Don’t Post that Dumb Thing About Facebook Privacy

It’s coming around again. That post about how the would-be legal eagles among us won’t allow Facebook to steal their images of their food or dogs or kids or all three at the same time. “Hear ye, hear ye, Facebook, by the power of UCC 1-308, 1-103 and the Rome Statute, I hereby declare that my picture of Rambo the golden/lab mix wearing a sexy nurse costume shall always be mine and not yours until an open capital entity…” [insert giant fart noise].

Stop it.

An “open capital entity” isn’t even a thing. The UCC, or Uniform Commercial Code, is at least a thing, but the reference to it in these posts is gobblygook. UCC 1-103 basically says that the drafters of the Code hope that it will be helpful in the real world and UCC 1-308 says you can say “all rights reserved” before you do something to avoid a scenario where doing that something creates new legal rights for the other party.

The Rome Statute sets the framework for international jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity (non-card game version), war crimes, and so-called “crimes of aggression” where someone uses a country’s military to do nasty things. If you are committing these crimes, a Facebook post will likely not help you.

If you really want to know the legal relationship between you and Facebook, you agreed to those terms when you signed up for the site. You can find them here. Nothing you post on your page will change these and, having just read through them, there isn’t too much the average person needs to worry about.