Posting Facebook chain letter does not protect you

In response to the new Facebook privacy chain letter, I hereby pro­claim my fabricated copyright on all of the selfies, ranting statuses, and already illegally shared You­Tube videos on my timeline, of­ficially ensuring the rights to me and only me, despite the initial privacy agreement I already ad­here to as a member of Facebook, and the rights I agreed to as soon as I sold my soul to social media by uploading my first cyber foot­print.

Status update: a single post proclaiming your rights doesn't guarantee anything in the cyber world. The power of a few para­graphs momentarily floating by on a news feed are nothing com­pared to the countless pixles of data tracked by your timeline, accumulat­ing over the years to form a sort of "cy­ber reputation." The reason this has come about recently is be­cause of a series of events concerning Facebook privacy.

On Nov. 21 a press release on the Facebook site governance page proclaimed changes to privacy policy, including more incoming messaging regulation and more obvious ways to delete timeline posts and pictures.

Soon after, copyright chain posts began surfacing proclaiming these "in a perfect digital world" rights users wish that they had, and some believed they actually did.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on personal posting-discretion, this new cyber world lays our lives all "on the table" for anyone to see, and we agree to these rights when we sign up for Facebook.

So, sorry impulse-posters, copy­right online is a sticky situation these days and when it comes to Facebook, your best form of de­fense is mindful sharing, but be careful about chain-letter posting.

Last time I checked if I posted about how I did not want my in­formation read by any unwanted parties and it flew ticking through a newsfeed unwatched, it prob­ably wouldn't make a sound.

Mary Marshall is a freshman journalism major from Darien, Il. She can be reached at mary.marshall@student.shu.edu.