If you want to freak out a billion people, here's one pretty effective way to do it: Make them feel like you're trying to steal their rights when they're not paying attention.

Governments and corporations have long considered the eve of a long holiday weekend the best time for dumping embarrassing or unpleasant news. So when Facebook sent out a notice of "Updates to Data Use Policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities" in the waning hours of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, many who received it assumed it must contain something nefarious. (Mine arrived half an hour before midnight. Suffice it to say I was not at my laptop.)

The suspicion wasn't without some justification. As Will Oremus explained, the most salient part of the new policies is a proposal to revoke users' rights to vote on future policy changes. Whether voting was actually an effective mechanism for safeguarding users' privacy rights and other interests can be debated, but from a PR standpoint, it's definitely not a win.

As any anthropologist can tell you, introducing a new threat into an information-starved society inevitably results in the adoption of new superstitions as frightened individuals grasp at anything that might offer protection.

In this case, that means a statement that many users are posting to their walls and sharing with friends. The statement is neither new nor does it confer any actual legal protection, according to Snopes.com. Still, if you're a Facebook user, you've probably seen it several times already today. Here's the version I first encountered.