessarily reclaim by canceling
> your account.)

I forgot about that. :(

~~~
noamsml
Not that the FB privacy disclaimer deals specifically with the copyright on
deleted content. Specifically, you do rescind your license to FB by deleting
content, but only if no references to it exist (i.e. it has not been reshared
or all reshares of it have been deleted).

------
recycleme
Facebook's response to the privacy notice: <http://newsroom.fb.com/Fact-Check>

------
ianstallings
As Dr. Watson once said - No Sh*t Sherlock.

