Facebook privacy policies and ownership of account contents - TIME

You'd really hope that sharing viral Facebook posts about privacy updates would be a thing of the past in 2016.

Sadly, people keep sharing them, so they aren't.

The most recent post of its kind reads something like this:

Deadline tomorrow !!! Everything you’ve ever posted becomes public from tomorrow. Even messages that have been deleted or the photos not allowed. It costs nothing for a simple copy and paste, better safe than sorry. Channel 13 News talked about the change in Facebook’s privacy policy. I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, messages or posts, both past and future. With this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308- 1 1 308-103 and the Rome Statute). NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tactically allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. DO NOT SHARE. Copy and paste.

This status is clearly utter senseless rubbish, as the previous one hundred thousand before it were also.

Snopes has reported on this trend and thoroughly debunked it - Facebook isn't claiming copyright to the personal information, photographs, and any other material users post.

Facebook has also previously addressed claims of this kind in a 2012 statement:

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. Click here to learn more: www.facebook.com/policies.

Furthermore, posting a Facebook status to try and act against the privacy policy does nothing - you can't retroactively disagree to it.

If you disagree with Facebook's stated policies you can cancel your Facebook account or lobby for change on the website's governance section - however, by cancelling your account you don't necessarily reclaim some of the rights you agreed to waive by signing the terms and conditions.

Either way if you think a status is going to do anything legally, you should definitely remove yourself from social media for the greater good.