Facebook Hoaxes

This is rapidly becoming one of my pet annoyances.  People who pass on hoax Facebook posts without checking the facts first.  People – anything that tells you to pass it on to everyone is almost always a hoax (there are a few exceptions).  Don’t turn yourself into a spammer – because that’s what you are doing by forwarding incorrect posts.  It makes you look stupid.

It’s easy to check – just copy and paste a sentence into Google.  READ the results.  Look for a post from Snopes, or Hoaxslayer, or keepsafeonthenet.co.uk.  READ it.

Here is one example that was sent to me on Facebook just a few days ago:

Pay attention when buying toothpaste,
at the bottom of the toothpaste tube
there is a color bar. And do you only know
the original meaning of the color bar!
Try to choose green and blue, there are four kinds:

Green: natural;
Blue : Natural + Medicine;
Red : Natural + Chemical composition;
Black : pure chemical.

please share to all….

Clearly ridiculous rubbish.  I currently have a tube of all natural toothpaste from a health store.  It has a black stripe on it.  They are packing stripes.

Another one that appeared on my FB was a fake privacy notice that I presume the poster fondly believed would mean that their photos and information could not be shared by FB.  Here is some of it:

 in response to the new guidelines Facebook and under articles L.111, 112 and 113 of the code of intellectual property, I declare that my rights are attached to all my personal data, drawings, paintings, photos, texts etc… published on my profile. For commercial use of the foregoing my written consent is required at all times! People reading this text can copy it and paste it on their Facebook wall. This will allow them to place them under the protection of copyright. 

By this release, I tell Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, broadcast, or to take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The actions mentioned above apply equally to employees, students, agents and/or other staff under the direction of Facebook. The contents of my profile includes private information. The violation of my privacy is punished by the law (UCC 1 1-308 – 308 1 – 103 and the Rome Statute).

Rather than explaining how ridiculous this is, I’ll refer you to Hoaxslayer http://www.hoax-slayer.com/bogus-facebook-privacy-notice.shtml who politely describe the notice as “Pointless and Misleading”.

I’ll just add –

a) if you don’t want people to see what you’ve posted on FB, adjust your privacy settings.

b) if you really, really don’t want ANYONE to see what you’ve posted on FB – don’t post it.

c) you signed their Terms and Conditions when you joined.  You can’t change them to suit yourself.  If you don’t like them, join another social network.