The “advice” comes in the form of the following message:
IT IS OFFICIAL. IT WAS EVEN ON THE NEWS. FACEBOOK WILL START CHARGING. DUE TO THE PROFILE CHANGES. IF YOU COPY THIS ON YOUR WALL YOUR ICON WILL TURN BLUE AND FACEBOOK WILL BE FREE FOR YOU. PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON, IF NOT YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE DELETED IF YOU DO NOT PAY
The hoax, which is spreading like wildfire on Facebook, is not the first of its kind. Many scams have claimed Facebook will ask you to pay in one form or another, but they’re all bogus. The company even tries to remind its users on the website’s main login page (if you’re logged in, you’ll have to log out to see it): “It’s free and always will be.”
Facebook makes a lot of money from the ads viewed and clicked by its 800 million active users. In fact, the social networking giant is expected to make $4.27 billion in revenue this year, 89 percent of which will come from advertising.
As a general word of caution, don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. Also, don’t blindly copy and paste warnings just because your Facebook friend’s status tells you to do so. Although you probably mean well, you could be helping a hoax become more popular on the social network.
