Facebook changed its privacy settings for the New Year and, just like used Pontiacs at Crazy Harry's Autos, they are practically giving your personal information away.
There is absolutely nothing stopping soulless companies, advertisers, perverts, ISIS, Lex Luthor, etc. from using your hilarious weather-based status updates for nefarious purposes.
Until now!
Here are the steps you must take to secure that the only ones running their Face-fingers through your Facebook are your most trusted friends, family members, old classmates, casual acquaintances, Superman, random hookups, etc.
The legal statement
Many people have been copying and pasting a legal statement that looks like this:
"As of Jan. 7, 2015 at 10:50 a.m. eastern time, I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, posts, muffin recipes or Candy Crush strategies "
They believe that by posting this statement on their Facebook wall, it makes it illegal to use their data. Ridiculous.
It's not an official legal document Not until you sign it with your full name, home address, social security number, a picture of a cancelled check, a please and a thank you. Then you're bulletproof.
Be careful downloading apps
Many games and surveys will ask permission to access your entire account before they use them.
Is it worth giving advertisers your power of attorney just so you can take a quiz to see which "Harry Potter" character you are? That is such a Ron thing to do.
Change your security settings
You can go into your account and change your security settings.
You have a few options. You can either set them to "Public,""Friends,""Close Friends,""Distant Friends,""The Cast of Friends,""Family,""Kin,""Not Aunt Sarah,""Only Nice People,""Only Attractive People," or "Only _________ People" (Fill in the blank with your preferred political party/ethnicity/religion).
This last option will save you the trouble of unfriending people who disagree with you about major world events or learning about any pesky different points of view.
Guard your messages
To prevent Facebook employees from reading your private conversations, make sure every sentence includes at least one major spoiler from a popular TV show.
Mark Zuckerberg is a busy guy. He's probably only on the second season of "Breaking Bad."
Example:
"Want to get lunch Don'tgetattachedtoGale?"
Stop being so interesting
I know we joined social media because we are all brilliant observational artists and need to share our beautiful snowflake minds with the world. If we keep throwing gold out into the streets of the Internet, of course someone is going to pick it up!
So just try to be a little duller. Post about minor annoyances, meals you've had, song lyrics we've all heard, your fitness goals...stuff that nobody could possibly care about. It will be tough but I believe in you.
Remember: You're in America
You might not have rights, but corporations do!
I recommend getting a franchise logo tattooed on your face to prevent getting tagged in photos or McDonald's arches all over your body to prevent people from lovin' your beach albums.
If all else fails, delete Facebook, join Google Plus
Then you can be sure your content will never be seen by anyone.
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C.J. Tuor is a Second City Conservatory graduate and performs with the improvised drinking thriller "Hitch*Cocktails" every Friday night at The Annoyance Theatre in Chicago.