Variations of two fallacious claims, both of which have been around for years, have been making the rounds of various news feeds. One claim, which first arose in 2011, reads, “Now it’s official! It has been published in the media. Facebook has just released the entry price: £5.99 ($9.10) to keep the subscription of your status set to ‘private.'” The claim goes on to assert that the loss of privacy would even extend to deleted messages and photos.
The other claim, originally published in 2012, runs as follows:
“As of September 28th , 2015 at 10:50 p.m. Eastern standard time, I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with
Apparently the writer had trouble distinguishing “tactically” from “tacitly.”
Facebook confronted the rumors head-on when they first appeared years ago, stating simply, “Anyone who uses Facebook owns and controls the content and information they post, as stated in our terms. They control how that content and information is shared. That is our policy, and it always has been.” And while some of the firm’s privacy policies may have changed over the years, the changes do not extend to anything like what these claims are asserting.
Of course, if you don’t believe what comes out of the horse’s mouth, snopes.com has also taken it upon itself to debunk the myth. Outlining an extensive history of Facebook hoaxes (which apparently go back as early as 2009), the site makes clear that “there are no plans afoot to require payment from those who use the site.” Back in 2009, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg confirmed that the Internet company had no intentions of charging users for “basic services.”
“The answer is no, we are not planning on charging a basic fee for our basic services,” Sandberg told Business Week. Once again, that question stems from people thinking we’re growing so quickly, we’re running out of money. We’re growing really quickly, but we can finance that growth. We’re not going to charge for our basic services.”
Six years later, Facebook is still growing (perhaps not as quickly), and to the best of our knowledge, still doesn’t plan on making you pay to keep your profile private.
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