Facebook Hoax Exposes Idiots

"There's a sucker born every minute."

Legend has it that phrase was uttered by David Hannum, a rival of the legendary showman P.T. Barnum,  in criticism of Barnum and the customers attending his shows.

That famous line gets proven right every single day. Enter this week's Facebook hoax:

It was alleged that Facebook would relinquish user's copyright control over their pictures and profile content and might even charge users to keep their profiles private UNLESS they posted a legal notice to their timeline and influenced others to do the same.

Guess what? It wasn't true. It was a pretty obvious hoax. One that has happened at least three times now. And yet people keep falling for it.

I'm sure you saw it on your news feed, as your friends (now former friends?) posted the ludicrous legal disclaimer as their status. It circled the social media site earlier this week and clogged many a timeline. With each post, more and more people outed themselves as gullible pawns in the arena of social media -- a place where things like logic, common sense, and civilized conversation die and rot.

At this point, I'm struggling to find many positives about social media. I'm starting to think its greatest value comes in being an idiot detector. Which, before I forget, I happen to be selling. You can contact me on Facebook...