Does posting a message to your Instagram account prevent the social network or anyone else from using the photos or information you upload to the website?
Since 2012, Facebook users have been falsely posting various permutations of pseudo-legal sounding nonsense to their timelines in a futile effort to prevent Facebook or their advertisers from using the information they share on the site. And now this silly hoax is spreading on Instagram too.
See, for example, the below post.
***INSTAGRAM PRIVACY POLICY***
I do not give Instagram or any entities associated with Instagram permission to use my pictures, information, messages or posts, both past and future. With this statement, I give notice to Instagram, it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute or take any other action against be based on this profile and/or it’s contents. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308-11308-103 and the Rome statute) *** INSTAGRAM DOES NOT HAVE MY PERMISSION TO SHARE PHOTOS OR MESSAGES*** August 2019
As we have clarified previously when this started to spread on Facebook, posting legal sounding words to your timeline does not supersede the terms and conditions you agreed to when you signed up for an account.
This means you cannot agree to a company’s terms of service when signing up for an account with them, then subsequently dismiss those terms while simultaneously expecting to create your own terms and conditions ad hoc by posting a message.
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Additionally (and again as we have previously pointed out during previous Facebook targeted incarnations of this hoax) neither the Rome Statute or the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) have anything to do with social networking privacy. The UCC deals with commercial law in the United States, and the Rome Statute deals with the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, which in turn deals with crimes such as genocide.
So please don’t share this nonsense. Not even “just in case”. It’s ridiculous and has been around for many years now. You can read the many examples of this hoax targeting Facebook in our previous article here.