Have you seen this kind of post floating around on your Facebook feed?

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 If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tacitly allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. FACEBOOK DOES NOT HAVE MY PERMISSION TO SHARE PHOTOS OR Messages.

Sharing this message seems legal and important (it mentions laws!), but I’m sorry to tell you, it doesn’t do anything.

Why doesn’t it do anything? For an agreement to mean anything, both parties have to accept the terms of the agreement. When you post to Facebook, Instagram, or wherever, the company you are posting to is not doing anything to accept your “terms.” The terms that the both of you agreed to are the terms you accepted when you signed up for the platform. Remember those? 

Occasionally, you get an email saying that the terms have been updated, so why can’t you do the same thing when you post to your profile? Because when you signed up for the service and accepted the terms, you agreed that they can change the terms, give you notice, and bind you to the terms – the service made no such promise to you.

What You CAN Do to Protect Your Data

So what options do you have? First, you can delete your account. Depending on the service, they may have the right to whatever data you have shared with them up to that point, but it prevents them from getting any of your new content. That’s your best option for being certain they don’t have your info.

Second, you can take advantage of the account settings provided by the social media platform to restrict the use of your data. For example, you can turn off location access or remove your search history in your Facebook account settings.

Third, you can use browser extensions to prevent trackers from following you around the rest of the internet. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a series of tools that can help you get started. 

So next time Grandma tells Facebook off – using Facebook – you can help her take actual steps to protect her privacy.