IF YOU HAVE been on Facebook at some point in the last 24 hours, chances are that someone you went to school with has shared the following alarming status:

It’s one of those classic “Share this status to protect your copywright!” deals and has been shared by thousands of Facebook users.

To those people, we have a message: STOP. 

We’ve been through this already. It’s fake.

By sharing it, you’re annoying all your friends/family members/school acquaintances/random people you met on your J1 in 2009.

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Name one time that copying and pasting a Facebook status has led to any meaningful change.

Oh, that’s right — that has literally never happened.

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Seriously, what do you think is going to happen?

Do you think that the big wigs from Facebook are going to sit around checking everyone’s personal pages and see who has shared the status and be like, “Oh, Mary wants her copyright, we’ll back off”?

Come on now.

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Do we need to remind you that Facebook doesn’t claim copyright over thing you post?  In reality, you give Facebook permission to “use, distribute, and share the things you post, subject to the terms and applicable privacy settings.”

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Also, how many years have you been on Facebook at this stage?

Do you not recall the “Share this or we’ll have to start paying for Facebook!” hoax? Or the “If this gets one million likes, Facebook will introduce a dislike button” nonsense pages of yore?

In short, Facebook is not going to amend its privacy policy, introduce new buttons or start charging a monthly fee on the basis of whether or not people copy and paste pure nonsense.

So stop.

Just stop.

Is this man Ireland’s soundest taxi driver? 

The Irish language was mangled on last night’s University Challenge >