Despite the claims you see on Facebook, the world's most popular social media site has no intention of making all your posts or pictures public for the world see.

I feel like we've been down this road before. Oh that's right, because we have. Remember the claim that said Facebook was going to start charging you to keep your status private? Not true. How about the time founder Mark Zuckerberg was going to give away $45 million in Facebook stock to random users? Color me shocked, but that wasn't true either. There was also that time Facebook claimed Sharpie was giving away free markers to users who copied and pasted a certain status update. Again, not real.

This time around, the claim is that since Facebook is a public entity (meaning: the general public can buy stock with the company), all your posts, pictures, videos, etc. will become public meaning anyone with an internet connection can see your stuff.

Oh no! Now some pervert in an Idaho trailer park can see those tasteful boudoir photos you only wanted your friends and family to see (Side note: you're friends and family don't want to see those). And now that perv is going to save those pictures to his computer and disperse them all across the internet, and years from now when you're trying to land that big promotion at work, your boss is going to slowly turn their computer monitor around during the interview and ask you what these photos he found on Google Images are all about before explaining the company has decided to go in a different direction because they hold their investment bankers to a much higher standard. Or something to that effect.

But wait! You can stop all that from happening if you just copy and paste the following status:

Deadline tomorrow !!! Everything you've ever posted becomes public from tomorrow. Even messages that have been deleted or the photos not allowed. It costs nothing for a simple copy and paste, better safe than sorry. Channel 13 News talked about the change in Facebook's privacy policy. 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 tactically allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. DO NOT SHARE. Copy and paste.

Yay! Your career has been saved, right? Wrong.

Let me rephrase that, your career was never in jeopardy (not for those photos anyway), because before you ever made your first post, you had to agree to Facebook's privacy policy as well as their terms and policies, which basically gives them permission to use your stuff unless you tell it not to in your Privacy Settings.

Here's the exact wording from their terms, courtesy of The Guardian:

For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.

There are a couple of different ways you can change any post from "Public" to "Only Friends". You could change each post individually by clicking the little globe icon next to the location of where the post was made:

(Ryan O'Bryan via Facebook)
(Ryan O'Bryan via Facebook)
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From the pull down menu, you can choose whether you want to keep it public for anyone to see, or if you just want your friends to see, or whether you want to keep it all for yourself with the "Only Me" option. Clicking "More Options" allows you to target specific groups your a member of, along with other custom options.

The other, and probably easiest way, is to go to your Privacy Settings and set your profile to the desired option. This will put all your posts under the umbrella of whatever you choose.

First, click the small down-arrow to the right of your notifications to see the drop-down menu, then click "Settings".

Ryan O'Bryan
Ryan O'Bryan
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This will take you to your Settings page. From here, click "Privacy.

Ryan O'Bryan
Ryan O'Bryan
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Click "Edit" at the end of the first question.

Ryan O'Bryan
Ryan O'Bryan
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Click the button labeled Public, Friends, or Only Me (depending on your current setting) to get the drop down menu, and choose your new setting.

Ryan O'Bryan
Ryan O'Bryan
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That's it. You're done.

Now get to work on those boudoir photos.

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