Another Facebook hoax is doing the rounds, warning you to copy and paste a statement to opt out of the social media giant’s latest big change.
The message claims that there’s a deadline fast approaching on Facebook that will see everything you’ve ever posted become public, even the deleted stuff.
You can see the full text below:
Thing is, it’s all false. It seems some users on Facebook want to go back, back to 2012. This is when Facebook became a public company after its IPO, the process this hoax mentions as kickstarting Facebook’s push to make everything public.
Related: CES 2019
Facebook has attracted complaints in the past for playing it fast and loose with users privacy, but posting a status on your page is not legally binding, and won’t give you any sway over the megacorporation. However, harvesting and selling your data is Facebook’s business model, and a large part of the reason that the service is offered for free: to sell you ads, and sell your information to people that might want to sell you ads.
The end result is to put you in a personalised advertising bubble that wouldn’t look out of place in Minority Report.
If you’re worried about your privacy, it might be time to delete your Facebook account. Otherwise, like the rest of Facebook’s estimated 2.27b monthly active users, you can accept that the banal details of your day to day life are the price you pay for access to the website.
They’re not going to make everything you’ve ever posted public though, that’s for sure.
Did you fall for this hoax? Scared of what Facebook will do with your data? Let us know on Twitter at @TrustedReviews
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
