Facebook Battling Hoaxes Aided By A Meme?
Year 2015 is about to end in a day, but it doesn't seem like that will stop people from being gullible to a hoax that has already been announced to be untrue. Such is the case of a Facebook hoax that has been debunked earlier.
If one could recall, earlier this month an announcement by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife about donating 99% of their Facebook stocks was made public. Days later, the hoax claiming that the social network will be giving out $4.5 million USD to 1,000 people who will share that post circulated around the web.
Variations of the hoax started appearing, and users started sharing it after being duped into believing that it was true. An earlier version of the hoax started on the first day of December after the couple's daughter was born.
The consumers, out of curiosity, greed and whatnots, posted variations of this hoax for some time. Some of these variations went on to say it wasn't a hoax. Others also started posting messages of gratitude toward the CEO of the social media.
A lot has been duped that it almost appeared to be true until Facebook itself confirmed to several news outlets that the announcement is not true. And on a post, the social network also asked them to not let their friends copy and paste memes.
The social network said that while there is truth to the fact that Zucherberg had made a pledge to give some of their money to help improve the world, not everything that a person reads on the web is true. The Facebook post went on to say that the couple is not giving that fortune randomly. It was ended with a message wishing "sweepstakes sweepers" to be safe.
The hoax, however, became popular. And with that post, the social network has garnered again some publicity. But that seemed to have attracted pranksters, as the hoax now has a meme version saying that users can receive a "magical unicorn" after sharing the viral post.
The meme has now been going viral. And since having been posted just this Dec. 27, it is reported to have already been shared more than 30,000 times on Facebook alone. The meme is said to have also made its way to other social media platforms like Twitter.