I was 10 when I started using Youtube as my primary source of celebrity gossip. I was telling my dad all about how one of the Jonas Brothers cheated on Miley Cyrus when it happened. “Honey,” I remember him telling me, “Most of that stuff is made up. The Internet is huge, and nobody can fact-check all of it.” I didn’t stop watching videos to learn about the latest Disney scandals, but I learned to keep most of what I read to myself.

My tweenage heartbreak reinforces the reality that much of what exists on the Internet is myth masquerading as fact. This includes those people on your newsfeed who claim that updating your status with legal jargon will protect you from untold bureaucratic malevolence. Most of the posts assert that Facebook is stealing its users’ information and “copyrighting” it. This struck me as strange from the outset. Unless he is fond of collecting pictures of preteens in braces and dumb posts about ninth-grade biology homework, there is zero reason Mark Zuckerberg should want to copyright my photos and statuses; not that you can copyright such things anyway. The same goes for browsing history, as well as credit cards and social security numbers, though I’m not sure why anyone would have the latter two stored on their Facebook account.

Most of these statuses cite “The Rome Statute” and “UCC 1-308 1-308 1-103” for legitimacy. However, the Rome Statute applies to War Crimes. I’m surprised the name of this one didn’t tip more people off, considering that a U.S. copyright law would probably not be named for a foreign city. The other law doesn’t seem to exist. In fact, Googling it will lead you to a Snopes page debunking Facebook myths. I don’t want to belabor this point too much since I once let the Internet convince me that Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato were eloping, but fact-checking is important. It is also not very difficult. Type the first line of that status into your search bar and you will realize that you are falling for a hoax. Better yet, look up the laws you are referring to and see if they correspond with what you are saying.

People often make mistakes on the Internet, but this is not the first time I’ve seen this hoax make the rounds. Any time you repeat a story or statistic, please take a minute to look it up. I probably don’t need to remind you that citing a false fact on the Internet is practically begging people to call you ignorant. It is also worth noting that while this hoax was innocuous, many Internet scams aren’t. Most people know better than to wire their savings to a self-proclaimed Nigerian Prince, but schemes are becoming more sophisticated over time. Don’t believe most of what you read on the Internet, or even what you see. You might have your illusions of celebrity teenage love shattered like I did.