Facebook Follies, Hoaxes, Rumors, Oh MY!
Another day, another Facebook hoax on the loose.
Lately, there have been a string of Facebook hoaxes/rumors/whatever you want to call them running rampant causing the most trusting people to fall for them.
Today, this was the viral post…
“In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal and corporate drawings, specifications, details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention). For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times! (Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their Facebook Wall. This will place them under protection of copyright laws. By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff under Facebook’s direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute).
Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates.”
Within 5 minutes of finding out this wasn’t true, I saw at least 5 different pages and profiles posting this message. Of course, I kindly mentioned this wasn’t real and provided a link to mashable.com’s article about this very hoax.
A month ago, this was the viral hoax…
“Since Facebook is not requiring administrators to pay to promote their pages, only 10% of page fans receive the updates we post here. To receive ALL of our posts, please do the following:
1) Go to our page.
2) Hover your mouse over where it says “LIKED” and click on “Add to Interests Lists”.
3) Commenting or clicking “like” on our page every once in a while will also keep us on your feed.”
Wow. Many of my peers and I were furious about this one. First of all, Facebook is NOT requiring anyone to pay for anything. I saw at least 10 pages post this within 2 hours of this going viral. My friends at Media Barista issued a GREAT blog post in response to this. I encourage you to read it HERE.
So why all these rumors and hoaxes? Why are people running for hills and acting like Chicken Little? People thrive on the here and now. People trust what they read before researching the facts. As soon as either of these were posted you could have googled it and found out it wasn’t true.
Yes, people base a lot of their decision on peer influence and if you see 5 or 10 of your favorite pages or friends posting this stuff, sure, you’re going to believe it. Not everything you read on the internet is true. Speaking of which, watch this State Farm commercial – it fits perfectly:
https://memarketingservices.com://youtu.be/rmx4twCK3_I
Okay, I’m not saying everything isn’t true, but PLEASE, if you see something this either of these posts above posted several times over a short period of time, do your homework before sharing. People are watching what you post – trusted friends, clients and prospective customers. Believe me, your credibility is relying on it.
Anyone want to take a guess at what the next great social media hoax will be?
