Don’t be fooled: Posts about Facebook’s new privacy policy are false

Almost identical posts about the supposed new rules and the need to ban the use of self-published information in what appears to be legalese have been circulating for a good decade. Representatives of Meta, which owns Facebook, have long denied the need to do anything of the sort.

Famous people also post

“Don’t forget there’s a new Facebook rule starting tomorrow where they can use your photos, information, text like this or similar the weekend is actively shared in this social network. – Don’t forget the deadline is today!!

Screenshot from Facebook/Misleading text has been circulating online for a dozen years

This may be used in claims against you. Everything you’ve ever posted will be public starting today, even messages that have been deleted.”

This text is accompanied by a note that Facebook is now a public entity and every member is required to post such an explanation. Also, a reminder that “a simple copy and paste costs nothing.”

People please not to share the text, but rather to copy it and post it to your account. By the way, it makes it harder to track down who posted it first.

How to copy and publish a declaration, explained quite confusingly. The text being distributed is most likely translated from another language using an automatic translation program.

Also read: Facebook’s problems inspired fantasy: the social network was not “hacked” by a teenager

Social text users are encouraged to publish such a text: “I do not give Facebook or other entities associated with Facebook permission to use my photos, information, messages and/or posts, past or future.

I hereby notify Facebook that disclosure, copying, distribution or any other action against me based on this profile and/or its content is strictly prohibited. Violations of privacy may be punishable by law.”

Famous people, for example, a lawyer, also got caught on this hook Ludvika Meškauskaitėwhose account is followed by approximately 1.7 thousand people. people, even 4.8 thousand an artist with friends Raimond Savickas.

Screenshot from Facebook/The text was also shared by the well-known lawyer Ludvika Meškauskaitė

And some netizens even started to make fun of the revived lie.

It was disproved a good decade ago

These recommendations have no basis. A similar text has been shared for a long time, which means that the alleged new rules of Facebook should have come into force also not for the first time.

That warning is just a lie, portal 15min has already written more than once. Last year, it was also deconstructed by a well-known fact-checking website „Snopes“a US broadcaster back in 2016 CBS.

Also read: Resurrected the old lie that Facebook will make public information about users

Another American broadcaster ABC about it wrote exactly 11 years ago, a good six years after the day Facebook became available to everyone.

A couple of years ago, lies were spread not only in Lithuania, but also JAV, in Australia, in New Zealand, in Ethiopia, in Bangladesh, in Singapore, in Thailand. There is not only “Facebook”, but there is “Twitter” (now “X”).

“I can confirm that this post is not true,” he told the AFP news agency back in 2020. said Manaschuen Kovapirat, Facebook’s head of communications for Thailand and Loas.

Also read: Is it possible to protect personal data by posting on Facebook? Unfortunately

Anot jo“people can review and adjust their privacy settings at any time, and use the Privacy Checker to control who can see what they share, how their information is used, and how to strengthen the security of their account.”

The spread of this lie was intensified in 2022. at the beginning, shortly after Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg reported about changing the company name to “Meta”.

The name of the social network itself has remained the same until now. Also, this change had no effect how data is used and shared on the social network.

Internet users, by creating an account on Facebook and agreeing to its rules and requirements, provide access to their photos, posts, other content already uploaded.

A social network can use almost every piece of information that users provide. The collected information is not limited to just photos – data about which device is accessed from, location data, and correspondence with other users of the social network are collected.

Privacy Policy lets you set whether your Facebook account will be public or only available to friends. In the latter case, only the so-called cover photos and posts that the user marks as available for public display will be visible to others. When publishing a post, you can specify whether to show it only to friends, specified specific friends, a certain group of friends, publicly, etc.

Reuters/Scanpix Photo/Facebook

Although the amount of data transmitted to the social network can be reduced by changing the privacy settings, deleting the account remains the only way to delete all uploaded information. It’s true that you won’t be able to completely disappear from Facebook – some information, such as messages you’ve sent to friends, may be visible.

15min verdict: lie. This post is misleading – Facebook does not publish anything like this. The same text has been circulating for a dozen years and has been refuted many times.

The publication was prepared in 15 minutes in partnership with Metait aims to stop the spread of misleading news on the social network. More about the program and its rules – here.