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  • 2012-06-04 (xsd:date)
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  • Will Posting This Notice Stop Facebook or Instagram from Making Your Posts Public? (en)
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  • Messages about protecting your copyright or privacy rights on Facebook by posting a particular legal notice to your Facebook wall have been periodically circulated on that social network for many years, and all of them are variants of an older rumor holding that posting a similar notice on a website would protect that site's operators from prosecution for piracy: In both cases the claims were erroneous, an expression of the mistaken belief the use of some simple legal talisman — knowing enough to ask the right question or post a pertinent disclaimer — will immunize one from some undesirable legal consequence. The law just doesn't work that way. First off, the problem this ineffective solution supposedly addresses is a non-existent one: Facebook isn't claiming copyright to the personal information, photographs, and other material that their users are posting to the social network, nor have they announced any plans that would make all Facebook posts public (even previously deleted ones) regardless of a user's privacy settings): In response to rumors about copyright issues that began circulating in November 2012 after Facebook announced they were considering revoking users' rights to vote on proposed policy changes, the company issued a statement noting that: Similarly, ABC News reported: In any case, Facebook users cannot retroactively negate any of the privacy or copyright terms they agreed to when they signed up for their accounts, nor can they unilaterally alter or contradict any new privacy or copyright terms instituted by Facebook, simply by posting a contrary legal notice on their Facebook walls. Moreover, the fact that Facebook is now a publicly traded company (i.e., a company that has issued stocks which are traded on the open market) or an open capital entity has nothing to do with copyright protection or privacy rights. Any copyright or privacy agreements users of Facebook have entered into with that company prior to its becoming a publicly traded company or changing its policies remain in effect: they are neither diminished nor enhanced by Facebook's public status. Before you can use Facebook, you must indicate your acceptance of that social network's legal terms, which includes its privacy policy and its terms and policies. You can neither alter your acceptance of that agreement nor restrict the rights of entities who are not parties to that agreement simply by posting a notice to your Facebook account, citing the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), or referencing the Berne Convention. (One of the common legal talismans referenced above is UCC Section 1-308, which has long been popular among conspiracy buffs who incorrectly maintain that citing it above your signature on an instrument will confer upon you the ability to invoke extraordinary legal rights.) If you do not agree with Facebook's stated policies, you have several options: (Note that in the last case, you may have already ceded some rights which you cannot necessarily reclaim by canceling your account.) As techtalk noted of Facebook users' current privacy rights: A variation on this meme related to Snapchat photos, which was similarly false, went viral in summer 2019. A fresh variant alleging that a new Facebook/Meta rule allows the company to use members' photos without permission went viral in fall 2021. (en)
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