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Posting a notice on your Facebook wall will not protect your privacy rights
- dfxm12 14y agoThe 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 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 14y agoYour 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.
- gadders 14y ago"Like if you support this child with cancer, keep scrolling if you want everyone them to die". JUST EFF THE EFF OFF.
- sillysaurus 14y agoIt's... complicated. Just remember that you don't have to actually use Facebook. You merely need Facebook. In other words, Facebook is your social network; it represents your circle of power. The more points you have on the circle, the more directions you can pivot in life. For example, often times the people who are the least capable can still be an advantage to you; they will be loyal to you, and they will help you when you have no other options. But, on the other hand -- you don't have to spend your time on Facebook. In other words, it's best to keep our identities as small as possible, so therefore it's a benefit to avoid making Facebook a part of our identity.
- jhuckestein 14y agoIs it necessary for friends to "be an advantage" to you besides just being your friends? When you spend a lot of time in places like HN, you're at risk of succumbing to some kind of extremist lifestyle where you have to rationalize even who your friends are or use dumbbells while you're brushing your teeth because it saves time. This is not necessary. I have friends from way back that can't relate to what I'm doing and will probably never "help" me in any way. However, when I go back home, I greatly enjoy spending time with them and for me that enough.
- kaybe 14y agoIn my eyes, that's also a kind of help. Also, it is good for open-mindedness when not all people we hang out with come from the same group.
- sillysaurus 14y agoIs it necessary for friends to "be an advantage" to you besides just being your friends? No, not at at all. I just have no friends from my early days. (Ruthlessly bullied throughout school. Midwest children had no tolerance for programming geeks circa 2000.) One of the primary ways people can find "you specifically" is through Facebook, and the other way is through LinkedIn. That's all I meant by "you need Facebook". Recruiters, for example. I've gotten way more random LinkedIn offers that have led to jobs than I ever would've guessed. (~7 offers, 2 jobs. But of course the "offers" are just "offers to interview"; still, that's something.)
- pessimizer 14y agoThat's the main reason I quit facebook. It made me think badly of people that I had fond memories of.
- nckbz 14y agoI'm up voting this because I feel similar. However, I'm not sure if I feel Facebook is the main issue at play.
- pessimizer 14y agoIt really is: before facebook, I wasn't exposed to every passing fancy or idea that these people had. Within the contexts where I met and got to know these people, they are great. In angry political comments, or wallspam trying to get something or other banned, they are not. Facebook forced me to acknowledge that I like a bit of formality and artifice in my relationships with most people. I think that most people are more attractive with their clothes on.
- snowwrestler 14y agoI 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 14y agoThe 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 14y ago"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.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- randomafk 14y agoI can't tell how serious you are, but if you're going to call a friend stupid just because he falls for online "scams" from time to time I don't think I would want to be friends with you. That's pretty damn quick to judge. You have more experience with tech -- get over yourself. I'm sure they know things that you don't.
- shimon_e 14y agoIt won't hold up. The disclaimer states Facebook has no distribution rights. Facebook requires the right to distribute your content. Common sense dictates you give Facebook this right when you use their service. The courts will laugh a disclaimer as the one in the hoax out.
- im3w1l 14y ago[x]Only show important updates from this person. This has solved all my problems with annoying updates
- bfluzin 14y agoThe 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...
- chopsueyar 14y ago"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?" -Joshua
- ceejayoz 14y agoAs written, the notice would forbid Facebook from even showing your posts and details to your friends.
- ck2 14y agoThat 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.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoI wish people would stop. It means in business emails there's a huge load of quoted confidentiality disclaimer stuff. Please people, 3-line signatures.
- Hannan 14y agoI've often wondered what the total size per year is for corporate email legal disclaimers, both bandwidth and residing on disk, world-wide. Personal signatures would be an interesting stat as well. Does Exchange (or any other mail servers) have some sort of de-duplication process for intra-message text like this? The wasted space has to be enormous in aggregate, but maybe compared to headers, attachments, etc. it doesn't end up being that big of a deal, especially for a single organization.
- markokocic 14y agoMailinator has deduplicating. In fact, it has all sorts of nice optimizations, and the author writes about it quite eloquently. I wish mailinator backend could be used for mail servers instead of Exchange ;)
- smackfu 14y agoMaybe it's for the company to enforce against the employee. It shows the employee is aware the information they are sending is confidential.
- Hannan 14y agoThe way I've seen it done usually is that the mail server tacks on the confidentiality notice after the user sends the message. So they would see it on a reply, but never on the initial message. Maybe other companies show it to you on compose, I'm not sure.
- pixelcort 14y agoThis reminds me of the "No copyright intended" quote people would put on YouTube videos.
- VaucGiaps 14y agoEvery youtube video I saw with that notice was still online!
- wahnfrieden 14y agoSurvivor bias.
- rmc 14y agoThat 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 14y ago"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.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago> 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 14y agoNot 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).
- tolos 14y agoSo is "liking" something you don't -- intentionally corrupting their business (data) -- going to cause any repercussions?
- gpvos 14y ago> HTTP Error 500-13 - Server too busy Heh. Never had that before on snopes.com...
- wtvanhest 14y agoI 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.
- michael_michael 14y agoThe 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 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".
- illuminate 14y ago"have state and federal judges sign them" Oh, is that all?
- derleth 14y ago> a page on a moonshine distillery website that claims to show you how to get diplomatic immunity: http://www.coppermoonshinestills.com/id53.html 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 14y agoIt vaguely reminds me of this idiocy- http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen It never works, but people do make a (likely not comfortable) living selling others on the dream.
- harel 14y agoAnd 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...
- code_duck 14y agoThis 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 14y agoI 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 14y agoTrue, 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.
- ianstallings 14y agoAs Dr. Watson once said - No Sh*t Sherlock.
- rickmb 14y agoAs 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.
- illuminate 14y agoThe Snopes article refers to the forward which cites US law. It doesn't directly address the hoaxes abroad.
- objclxt 14y ago> 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.
- shimon_e 14y agoUnless if the courts find the contract non binding.
- aneth4 14y agoEULAs are "contracts of adhesion": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract#Contracts_of_adhesion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract#Contract... 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."
- dredmorbius 14y agoAnd 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?
- quux 14y agoSee also: No Copyright Intended http://waxy.org/2011/12/no_copyright_intended/ http://waxy.org/2011/12/no_copyright_intended/
- daenz 14y agoRandom 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 14y agoIf 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 14y agoRight, 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?
- michaelfeathers 14y agoIsn't it funny how implied consent only seems to work in one direction?
- eurleif 14y agoYou 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 14y agoThey have the ability to and that's a fact worth considering.
- jrockway 14y agoThey 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).
- res0nat0r 14y agoDirectly 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 http://newsroom.fb.com/Fact-Check
- TomorrowMars 14y agoWhat 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.
- recycleme 14y agoFacebook's response to the privacy notice: http://newsroom.fb.com/Fact-Check http://newsroom.fb.com/Fact-Check