Protecting Yourself from Facebook

Facebook privacy concerns us all...

It seems like everyone is worried about Facebook privacy these days.  At least everyone seems to be sharing, and by sharing, I mean copy and pasting statuses regarding some sort of privacy issue, from instructions to friends to uncheck notification settings to protect your privacy (doesn't work - see my other post about Facebook privacy settings here) to posting that their content cannot be used for <insert legal mumble jumble here>...

What really works?

Facebook privacy starts with you...

If you are on Facebook long enough, you're going to see a friend's status start something like this...

"Warning!!!  FACEBOOK HAS CHANGED THEIR PRIVACY SETTINGS!"

Have you ever received a phone call saying you just won a cruise?  Got an email saying you won millions of pounds?  Will get thousands of dollars for forwarding a message because you're helping some software company test tracking software?  Have you ever been the victim of a practical joke?

What follows this statement is a list of instructions of what they would like you to do to help them keep their privacy, and it MUST be done by you (sometimes upon threat of becoming an ex-friend)!  They suddenly have no control over their account privacy settings because Facebook configured it that way.  Ok, stop...  Let's think about this a minute.  Does Facebook really want to upset people like that?  Hmm, they did force Timeline on us despite much outcry...  Alright, maybe they could be that dumb...  Back in our post, the last request is to copy said post and paste the message to your status and post it and the poster will be kind enough to help you out in the same way.  Thanks, you're so kind!  But then, you just followed the message, right?